Salad

Salad is something you really don’t need a recipe for, but people have asked me what I put in it. Salads can be very simple, but I like mine to contain lots of colors and contrasting textures. Besides pleasing my aesthetics, they are healthier that way. Unfortunately, restaurant salads these days seem always to feature some kind of meat, include cheese, and come drenched in fat or dairy-based dressing. Once you adjust your tastes to whole food, plant-based eating, the components of the salad provide the flavor, and the dressing is a lightly-used condiment.

I like big salads. Make sure to use a big enough bowl. Still, I usually have another, heartier course with the salad, such as potatoes or beans.

Here are some of my favorite salad ingredients. I certainly don’t put all of these in one salad, but I will use as many as I have on hand at the time. These are roughly in order of quantity to be used, from most to least.

Greens: favorites include romaine, iceberg, red leaf, green leaf, butter lettuce, kale, and spinach. Pre-washed leaves that come from the store in a bag add convenience.

Raw or cooked veggies: Leftover broccoli, Brussels sprouts, winter and summer squashes, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, and kale go great on a big salad.

Sprouts: mung bean, alfalfa, or even lentil or garbanzo sprouts add texture and nutrition.

Tomatoes: red, yellow, chocolate colored, preferably homegrown or heirloom, from grape or cherry in size, to wedges or slices of bigger varieties.

Roots: beets, carrots, radishes, and jicama, in shreds, sticks, slices, or dice.

Legumes: cooked garbanzos, kidney beans, black beans, lentils, and edamame are just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Peppers: red, yellow, orange, and green bell peppers, pepperoncini or banana peppers, sliced pickled jalapenos, and many others can jazz up the salad.

Mushrooms: raw white or crimini mushrooms slices add color and flavor. Try more exotic or cooked varieties, like straw and enoki.

Sweets: Pineapple, corn, raisins and other dried and fresh fruits.

Onions: white, yellow, purple, or green, sliced or chopped to taste.

Pickles: including dill slices, sauerkraut, olives, hearts of palm, and artichoke hearts, add bursts of flavor with a minimum of added sodium, if used sparingly.

Nuts and seeds: sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, peanuts, cashews, almonds, and walnuts go in this group, adding crunch and flavor, to be used as a topping in spare amounts, because of their high fat content.

Avocado: adds creamy texture instead of crunch, and gets its own item because I love it so much. Don’t overdo this one, either.