Recipe Monday: Salad!

I’ve been on a salad kick lately. Salads are underrated. Salads make for delicious snacks or meals packed with nutritional punch. But there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to make a salad. To get the most bang for your caloric buck, you need to make sure you’re making the best nutritional decisions possible. This means swapping iceberg lettuce for kale or spinach, and adding in treats such as orange slices, raisins, sunflower seeds, or a sprinkling of chia seeds.

I’m excited to be linking up with Fit Foodie Mama and Powered by BLING for another #MeatlessMonday recipe. Hopefully you’re finding lots of awesome recipes.

I dedicate today’s post to all things salad!

Exciting Salad!

Eat This Exciting Salad!

Ingredients

1 C packed kale, chopped or torn into bite size pieces
1/4 C kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3 strawberries, quartered
1/3 heirloom tomato, cut into bite size chunks
1/4 Barlett pear, cubed into bite size pieces
carrot peels
1 Tbsp oil/vinegar based dressing (I use Garlic Expressions)

Directions

Prepare all ingredients, combine, dress, eat, enjoy!

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Of course there are a million variations on a good, dense salad. Here’s another one I recently created. It was so simple. I would say this one is more for the time-saver or less adventurous eater.

Easy Salad

Easy Salad

Ingredients

1 C mixed kale pieces (from bag or prepacked tub)
8-10 cherry or grape tomatoes
1/2 avocado, sliced
dressing of your choice

Directions

Place all ingredients in a bowl. Eat. Yum!

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I liked a good fruit salad every now and again, too. I grew up eating fruit salad as dessert (thanks, mom!) but now we eat it any time we buy big melons and need something to do with all of it. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of recent fruit salads, but I do have a simple recipe to share.

Fruit Salad

Ingredients

1 cantaloupe, cubed
1 honeydew melon, cubed
1 pineapple, cubed
grapes (halved if you have little people in your household like I do!)
1 – 2 bananas, sliced

Directions

Prepare the melons by scooping out the insides and cubing. Prepare the pineapple by coring and peeling, and cubing as well. Combine all ingredients and enjoy. If you are not eating right away, wait to slice and add the bananas. They still taste delicious but once they are added to the rest of the fruit they turn a weird brownish color.

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I hope you give a salad a whirl. They’re so good and satisfying. Even if you don’t use one of my recipes, I challenge you to incorporate one salad into your diet this week. Feel free to adjust and add ingredients whenever you feel the urge. If you’re in need of a protein boost, you can add a hard boiled egg. Or perhaps some shredded cheese or crumbled feta for some additional texture or even calcium.

And if you’re anti-salad… try it, you may like it!

Have a great day!