It’s summertime (ok it’s supposed to be!) and a lot of us like eating salads as opposed to a hot meal. People often think of eating a salad as a starter, diet food or something that won’t fill them up for longer than an hour. Well it wouldn’t if you are old school and think salad consists of limp lettuce leaves, a bit of tomato some bland cucumber and a bit of onion. Long gone are those days my readers! You only have to glance in the fruit and veg aisles in the supermarket to see there is an array of foods that will satisfy your taste buds and keep you feeling full for hours. And the best bit? You don’t even have to be Jamie Oliver or Nigella 🙂 The key to building a meal sized salad is having three quarters of the salad be fresh vegetables and the other quarter protein and a healthy fat. And to get you started, here’s a list of items to help you get building some super salads.
BASE
Spinach,
Kale
Romaine
Lettuce
VEGETABLES
Tomatoes
Mushrooms
Yellow, orange, red or green peppers
Shredded cabbage
Carrots
Beetroot
Radish
Spring onions
Sweetcorn
Broccoli
PROTEIN
Chicken, turkey, ham
Crab, Salmon, tuna or other fish
Tofu
Beans – pinto, chick, kidney edamame
Hard boiled eggs
Cottage cheese or other lo-fat cheese
HEALTHY FATS
Avocado
Nuts – almonds, cashews, pine,
Sunflower seeds, hemp seeds
Olive oil
Olives
and the DRESSING
Now this is where you need to be careful. Don’t drench your salad in unhealthy fat-laden dressing. Limit mayonnaise based dressings or any shop bought ones at that and instead make your own. Why not try mixing olive oil with lemon juice or stir in some mint in natural yoghurt?
You see, when you look at a list like this, it really does open your eyes to a number of possibilities of building your very own signature super salads. And if you’ve got kids and they are off school for the summer holidays, why not get them involved too and make the whole process damn more interesting? Just a different perspective on things is sometimes all it takes. Happy building!
Fitlass 