If just a plate of sliced tomatoes, onions, cucumber and lettuce with lemon juice and salt and pepper comes to your mind when I say the word salad, then its time for an upgrade.
Salads are a perfect melange of all things good. A nice wholesome salad is a perfect vehicle to sneak in additional nutrients (vitamins, minerals and trace minerals) easily, and a great way of ingesting a load of antioxidants, while keeping a score of our daily requirement of fibre and keep calories in check.
Plus a salad is possibly the easiest dish to put together and eat too. And you don’t need to spend big bucks for it, or source exotic ingredients. Try these easy to put together salads.
Tear a slice of fresh bread into big chunks into a large salad bowl, place in a bowl, add 1 sliced tomato. Season with salt, pepper and 1 tsp lime juice and keep aside for 5 minutes. Heat oil, add some garlic, then add sliced carrot and French beans and saute till slightly tender and charred. Add mushrooms and sliced red pepper and cook for few more minutes. Season with salt and pepper and add to the salad bowl. Sprinkle some cheese and herbs and dig in.
To make the dressing mix together 1tsp each of olive or sesame oil, vinegar and sugar. Add 2tsp Worcestershire sauce, 1⁄2tsp Tabasco sauce and sprinkle salt and pepper and mixed herbs to taste. Finally just add a squeeze of lemon. Cool in the fridge.
Mix together shredded carrots, chopped pineapple, sliced red pepper and chopped apple. Finally mix in cubed firm boiled potatoes. Fold in the dressing and dig in.
Whisk together 1 tbsp each of olive oil and lemon juice, add crushed red pepper, few crushed garlics and oregano. Toss in boiled cooled chick-peas and chopped cucumbers, and let it stay in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Mix sprouts (any), chopped boiled potato, diced balanced carrot, sliced onion, sliced green chilli in a bowl. Add hung yoghurt and salt and roasted cumin powder to taste. Place on a bed of lettuce. Chill and eat.
Make a dressing of olive oil, lime juice, honey and chilli flakes and keep aside.
Peel green papaya, scrape out the seeds and using a potato peeler make thin, ribbon-like strips. Place in a large bowl, add chopped spring onions, fresh basil leaves, some coriander leaves, pour the dressing, toss. Finally add peanuts and a handful of sprouts and toss again. Chill and have.
(Kavita is a nutritionist, weight management consultant, and health writer based in Delhi. She is the author of Don’t Diet! 50 Habits of Thin People (Jaico), Ultimate Grandmother Hacks: 50 Kickass Traditional Habits for a Fitter You (Rupa) and Fix it with foods.)
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