Easy Salads

I really love salad. That's good because salad is quite healthy, or it can be. Vegetables are full of nutrients, fiber, and antioxidants, and with the notable exception of avocado, are naturally low in calories. I like going to Sweet Tomatoes, a restaurant featuring a huge salad bar, because somebody else has done all the work of prepping the vegetables (and they wash up the dishes afterwards, too). However, it's obviously not practical to go there every day so I've been looking at ways to make salads a little easier at home.

Prepping veggies for a salad ahead of time doesn't always work well. Some vegetables exude too much moisture and are limp by the time I'm ready to put the salad together. Others brown on the cut edges. But, I don't want to go to all the effort  - and clean-up - of chopping for a salad every day. Here are a few ways I've been easing the burden.

Mushrooms - I buy my mushrooms whole. I don't like the stems in salads so after wiping the shrooms clean, I break off the stems, chop them, and put them in a container in the fridge to use for a cooked dish. I slice the caps and put them in another container. They seem to keep pretty well for a few days. If they start browning more than I'd like in a salad, I just use them with the stems in a cooked dish.

Carrots and daikon radish - these harder vegetables keep well when shredded. Carrot can have a tendency to dry out somewhat but daikon has a tendency towards being a little too moist. By combining them, I've found a happy medium that also keeps several days in the fridge.

Zucchini - this keeps well after shredding, too. I'm lazy and have been combining it with the carrots and daikon. If kept separately, it would be easy to toss some in the freezer if it looked like I had grated too much to use up in a reasonable amount of time. Frozen shredded zucchini can be thawed later for use in quick breads and muffins.

Cucumber - the only way I've found to keep sliced cucumber in decent shape for any length of time is to seed it first. I hate to waste any edible part of a vegetable so I eat the "hearts" when I do the prep work. The seedy interior can even be chopped up and tossed with a little vinegar and salt & pepper to nibble on while working.

Red onion - this keeps well when diced, but like the other vegetables, only for a few days before it starts losing its crispness.

Tomato - does not keep well at all. If I have fresh tomatoes on hand, I slice one up right before serving the salad. If I have too many fresh tomatoes on hand and they are threatening to go bad, I either make tabouli (bulgur salad with garlic, lemon juice, tons of tomatoes, and tons of parsley) or I chop them up and freeze them. I like the idea of dehydrated tomatoes but quite honestly, I forget to use what I already have so I rarely bother to dehydrate them anymore.

Lettuce - two ways I've found to keep clean and torn lettuce in fairly good shape are leaving it in the salad spinner in the fridge (spun dry, of course) or placing it in a closed container or bag wrapped in a dishtowel (the lettuce, not the container). The crisper lettuces, like Romaine and iceberg, keep better this way than leaf lettuce. I have also found that making a traditional tossed salad without the lettuce is still good, and I may very well be doing that soon when I run out of the little bit of greens in my fridge.


When I am ready for a salad, I just pick and choose from the prepped veggies above, adding tomatoes at the end if I have them.

Cooked beans are another tasty addition to salads. I'm partial to red kidney beans and garbanzo beans for salad. They add a bit more fiber, protein, and calories but also add satiation. I rarely add nuts or sunflower seeds to salad mostly because the higher fat content isn't worth the flavor to me; I also have some sensitivity to tree nuts so I try to avoid them. Fresh or canned jalapenos add a delicious bite to a fresh salad while raisins can add a sweet touch.

I also enjoy adding some cooked vegetables to tossed salad, usually leftovers so they are chilled. Some of my favorites are green beans, grilled bell peppers, corn, peas (barely cooked), and Yukon gold or red potatoes. The nice thing about the cooked vegetables is they add moisture, reducing the need for dressing.

When I first tried eliminating added oil, salad dressings was one of the areas where I really struggled. I was a ranch dressing and Bernstein's Italian dressing fan, both very high in fat and calories. Trying to buy a dressing in a store that has no oil, no cheese, low salt, and low sugar, without a bunch of nasty chemical substitutes, is very challenging. I've got a large file of homemade salad dressing recipes, many of them untried because by the time I've finished making the salad, I don't want to spend a bunch more time making a dressing, too.

Luckily, I've found an easy way to whip together a satisfying dressing. In Dr. Esselstyn's book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, there is a recipe for 3-2-1 Dressing. It is 3 parts vinegar, 2 parts mustard, and 1 part maple syrup. Any type of vinegar or mustard may be used. I take this a step further and change the last part to any sweetener I want to use, plus I use about equal portions of the three components. It's also very easy to add some herbs to this or a sprinkle of Mrs. Dash Table Blend, a good all-purposed salt-free flavorful blend of herbs and spices.

Some dressing combinations I've made lately:
balsamic vinegar + stone ground mustard + raspberry-chipotle sauce
peach-plum vinegar (homemade) + stone ground mustard + maple syrup
rice vinegar + stone ground mustard + hot pepper jelly

If the dressing is too thin to stick to the vegetables, I might add a pinch of cornstarch and microwave it for 10-15 seconds to thicken it.


An easy way to make salad a part of the meal without being on the side is to just dump it right on top of the main dish. Whenever I make bean burritos, it's hard to see the burritos under the mountain of lettuce and salsa on top. A tossed salad over hot mashed potatoes, with or without gravy on the spuds, makes a nice juxtaposition of hot creamy food with crisp cold raw vegetables. Any way you like it, adding salads to your meals is tasty and good for you.


Edited to add: The Just Bento Cookbook by Makiko Itoh has some interesting vegetable side dishes. To make them a bit more healthy, I will omit the oil from any that I make and probably reduce the salt. One technique for softening vegetables not meant to be cooked is massaging them with salt and then squeezing out the excess moisture. If sodium is a concern for you, it is simple enough to rinse off the salt before squeezing out the moisture. Some salt will remain but the total amount will be greatly reduced. These can be served with a bowl of (unsalted) cooked brown rice for a tasty lunch.