Light, healthy, full of color and with all the necessary ingredients to be a complete and tasty unique dish. And they’re easy to prepare, too!
Due to their proportion of raw ingredients, salads are a very quick and easy resource to include vital principles in our diet: they are packed with enzymes, minerals, vitamins and antioxidant compounds.
In addition, they can incorporate foods rich in nutrients essential for the construction and repair of tissues and for energy, such as proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
If we know how to choose the ingredients well, a refreshing salad can be as complete and as nutritious as any other main dish of the day, so we can eat it as a single dish.
The great advantage of salads is that they are simple to prepare and their preparation is usually freer and more intuitive than that of any other recipe. If we only use raw ingredients, things are much simpler: we don’t have to wait for cooking time and we don’t fill our kitchen with dirty pots.
And, if we decide to include cooked ingredients (cereals, potatoes, seitan, legumes…), the range of possibilities to create a unique dish is multiplied.
In addition, the great versatility of salads makes it much easier to adapt them to any season of the year and nutritional needs, from an elderly person with a delicate digestion to a young person with a great deal of physical and mental activity.
NUTRITIOUS SALADS: A GOOD SINGLE DISH
If we want to create a nutritious salad, we must avoid being obsessed with including a lot of proteins; even if it is a single dish, what it is about is that there is a proper balance between proteins, fats and carbohydrates.
Another important value is quality: saturated fat, which overloads our body, is not the same as receiving that same energy from sources rich in unsaturated fatty acids such as a good olive oil, nuts and seeds or a delicious avocado.
Quality also has to do with the condition and origin of the food: you have to prefer fresh food, take care that it is in a good state of conservation and, if possible, make sure that it comes from organic or biodynamic farming.
THE NECESSARY PROTEINS OF A MAIN DISH
The necessary amount of protein is easy to achieve with ingredients such as quinoa, tofu or chickpeas. With other ingredients, the trick is to combine them so that the essential amino acids that some lack are complemented by those of others that do have them and thus obtain a complete dish that, if it is going to be a single dish, nourishes us well.
Hummus is a good example of this nutritional rule: the proteins in chickpeas, by complementing the limiting amino acids of sesame (in tahini), make the whole more usable by our body.
We can achieve the same thing when we make a pasta salad with nuts. A good proportion of raw ingredients is very necessary so that we can receive digestive enzymes, which are very sensitive to heat, and which help the good digestion of everything we eat. It is then, when the requirements of balance, quality and digestibility are met, that a salad can be considered to be very complete.
CHICKPEA SALAD AND ZUCCHINI SPIRALS
Ingredients for 4 servings:
- 300 g cooked chickpeas
- 100 g mixed lettuce
- 3 small bell peppers (red, green, and yellow)
- 1 zucchini
- 150 g cherry tomatoes
- 1 red onion
For the dressing:
- 100 g cooked chickpeas
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 50 ml virgin olive oil
- 1 garlic clove, peeled
- 100 ml lukewarm water and salt
- 100 g thick plant-based yoghurt
Elaboration:
- Wash the vegetables. Cut the tomatoes into quarters and the peppers, without the seeds, into strips. Trim the zucchini and make thin strips with a spirillizer. Peel the onion and cut it into thin slices.
- Blend the dressing ingredients in the blender, except for the yogurt, until you get a uniform sauce. Pour into a bowl and add the yoghurt, stirring little by little until everything is integrated.
- Mix the lettuce leaves with the rest of the chickpeas and the pepper strips. Arrange the salad on plates and top with the zucchini spirals, cherry tomatoes and spring onion slices.
- Dress with the sauce and serve. If desired, sprinkle with a little more cumin.
AVOCADO AND PEANUT SALAD
Ingredients for 4 servings:
- 2 firm avocados
- 1 mango
- 200 g strawberries
- A few lettuces leaves
- 50 g peeled peanuts
- 1 lemon, fennel and oil
- salt and apple cider vinegar
Elaboration:
- Crush the peanuts with about 70 ml of oil, 2 tablespoons of vinegar and salt. Wash and slice the strawberries. Peel and dice the handle.
- Peel the avocados and place the halves on an oiled surface. Cut them widthwise, into thin slices; Drizzle them with the lemon juice and shape them into a rose.
- Wash the lettuce and put it in the salad bowl, add the fruits and avocado flower. Garnish with fennel and dress with the prepared peanut vinaigrette.
SALAD WITH LENTIL HUMMUS
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 1/2 red cabbage
- 1 apple
- 150 g raspberries
- A few arugulas leaves
- The juice of half a lemon
- 40 g crumbled silken tofu
- 1 red onion
- 8 radishes
For the hummus:
- 1 <>/<> cups cooked lentils, well drained
- 1 tablespoon tahini
- 1 small garlic clove
- 1 teaspoon cumin powder
- The juice of half a lemon
- Sea salt
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Elaboration:
- To prepare the hummus, place all the ingredients in the blender and blend them until you get a uniform mixture. You can add a little water if you need to and you want it less thick.
- Cut the radishes into very thin slices and the red onion into julienne strips. Wash the red cabbage, cut it into very thin strips and leave it with a little salt to soften it a little. Peel and grate the apple and mix it in a bowl with the lemon juice.
- Place the cut vegetables along with the raspberries and apple in individual bowls. Add the crumbled silken tofu and place a few arugulas leaves just before serving.
MULTICOLORED POTATO SALAD
Ingredients for 4 servings:
- 4 potatoes for cooking, small
- 1 red onion
- 1 large carrot
- 1 sweet red pepper
- 1 Italian green pepper
- 2 plum tomatoes
- 1/2 zucchini
- A few salads sprouts
- 6 large basil leaves
- 100 ml olive oil
- Salt and pink peppercorns
Elaboration:
- Wash the potatoes and cook them with the skin on in salted water for about 40 minutes, until tender but whole. Remove them and wait for them to temper.
- Wash the vegetables. Peel the onion and scrape the carrot. Remove the stem from the peppers and seeds, leaving them whole.
- Cut the vegetables into thin slices: 2 mm for the zucchini, about 4 mm, the rest. Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1cm slices.
- Assemble the salad on a deep, round platter. Place the vegetables in a circle at the edge, and intersperse them by color; Every 3 or 4 slices, add one of potatoes.
- Form a smaller circle on the inside with the remaining vegetables. Reserve the salad in the fridge or in a cool place.
- For the dressing, wash and dry the basil leaves and put them in the blender. Add half of the oil and blend. Add the rest of the oil in a thread, salt and pepper, and beat until emulsified.
- Dress and decorate the center with the sprouts and sprinkle with the crushed peppercorns.
RED CABBAGE SALAD WITH ALMOND CREAM
Ingredients for 4 servings:
- 1/2 red cabbage
- 3 carrots
- 4 radishes
- 2 apples
- 40 g white almond butter
- 10 g shiro miso
- 20 g sliced almonds
- Poppy seeds
- Freshly ground white pepper
- Sea salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
- The juice of 1 lemon
Elaboration:
- Wash the red cabbage and cut it into very thin julienne strips. Mix with half a teaspoon of poppy seeds, two tablespoons of oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and let it marinate for an hour.
- Scrape the carrots and cut them into thin strips.
- Peel the apple, cut it into slices and sauté it with a little oil over low heat for about 15 minutes until soft.
- Wash the radishes, cut them into very thin slices and overlap them to form a flower.
- Divide the cabbage, carrot and apple slices among 4 individual plates. Mix the almond butter with the miso and serve it over salads. Sprinkle with poppy seeds and almonds.
- Serve the salad garnished with the radish “flower”.
