Help a Picky Eater Build a Salad

I'm not a salad lover, but when I do make salad, I always make the same one. I use some type of greens, shredded cheese, chipotle cheddar tortilla strips, and salsa. It's very basic, but it's really the only salad I like. It tastes really great with chicken, too I prefer salsa to salad dressing because I don't like the taste of most salad dressings and it's lower in calories than most dressings.

I also have severe textural issues with certain foods. I am a vegetarian for this reason... can't stand the texture.

I have been eating the same exact salad for dinner for the past few days:

2 servings of raw Pillsbury pizza dough baked in the oven at 425 plain until golden brown (amounts to 130g of raw dough before baking.
After cooking, top with heaps and heaps of a good spring mix (I have found only one brand that I can stand the taste and texture of, it's from a local farm).
Add craisins (I do 20-28g)
Add 1 serving slivered toasted almonds (not whole almonds! Chop them up if you must!)
40-56g plain goat cheese (the amount depends on how many calories you have to use for it)
Top with 1.5 servings of Trader Joe's regular balsamic vinaigrette (NOT the fat free one, the fat free one is unedible to me).

Eat and enjoy!

^^I can not stand the texture of cold hard boiled eggs at all. I can eat a hard boiled egg while it's still hot (and then, I eat it all by itself with a spoon right out of the shell). Funny how some of us can't stand certain foods and others love them! There are a lot of raw vegetables that I won't touch.

Congratulations on trying new things!
My biggest suggestion would be to just start adding things you like to your spinach and feta. Naturally I think of cranberries, pecans and turkey and you'll most likely like goat cheese if you like feta.

One of my absolute favorite salads is cheeseburger salad, basically I make a salad with anything I'd put on a burger using mustard and ketchup as my salad dressing and yes I put pickles in my salad then toss warm cooked ground meat over the top.

Another favorite is taco salad, anything you'd put in a taco eat as a salad and for that taco crunch I break up doritos or use chili cheese fritos in my salad. No dressing here either because I use greek yogurt, guacamole and salsa in the salad so it doesn't need anything else.

If you don't like iceburg lettuce don't eat it but I would suggest you add some romaine with your spinach to add a little bulk to the salad.

willrun4bagels wrote: »

^^I can not stand the texture of cold hard boiled eggs at all. I can eat a hard boiled egg while it's still hot (and then, I eat it all by itself with a spoon right out of the shell). Funny how some of us can't stand certain foods and others love them! There are a lot of raw vegetables that I won't touch.

My husband is the exact same way! I can eat them either way.

You really can't mess up salad. If you like it, put it in. If not, skip it.

I toss in leftover couscous or quinoa. Corn. Peas. Black beans. Chick peas. Hardboiled egg. Sunflower seeds. Flax. Apples. Grapes. It's all fair game.

My salads tend to be everything but the kitchen sink. I like to get a lot of flavor in there. I dont like vinegar dressings and rarely use the cream based dressings.

The base of my salads are usually mixed greens (I buy a big tub of it each week) and mixed sprouts (I sprout the seeds myself, a mix of alfalfa, clover, radish and brocolli seeds). I like a little protein and fat in my salads, so I usually add an ounce or two of chopped turkey and a 1/2 ounce of cheese, and sometimes a little avocado. Other add ins I like to rotate in are halved cherry tomatoes (halving them allows the juice to mix in with the salad), cucumber, green onion, raw asparagus, shredded flowering kale (this a new one for me), roasted beets, shredded raw brussel sprouts, finely chopped brocolli (I dont like big chunks, so I chop it real fine), shredded carrots, mini portobello mushrooms, raw garlic, red bell pepper, halved red seedless grapes, pepita seeds, raisins, pecans, walnuts, salsa, garlic salt, black pepper. I dont care for egg white in a salad, but sometimes if I have a hard boiled egg, I'll save the yolk and crumble it in a salad.

On the weekend I sometimes roast brussel sprouts, carrots, sweet potatoes, little red potatoes, butternut squash, etc., and keep them in the fridge to add to salads later in the week or add in sandwiches. They add a lot of flavor.

Learn to make a basic vinaigrette. Then you can experiment with flavours you enjoy. For instance, I find the balsamic too strong so I use lime juice and olive oil.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Vinaigrette/Detail.aspx?evt19=1
I can't stand soggy salads, so the dressing goes on just before I eat it.

It sounds like you enjoy the more solid lettuces like Romaine. So you can try cabbage too, bok choy, anything dark and leafy.

If you are a fussy eater, start with a base lettuce/cabbage you know you like and slowly introduce more vegetables. If you don't like a vegetable prepared one way, prepare another. I've used a fine shredder for my carrot, and sliced radish very thin with my mandoline.

I add depending on what is in season; radishes, carrots, cucumber, chives, tomato slices, apple, bell peppers, sunflower seeds.