I often hear people say that they find salads boring or they can’t feel satisfied from eating “rabbit food”.
If you consider a salad as eating iceberg lettuce mixed with half a tomato, grated carrot, and a bit of cheese then of course this is not going to jump off the plate at you. A salad should complement any meal or be fulfilling enough to be the main meal itself.
Here are our top tips on how to make that salad go from boring to desirable.
First, embrace this one essential truth
No one can tell you what salad is or is not. There are no hard and fast rules to salad, and that can be difficult to accept but you must. Salad can be anything you want it to be. There’s nothing that has to be included or excluded.
If you hate the salads you grew up with, abandon them entirely. Reach for ingredients you love, prepared in a way that’s appealing to you.
Explore salads across cuisines
Take your salad game to the next level by sampling salads from different cuisines. From Asian cucumber salad with soy sauce to a classic Greek salad with croutons, the world offers a variety of exciting and flavourful salads to try.
Remember that balance is everything
Balance is what’s missing from all too many sad salads. That said, there’s no need to overthink it. Balance looks like pairing fresh or raw or vegetal ingredients with smooth ones, like legumes, avocado or cheese.
Or matching earthy flavours with bright ones. If you’re using a creamy dressing, make sure to use hearty greens that can hold up to it.
DIY salad dressing
Have you ever thought about how long that salad dressing was sitting on the supermarket shelf before you bought it? Well, that dressing had an extended shelf life due to all the added preservatives and sugars.
These put an extra load on our livers and are not very kind to our digestive system.
To avoid this liver burden and improve the taste of your luscious leafy greens, mix half a freshly squeezed lemon, lime or orange with one tablespoon of olive or flaxseed oil, Himalayan pink salt and black pepper.
The freshly squeezed juice will add vitamin C to your salad which improves iron absorption while the oil increases your Omega 3 intake.