Summer time is a great time to fill up on healthy, delicious salads. I don't believe salads should be the accompaniment to a meal. I believe they should be the meal.
When creating nutritionally balanced salads, remember to include these 4 key components:
1. Vegetables/ salad
2. Protein source
3. Low GI carbohydrate
4. Healthy fat
- Left: Mixed lettuce, beetroot, zucchini, turkey & fetta salad
- Right: Green beans, bok choy, lean pork, lentil, fetta & pinenut salad
- Left: Spinach, tomato, capsicum, zucchini, chickpea, fetta & walnut salad
- Right: Spinach, cucumber, tomato, chickpea, fetta & pepita seed salad
1. Vegetables/ salad
- Green - spinach , rocket, lettuce, broccoli, beans, celery, cucumber
- Orange - pumpkin, carrots
- Red - capsicum, tomato
- Yellow - yellow capsicum
- Purple - beetroot
2. Protein sources
- Lean chicken
- Tinned tuna
- Smoked salmon
- Boiled eggs
- Chickpeas (also provide low GI carbohydrate)
- 4-bean mix (also provide low GI carbohydrate)
- Fetta
3. Low GI carbohydrates
- Fruits - mango, pomegranate, pear, cranberries
- Quinoa
- Pearl cous cous
- Corn
- Sweet potato
- Chickpeas (also provide protein)
- 4-bean mix (also provide protein)
4. Healthy fats
- Nuts - roasted walnuts, pinenuts, pistachios
- Avocado
- Oils - olive oil, rice bran oil
- Olives
Build your Salad
Now that you've chosen each of the components, it's time to build your salad.To serve 4, I recommend:
- 8 cups of salad/ vegetables
- 2 large chicken breasts/ 3 x 95g tin tuna/ 200g smoked salmon/ 3 boiled eggs/ 1 x 400g tin chickpeas or 4-bean mix/ 180g reduced fat fetta (or mix and match more than one protein source)
- 2 cups of low GI carbohydrates
- 1/4 cup nuts/ 1 whole avocado, 1/4 cup oils/ 15 olives
One of my favourite summer salad dressings is balsamic vinegar, olive oil (3 parts balsamic vinegar: 1 part olive oil) and wholegrain mustard.
