Though I am that woman who stands in front of a salad and asks it to be a cake.
But I know that eating salad every day is a healthy eating habit that we should adopt.
Whether we are looking to lose weight, improve nutrition or simply adopt a healthier lifestyle, salads should be our go-to friends.
Here are 4 reasons to grab that bowl of salad, every day!
1. Eat Salad for the Fiber
Dietary fiber is required for proper digestion of food. It reduces constipation, lowers lower cholesterol levels, as well as risk of diabetes and heart disease. Dietary fiber also helps with weight loss and maintenance. Carrots, beets, and broccoli, apples, bananas, oranges, strawberries and mango, potatoes, peas, soybeans, lentils, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, almonds have high fiber content.
2. Eat Salads for the Health Benefits of Fruits and Vegetables
Plant foods are nutrient-rich and contribute to overall health. Eating raw green salads like beans and peas, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, apples, peaches, plums, pears, and strawberries gives powerful antioxidants and these are particularly protective against cancers.
3. Eat Salads to Cut Calories and Increase Satisfaction
If losing weight is the goal, start your meals with a green salad. Studies have shown that eating a low-calorie first course, like a green salad of 150 calories or less, enhances satiety (feelings of fullness) and reduces the total number of calories eaten during the meal.
4. Eat Salads to Get Smart Fats
Eating a little good fat like the monounsaturated fat found in olive oil, avocado and nuts with vegetables appears to help the body absorb protective phytochemicals, like lycopene from tomatoes and lutein from dark green vegetables.
They say, salad a day, keeps disease and aging at bay! Here are salad recipes which are not just healthy but a burst of flavor.
4 Easy Salad Recipes
1. THAI MANGO SALAD
Ingredients For Salad
- Mangoes – 2, green or just ripe, thinly sliced
- Chopped cashews or peanuts – 1/3 cup
- Sweet red pepper – 1, thinly sliced or julienned
- Red chilli, seeds removed (to taste) – 1 small
- Red onions – 1 cup, thinly sliced
- Fresh chopped coriander – 1/3 cup
- Chopped mint – 1/3 cup
Ingredients For Dressing
- Lime juice – 2 tbsp
- Granulated sugar – 4 tsp
- Soy sauce – 4 tsp
- Sesame or vegetable oil – 1 tbsp
In a bowl add all the salad ingredients and pour dressing and toss well to coat in the dressing.chopped mint and corriander leaves, chopped onions, roasted peanuts, red chilli powder, one teaspoon of sugar and soy sauce. Thai Mango Salad is ready.
2. WATERMELON, OLIVE AND FETA SALAD
Ingredients For Salad
- Water melon – 250 gms, cut into chunks
- Spring onions – 1 stalk, finely chopped
- Olives – 6-7 chopped
- Feta cheese – 50 gms, crumbled
- Cherry tomatoes – 5-6, cut into half
Ingredients for Dressing
- Olive oil – 2 tsp
- Oregano leaves – 1/3 tsp
- Lemon zest – A pinch
- Lemon juice – 1 tsp
- Sugar – 1 tsp
Whisk all the ingredients of the dressing. In a bowl add all the salad ingredients with the dressing. Sprinkle chat masala and black salt to taste.
3. PICKLED BEETROOT WITH FETA
Ingredients For Salad
- Beetroots – 4 medium
- Feta cheese – 60 gms
- Parsley – 2 tbsps, roughly chopped
Ingredients for Dressing
- Lemon juice – 3 tbsp
- Olive oil – 3 tbsp
- Garlic cloves – 2 minced
- Black pepper – 1/2 tsp
- Salt – To taste
Boil the beetroot on medium heat for 45 mins or until it can be easily pierced through with a knife.
After removing the skin of the beetroots, chop the beetroot into cubes and do the same with the feta cheese. Roughly chop the parsley.
Combine beetroot, feta cheese, parsley with the lemon vinaigrette and serve.
4. Mixed Bean Salad
Ingredients for Salad
- Assorted beans – 200 gms , cooked until crisp-tender
- Spring onion – 1, sliced
- Tomatoes – 2, chopped
- Parsley – 1/4 cup, chopped
Ingredients for Dressing
- Olive oil – 2 tbsp
- Lemon juice (or vinegar) – 2 tbs
- Garlic – 1 clove, crushed
Combine the beans, onion, tomatoes and parsley in a salad bowl. In a small bowl, mix the oil, lemon juice and garlic until combined. Pour the dressing over the bean mix and toss well to coat in the dressing.
Do you love salads? Which is your favourite salad?
My theme for this year’s Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is Food Talks. Join me for some interesting, fun conversations about food experiences, experiments, basics, tips, ideas, hacks, trends and much more.
31 Responses
Fine looking salad recipes here. Thank you. I love salads.
One avocado
One orange
Italian or Greek style dressing
Fresh ground black pepper.
