Need Salad Recipes

lanteik

Hey everyone -

I'm looking for some tasty salad recipes. I'm starting to get tired of just lettuce, chicken, and a few veggies -- looking for something different than your typical salad. Also, if you have any homeade salad dressing recipes that you'd like to share that would be great too!

Here is one I can share that I like a lot:

Strawberry Spinach Salad
Strawberries (sliced thin)
Baby Spinach
Sliced Almonds
Balsalmic Vinegarette (there is a brand that the name escapes me now that is available at the grocery store - it has a blue label I think it starts with like Cape... -- I'll look up the name when I get home -- anyways the dressing is low cal / low fat)

Talieowl

Something I like to do to add variety to green salads is to use cooked legumes. I particularly like cannelini, black beans, garbanzo beans, and kidney beans. We cook them ourselves (controls the salt) and freeze them in small bags so we can just take them out of the freezer and put them in our bags for lunch to add to the salad when it's time to eat. Of course, when I don't have them in the freezer and don't have time, I have an emergency can or two on hand. I also add dried or fresh fruit--whatever is around and raw, chopped almonds or walnuts. Watch the amounts of all of these to keep sugar and carbs in check, but we find that a little of these toppings go a long way.

For salad variations, if you have a mandoline, you can quarter and then thinly slice any variety of vegetables and then layer them for a nice salad. I like celery, carrot, apple, fennel, and cabbage. I top it with a splash of cider vinegar and a little olive oil mixed with red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.

We like Asian-inspired flavors so a quick dressing that we make is rice wine vinegar, mirin, a few drops of sesame oil, crushed garlic, red pepper flakes, and canola oil. I normally mix this two-parts vinegars to one part oil. This is good on any sort of salad.

abredbenner

I make a citrus shrimp salad - mixed greens, grilled shrimp (season as spicy you like), pineapple chunks, mandarin oranges (in water), jicama (julienned), shredded carrots. I use balsamic vinagrette mostly but you could make your own citrus vinagrette if you felt ambitious.

another that is similar to yours is mixed greens or spinach, strawberries, blueberries, walnuts and goat cheese with a FF poppyseed dressing (store bought)

arewethereyet

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/64642-the-omg-salad?page=2#posts-875101

Koreapsu

I own a restaurant and we're about to start our summer menu (southern hemisphere). We have a few salads going on that seem quite nice and aren't overtly unhealthy. It's just your choice of dressing that will change that. Biggest thing I see missing from salads people make at home is texture. It can't all be leaves!

Chicken salad
Smoked chicken with mixed leaves, cherry tomatoes, brie, basil arancini (small roasted risotto balls) & avocado aioli. - Instead of using avo aioli you can just used a smoothly pureed avocado with plenty of lime juice in it.

Beef salad
Peppered beef with mesclun, crispy kumara gnocchi (kumara is a sweet potato, cook and mash it, add a little flour-then roast small pieces in an interesting shape), blue cheese, cranberries & blackberry vinaigrette. Get a good blackberry vinegar (or any berry) and some frozen berries and blend up a normal vinaigrette. I guess you could also great a standard low fat vinaigrette and add your berries/vinegar to it for a healthier option.

Smoked Lamb Rump with grilled lemon and Greek salad
Smoke a lamb rump, it's a lot easier than you think. If you've got a decent extractor fan in your kitchen you can do it right on your stove top, or in the oven. After you've smoked the rump sear it on all sides leaving in medium rare. Set to rest.

In a bowl combine olives, red onion, feta, cucumber and vine tomatoes. This will almost self dress if you season all ingredients and let them sit for a few minutes before you toss them. While this is sitting slice the lamb as thin as humanly possible. The thinner the better and lay it on the bottom of the plate like carpaccio. Toss the Greek salad and sit it on top. If you need a dressing just a little good quality olive oil works well with the grilled lemon.

Anyway, that's a few things we are doing this summer. On my menu they really aren't healthy options, although I assume people think they are! There are a lot of short cuts restaurants take to make things happen faster. Roasted can often mean "deep fried" then finished in an oven!

yost03

try this in your next salad:

Kens Steak House Fat Free Raspberry Pecan Salad Dressing
President Fat Free Feta

Redneckwoman

try this in your next salad:

Kens Steak House Fat Free Raspberry Pecan Salad Dressing
President Fat Free Feta

I love both of these in my salad. But one of my favorites is peach mango salsa for a dressing. It's very low in cals and no fat

msmonarae

I like Newman's Ginger sesame dressing. I also use it on whole wheat pitas stuffed with chicken, spinach and mango salsa.

abredbenner

I was just wondering the other day if there were sweet potato gnocchi. That salad sounds fantastic. Could you give some more detail on how to make the sweet potato gnocchi?

Koreapsu

try this in your next salad:

Kens Steak House Fat Free Raspberry Pecan Salad Dressing
President Fat Free Feta

That dressing sounds excellent. Is it trying to be a vinaigrette or something more creamy?

Koreapsu

I was just wondering the other day if there were sweet potato gnocchi. That salad sounds fantastic. Could you give some more detail on how to make the sweet potato gnocchi?

Really easy to make.

All measurements are approximate as I don't really measure this stuff and I'm converting to lbs in my head from kg

2lbs Sweet Potato (Kumara)
1 1/2 Cups Flour (you could use whole grain flour if you want, might make an interesting addition)
Salt and Pepper

Cook the kumara however you want. Bake/boil/steam it doesn't really matter. Crush it (don't blend-it won't set with the flour). Mix in the flour and salt and pepper. Kneed it all together like a bread dough. Add more flour if it's not really setting well. Roll into lengths about 1/2 an inch wide. Cut into 1/2 inch long pieces. Press down with a fork to flatten slightly.

Roast them in a reasonably hot oven on baking paper. This is how we finish them for salads anyway, obviously as a pasta they are boiled, but that makes an awful texture for a salad ingredient.

Another nice salad ingredient for adding texture like this is polenta cooked, and set into a baking dish. Then cut up and roasted individually in cubes or sticks. If you're cunning it can look like french fries

abredbenner

Can't wait to try baked for salad and boiled for pasta. Thanks!

abredbenner

I made them both ways - yum. I need a sauce recipe that is not not all butter:)

LivinTheLife

Hey everyone -

I'm looking for some tasty salad recipes. I'm starting to get tired of just lettuce, chicken, and a few veggies -- looking for something different than your typical salad. Also, if you have any homeade salad dressing recipes that you'd like to share that would be great too!

Here is one I can share that I like a lot:

Strawberry Spinach Salad
Strawberries (sliced thin)
Baby Spinach
Sliced Almonds
Balsalmic Vinegarette (there is a brand that the name escapes me now that is available at the grocery store - it has a blue label I think it starts with like Cape... -- I'll look up the name when I get home -- anyways the dressing is low cal / low fat)

Since you enjoy strawberries and spinach in your salad, you may like our Spinach, Strawberry and Grapefruit Toss. Let me know what you think!


Prep Time: 15 min
Total Time: 15 min
Makes: 8 servings


What You Need
1 bag (10 oz.) spinach leaves, washed, well dried
1 pt. (2 cups) strawberries, sliced
1 pink grapefruit, peeled, sectioned
1/2 cup PLANTERS Sliced Almonds, toasted
1 cup KRAFT Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing


Make It
COMBINE spinach, strawberries, grapefruit and almonds in large bowl.
ADD dressing; toss lightly to coat.
SERVE immediately.

Nutrition Information: kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/spinach-strawberry-grapefruit-toss-60158.aspx

libertykm

I love this dressing. I use it all the time.