Holiday dinner favorites like roast beef and turkey, served up with potatoes, stuffing and mac and cheese can leave your plate looking drab — all brown and white. I joined ABC7’s Britt Waters and Kidd O’Shea on Good Morning Washington to share four colorful sides to make your holiday dinner as merry and bright as the rest of your home this Christmas and New Years.

So simple, so delicious. Heat is a time-tested trick to balance the bitterness of kale while pecans add nuttiness to balance the grassy flavors of these quick-cooked greens. A high-quality, flavorful olive oil will stand out amidst the short list of ingredients.

Classic Italian flavors — sweet summer tomatoes, bitter, salty capers and a bright red wine vinaigrette loaded with fresh basil and oregano — come together with Farfalle bowties for a quick, fresh and clean pasta salad ready for your next cookout. It might inspire your guests, like mine, to say this is the best pasta salad ever.

Floral honey and the sharp, earthy flavor of caraway brighten, while roasting develops and deepens the often insipid sweetness of cooked carrots. Perfect for a Saint Patrick’s Day meal with the caraway echoing the flavor of both the corned beef and soda bread.