Thanks for the delicious salad recipes.
Great salad ideas! Thanks for sharing.
I would love to try the beans salad.
My doc has asked me to start my lunch with a bowl of salad( carrots tomatoes, capsicum, raddish, lettuce leaves and cucumber) . Sprinkle lime juice and salt. Toss.after consuming this bowl, wait for 5 minutes and then start main course. I follow this religiously.
https://ideasolsi65.blogspot.com/2019/04/spleen-parts-of-body.html?m=1
These are some useful tips and mouth watering recipes that you have shared. But there is one caveat for a section of people like me who have had braces at some point of time or the other. For a long time I couldn’t chew raw veggies and fruits and then I lost the propensity to do so. haha. I think I have to start and learn to eat salads from scratch.
Saving this to try the first two myself…. sometimes I wonder though if my body is resistant to healthy salads .. like the fat just stays at the gate and says “Not on my watch”
I am a big fan of salads. On the other hand my kids and husband run away from them. I experiment a lot with different vegetables and fruits too.
Mixed bean salad is my fav!
There are some days I want to eat only a salad, especially, in summer. Beetroot and feta cheese sounds like an interesting combo. I’ll give it a try. I love your theme for A-Z this time. Haven’t read all of them but have seen snippets of them here and there. Found the topics interesting. ☺
I like the bean salad. Full of protein also.
Waise my idea of salad usually is to just cut stuff in big pieces, sprinkle salt & some herbs & eat. Minimum prep time, you see! 😛
Or if I have too much spare time, I might make a kachumbar salad, which is all the stuff chopped finely, and mix it in curd. Basically salad-plus-raita.
Find my S post @ Simple Living For Happiness | Simplify Your Life in Just 3 Steps
Glad you make the right suggestion buddy. No matter which way consuming salad is a must. I love dressing them in many eats and loved the ones you have enumerated here.
I love salads and make them pretty regularly. Thank you for these easy recipes, Shilpa.
Salads are great minus the cutting part. Mos oftenz I grate the vegs instead of chopping.
Salad eating is good. All the benefits you mentioned are correct. But given a choice between a healthy salad and a deadly kulcha, I would prefer the later. My negotiation would be one Kulcha for one bowl (small bowl) of salad.
Useful and yummy salads.
Eating Salad is really a good choice, and beetroot is my fav when it comes to salad (I wrote about it in Letter B)
Do drop by to check my take on #BlogchatterA2Z with some tips on adding healthy Superfoods in our day
Ahh salad. it’s one of my favourite posts my fav salad is watermelon, tomato cucumber
Both of us love salads. Thank you for these cool recipes, Shilpa.
We are big fans of salads at home, and often make the watermelon & feta as well as the three bean salad. I’m definitely going to try the Thai Mango salad next!
Lovely post with yummy salad recipes. I can’t wait to try the Thai mango salad.
The Thai Mango salad is so tempting, I love to try different versions of salads and my husband makes faces looking at my trials 🙂
When made right, salads can be delicious! My favorite will always be the one with peanut dressing! Ah yum!
Nice salad’s. As summer is coming so I will definitely try the watermelon salad.
May I please call it the yummiest post ever. I love salads, and those with Feta cheese are my favorite. Love the Thai mango salad too, or simple lettuce salad or regular ghar ka salad.
The pickled beet root salad looks wonderful! I love all of those ingredients. We are now coming into summer from spring, so salads will once again take top billing on the table…
Hi there 🙂 long time. good to see this refreshing salad post.
I am an all in all salad, raita & grilled veggies girl.
Some of my regular and go-to fav salads are
pomelo salad with peanuts and honey+mustard
green papaya salad
kale & green apple salad with walnuts and anardana
celery & green apple salad
ripe mango, sweet corn & avocado salad
moon dal, grated carrots & raw mango salad
lettuce, tomato, cucumber olives with pomegranate sauce
I use anar dana in many of my salads and raitas.
For recipes, I mostly google and customize based on my preference and stuff available that day.
Dressing of lime, olive oil, herbs with S+P works its charm always.
My husband is a salad person, he can’t have his meals without a plate full of greens, unlike me. Though I like bean sprouts salad and cheesy pasta one too. I like the ideas you have shared, have a party next week will try one of these. Thanks, Shilpa.
My husband just loves salads and is always asking me to be more creative as I make the same old salads over and over again. He also loves beetroot so definitely going to give that a try tonight. Thank you for the great recipes!
thanks for sharing these amazing healthy salad recipes with us I’d love to try watermelon, olives & feta cheese recipe three of them are my favorite.
I’m going to try it out in summers
I have never tried watermelon and feta before. It looks so pretty and would be delicious too I am sure. The thai mango salad sounds awesome too and easy to make ad well. It is beneficial to have salad as a part of our diet.