Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to maximize your dinner salad (or start eating one if you don’t already).
Level of Commitment: Baby Steps
If you’re watching your weight, research shows that people who eat salads eat fewer overall calories at the meal than those who don’t. It’s not all about calories, but it’s nice to fill up on something healthy that won’t go to your waist rather than dinner rolls and desserts.
Lettuce has some health benefits, but it’s a lot of water no matter if you buy iceberg or Romaine (but Romaine is still better for you!). You’re not going to get enough nutrients from a plain lettuce salad to last you to the next meal, unless you dress it up. Your challenge today is to use your lettuce as a carrier for more nutrient-dense foods. (Or, if you don’t eat salad at all, pump up your side veggies – or start eating salad if it would be a good thing for you.)
Here’s a salad at our house:
Notice all those other veggies! There are some Super Foods in there, and some plain old veggies that I just enjoy. This not only makes my salad more nutritious, but it’s tastier too. I have more fun eating a salad with a lot of flavors knocking into each other than one mostly dominated by lettuce and dressing.
- Walnuts
- Sunflower Seeds
- Colored Peppers
- Red Onion
- Cucumber
- Tomatoes
- Carrots
- Sprouts
- Flax Meal
- Pea Pods
- Olives
- And THEN Homemade Dressing!
Speaking of dressing, be sure to make your dressings count, too. A Fat Full Fall kicks off this week with the scoop on why you shouldn’t be afraid of eating fat. Cheeseslave says that veggies are just a vehicle for butter and cream. Do you agree? Even if you don’t, lettuce tastes a lot better with other stuff along for the ride.
When it comes to vegetables, fat is necessary for our bodies to assimilate nutrients like beta-carotene (carrots, anyone?) and other fat-soluble vitamins. If you eat carrots by themselves, you’re not benefiting from them like you should. Your salad needs fat, whether it’s in the dressing or the nuts and cheese on top.
But how to get so much done before dinner? I’ll help you out this week with some of my favorite salad tips:
- How to Make Salads EASY to Toss Together
- Salad Kitchen Gadgets I Couldn’t Live Without
- Homemade Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing Recipe
The only downfall: salads aren’t very frugal. Vegetables have a higher price for nutrient-value than things like eggs, beans and yogurt. But if you can afford them – and if you’d eat too much junk otherwise – indulge in a well-crafted salad as we enjoy the end of summer bounty!
A salad goes great with End of Summer Garden Vegetable Soup.
See my condiments post for other healthy and/or frugal topping ideas.
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Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
Since making a move to whole foods, I have been more into salads and trying to pack them with a variety of things. Sunflower seeds were something I started adding, and I think they add such a nice nutty flavor. But they definitely are time-consuming to put together, especially when I’m really hungry for lunch. I’ll enjoy reading your tips this week on how to throw a salad together.
.-= Liz´s last blog ..No Flushing Allowed =-.
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I love making homemade salad dressings. I rotate recipes so that we get several different kinds of oils and ingredients, with no funky stuff hiding in there. It also is awesome to reduce the waste factor: instead of buying bottle after bottle of dressing, I reuse jars from other stuff that I’ve used up. I am always delighted when friends come to dinner and rave about these super easy dressing recipes. It would make a great Christmas gift for the cooking-challenged people in our lives, and a cute jar with a ribbon, hand-delivered, isn’t so shabby either! Thanks for the nice post.
.-= leslie´s last blog ..Vintage Digs =-.
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Katie Reply:
September 21st, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Leslie,
Seriously, that’s a great idea. I’m absolutely thinking about that for Christmas gifts now!
Thank you!
Katie
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I have been eating more salads lately–and I’ve started to LIKE them! One thing I do to help myself is wash and tear up all the lettuce that will fit in a nice big zipper bag as soon as I get it (along with some paper toweling to soak up moisture). I’ve been cooking chicken and chopping it up ahead of time, and keeping toasted nuts and seeds on hand, too. Sure makes for a quick salad when I need something healthy! Can’t wait to see what you’ve got for us this week!
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We eat some salads, and when we do we make them count! But the time cruch is an issue. I’m looking forward to reading about your tips to put it together faster.
As for cost if you can find an organic farm that puts together a CSA basket each week, it can be a lot cheaper. I finally found one (God totally opened the door for us on this one!) and we now get a huge overstuffed 1/2 bushel basket each week for $19. Sometimes they even have a few melons to add. With all the different greens and veggies to choose from, we are experemnting much more than before.
.-= christina´s last blog ..Happenings… =-.
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Just a few personal salad notes prompted by your delightful Monday post:
1. My solution to how to have everything on the table on time? Don’t set a specific dinner time! If your family has the time (and it should), instead have a “gathering time” at which point everyone comes to the kitchen, begins conversing about the day, and helps to finish things up (and gives you a bit of lee-way on timing dinner!)
2. One way to reduce nutrient loss and slow spoilage of veggies cut in advance is to slice, but then reassemble (or leave assembled) the individual vegetables. Zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, ect. can be cut into slices but left with the slices stuck together so that the cut surfaces aren’t exposed to air.
3. Finally, a great way to add flax seeds to your salad is by mixing them into a dressing, especially if your family objects to the texture of the seeds when sprinkled on top directly. Ground flax works well in a creamy yogurt dressing; add plenty of (fresh or dried) herbs and likely no one will notice the flax at all. Tasty, too!
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I’ve enjoyed your web-site and using some of your good suggestions.
As an Italian family, we often make our salads home-style (with my husband’s wonderful home made salad dressing already mixed in). So, what to do with the left overs? I have a special container in the freezer that contains small left over bits of suitable veggies for my spaghetti sauce…and it’s into that container I put the left over (usually organic) salad veggies, after they’ve been pulse-chopped in the food processor.
The lettuce and other veggies don’t noticeably change the taste of the spaghetti sauce and the spices are Italian ones…so, I’m saving a little $ and adding extra nutrition as well as sneaking in veggies that some little family members don’t eat.
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Katie Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 1:49 am
Bunny,
Katie
What a great tip! So glad that you’ve been along on the journey here at KS…thanks for commenting!
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