How to Jazz up your Salads
Posted by Phil Black on Sun, Jan 15, 2012 @ 11:53 PM
Mental Edge Monday
Topic #43: How to Jazz up your Salads
I've been eating a lot of salads recently. I usually throw in spinach, carrots, tomato, red onion, celery, avocado, or other miscellaneous veggies. Nothing too exotic. If the salad is one of my main meals, I'll also try to include a quality protein like fish, tuna, turkey, or chicken.
My salad dressing of choice is usually just balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Boring, yes, I know. I keep away from Ranch and Thousand Island and other such creamy delights. I'm also steering clear of dairy these days so any type of cheese has taken a back seat.
Over the last few weeks, even after using a variety of fixings, my salads have started to get boring. I don't why but I haven't been very inspired with my recent creations. Without cheese (e.g. feta, goat, cubed cheddar) or a rich dressing, the texture of the salad can sometimes get pretty bland.
Well, I've found a temporary solution that I wanted to share with you. It's called nuts. I know that some nuts can be calorie-dense and contain some fat, but neither one of those things are always bad. We've all seen/heard the studies about the many benefits that nuts can deliver.
Beyond the nutritional value, I've found that adding nuts to my salads have brought these meals back to life. I've taken nuts-as-salad-topper to the next level. I use peanuts, macadamia nuts, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, Brazilian nuts, cedars nuts, flaming hot nuts, pine nuts, and of course almonds.
I even experiment with some nuts that I've never heard of. I've found that adding random combinations of these nuts to my salads have made for some wicked tastes and textures.
I know this isn't necessarily new information - that nuts are good for you - but I've never really put them in my salads with such reckless abandon before. Somehow, they give the salad the gravitas that it was lacking.
I find salads are far more interesting to eat now because of these little nuggets of joy. The texture is great, the taste is awesome, the crunch is surprising, and the nutritional value is hard to ignore. Not only that, but I feel more satisfied after the meal.
Give it a try. Go to your local bulk food grocer or "Sprouts" or other such health-oriented store and buy a sampler of lots of different nuts. Toss them into your next salad and let me know what you think.
Do you have any cool tricks to jazz up your own salads? I'm sure the "nuts" kick will start to get old in a few months and I'll need something else to reinvent my salads.
Until next week, Keep the Edge,
Phil (FitDeck Founder)