Seven Tips for Salad Diversity
By: Feli Musing
Salads can be extremely delicious and satisfying, though often viewed as boring. One should reflect to solidify what is most distasteful about salads before deciding to completely eliminate salads from one’s meals. Let’s be honest, salads that are super boring and flavorless can leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth. I’d like to make an honest effort to persuade more of you to give salads a try. Here are my seven favorite ways to diversify your salads to include loads of appealing ingredients.
7 tips for enjoyable salad diversity:
- Diversify your greens. Iceberg lettuce and salad dressing are not the best combination for an enjoyable salad consuming experience. Try including two or more greens such as red leaf lettuce, kale, romaine lettuce, frisée, and the like if you can. I even like to add some raw rainbow chard when readily available. Not only will they give you more nutrients, but they will make things more interesting than a plain iceberg lettuce salad would.
- Chop toppings into interesting shapes. Cutting toppings like cucumbers into circles or strips can really work well with your leafy greens of choice. Toppings like beetroot or carrots can be grated or chopped into hearty pieces. Your salad will be adorned with different shapes that can be aesthetically pleasing.
- Perform salad sorcery. A salad or two within a salad is a fantastic way to incorporate more texture and flavor. Who says a cabbage salad or Jamaican style raw veg (essentially a slightly acidic cabbage and carrot salad) can’t exist in another salad? I know I don’t! Salad toppings such as prepared salads that can easily exist on their own can come in handy when making different salads throughout the week. Just make them in bulk and grab them when you want to nice up any salad.
- Add warm or cooked toppings. Ingredients that are either warm or cooked can add more textural differences (theme alert). Chewing different textures and flavors give a satisfying mouthfeel. For instance, roasted broccoli, steamed carrots, and roasted beetroot taste really different than raw broccoli, raw carrots, and raw beetroot. All three are delicious, but the roasted or steamed versions are often sweeter and less crunchy than raw leafy greens. The same can be said for onions. Raw onions can make your eyes water, while caramelized onions can make your taste buds sing.
- Eat in color/colour as usual. Color is pleasing to the eye and the palate. Many people eat with their eyes first. Also, the more colorful your salad, usually, the more nutritious. I love to include red and orange ingredients with my leafy greens. Tomatoes, apples, carrots, and the like add a lovely sweetness.
- Include high protein toppings to help keep you more satiated. Animal proteins such as ground turkey or chicken are easy to season and prepare. Plant proteins such as chickpeas are super versatile. You can either cook them on their own or make falafels. Seiten is another plant-based protein that is versatile and delicious.
- Add tasty dressings or creamy tings (things) that can double as salad dressing. Greek-style tzatziki sauce, balsamic vinaigrette, and lemony tahini dressing are some of my favorite dressings to quickly throw together. Avocado (pear for my Jamaicans) is the perfect salad topper that doubles as a dressing. I like to mash it as I consume my salad. Another favorite of mine is hot sauce. This dressing is divine with a salad that has loads of warm or cooked toppings.
If you’re against food diversity, I hope these seven tips can help you strongly reconsider all these tings. Monotony can make healthy eating quite bland and unsatisfying. In the case of salads, satisfaction always begins where happiness and health come together in harmony to create a masterpiece. May your plate be as beautiful as you are. Salud.
Disclaimer: All photos taken are owned by Feli Musing. Kindly cite this blog post upon the use of these images. Thank you.
