It sounds rather simple, what makes a good salad? In a word, variety! That, balanced with fresh ingredients. We live in a time where we have access to such varieties and outstanding quality when it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables.
In the salad pictured above, I balanced my plate with fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, some dried fruits, and a few nuts. This variety provides an assortment of flavors and textures pleasing to the pallet. When I’m shopping, I look to see what’s in season and my first choice is always to buy local. But if I’m looking for a fruit of vegetable out of season, I try to buy organic.
In this salad, I started by chopping my vegetables, I make it a point to chop them uniform in size requiring little additional “chopping” once I’ve plated the salad. Here are some of the vegetables in this salad. A good rule is to add “color” to your salad.
Yellow squash
Zucchini
Bermuda onion
Carrots
English cucumber
Red, Yellow, and Orange sweet peppers
Habanero Peppers (optional - I like a little heat)
Radishes
Tomatoes (cherry)
Assortment of baby greens: spinach, frisee radicchio, beet tops, red romaine, red oak, red chard, green romaine, greed oak, green chard, arugula, collard, kale and red mustard. (to make it easy, this variety is available in the Nature’s Promise Organic section of Stop & Shop)
Next I added in some fresh fruits and nuts.
Blackberries
Blueberries
Raspberries
Orange
Dried cranberries
Almonds
You may ask but what about protein. Well, all of these ingredients contain protein.
