Salads

After all the sweets and rich foods from the holidays nothing tastes better to me than a crisp fresh salad and lots of it.  I serve a lot of salad as a side dish with supper and I usually take leftover salad in my lunch for work too.  I try to make them healthy and delicious with as much variety as possible to assuage boredom and monotony all while maintaining my tight grocery budget. 

I start with a bed of greens, usually a combination of spinach and romaine.  I buy romaine hearts, 3 in a bag for $1.98.  They last a long time and have more nutrition and far better flavor than your standard iceberg lettuce.  I also add baby spinach leaves to amp up the flavor and nutrition factor.  Baby spinach runs me about $1.38 for a good sized bag and usually lasts me about two weeks.  Since spinach goes the fastest I use it up first and then switch to coleslaw mix at 98¢ a bag. 

I try to add a minimum of three things to my salads in addition to the greens: 

·                     Grape tomatoes, black olives, feta cheese

·                     Sliced tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, marinated artichoke hearts

·                     Diced tomato, green olives, cheddar cheese

·                     Tomato wedges, slice hard cooked egg, sliced black olives

·                     Dried cranberries, chopped pecans or walnuts, feta cheese

·                     Diced tomato, peperoncini slices, black olives

·                     Sliced red beets, kidney beans, dill pickle slices

·                     Chopped red or green bell pepper, grape tomatoes, sliced cucumber

·                     Sliced red pepper, black olives, cubed mozzarella cheese

·                     Black olives, croutons, sliced hard cooked egg, parmesan cheese

·                     Sliced radishes, chopped cucumber, raisins

·                     Red onion slices, diced tomato, peperoncini slices, black olives

·                     Chopped green apple, raisins, chopped pecans or walnuts

·                     Sliced almonds, chopped dried apricots, feta cheese 

Here is just a sampling of the salads I like to make.  You can quickly change this from a side dish to a main course simply by adding additional protein: 

·                     Sliced grilled chicken breast

·                     Roasted chicken or lemon chicken, shredded or chopped

·                     Sliced steak

·                     Tuna or salmon

·                     Shrimp or crab

·                     Hard cooked eggs

·                     Taco meat

·                     Kidney beans

·                     Chili

·                     Cheese

·                     Sliced ham or turkey 

The possibilities are endless.  Keep it healthy by limiting the amount and type of salad dressing you use.  Vinaigrettes tend to be the healthiest and are easy and inexpensive to make yourself.  You can always serve it on the side and dip too if you’d like. 

Tip:  Spinach starting to wilt a little and go limp?  Put it in your soup pot.  Adds additional nutrition and you won’t have to let it go to waste.  Looks pretty and great flavor too!