Composing the Perfect Salad

03.04.2019

Hi friends! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I am so excited to have my sister Brit partner with me on today’s post for sharing ways to make the best salads ever.

Whenever I am with my sister, I can expect to eat some healthy meals. As a marathon runner, math PHD student, athlete and much more: my sister is always measuring sleep, steps, heart rate, and ways to implement physical exercise into her every day routine. I am always inspired by her dedication to her health and the delicious meals she comes up with!

My sister is a salad queen. When she came down to visit us and wait for baby to arrive, we spent some time making yummy meals in the kitchen and I was inspired to share some of her tricks for making the BEST salads ever.

She’s hopping on for the rest of this post to share how she creates her masterpieces! Enjoy!

My go-to salad has a versatile structure with a couple of key components. Each of these can change individually, but as long as my salad follows this general structure it is usually pretty good. The components change with the seasons, but the structure stays the same. Once you get it down, you too will be known as your family’s “salad b*tch”! (I’m flattered to share the title with my cousin Ellie, christened by my Uncle Jay). Here is the general recipe:

greens (spinach, kale, arugula, mixed greens, or whatever is on sale)
onion (I use red onion 95% of the time but green onions are fun too)
diced fruit
a nut or seed
a cheese
avocado (yes, in any and every salad)

I don’t allllways have fruit in my salad, like if I want a super clean, veggie packed salad, fruit sometimes doesn’t jive with a bunch of veggies, but I usually do go the fruit route. For example, the other day I had: a bunch of arugula, red onion, a diced bartlett pear, roasted & salted almonds, shaved parmesan, and avocado. Another favorite is using massaged kale for the greens, which works especially well for when I pack a lunch because it doesn’t get soggy! Soggy, wilty lunch salads are the worst. But “air-tight” salad dressing containers always inevitably leak or are a nuisance to clean, so I was deprived of lunch salads for a while. Until…I read about massaged kale. Kale itself is so coarse, but when it sits in dressing it actually gets better with time, so when you literally massage in the dressing in the morning or the night before (yes, by hand!) the flavor gets better over time. Ingenious.

***

Right, so that dressing: my simple go to dressing is 1 part vinegar (apple cider, red wine, or balsamic) to 3 parts olive oil, 1 part maple syrup, and a couple shakes of salt and pepper. I mix it all up in this salad dressing shaker. For a more savory salad, I’ll do a teaspoon (ish) of grainy mustard instead of the maple syrup, and a squeeze of lemon. For a fancier dressing, sometimes I’ll mince shallots and add them in, too- so good!

***

Pro tip: to make a salad more of a meal, I sometimes add a cup of leftover brown rice or quinoa to bulk it up.

Pro tip #2: my aunt introduced me to this gadget, and it is a lifesaver – a double sided mandolin to quickly slice up those veggies! and they look prettier, too!

***

Here is a recipe for 3-4 people:

8 cups mixed greens
1/2 red onion, chopped (or sliced with mandolin!)
1 pear, diced
1/2 cup sunflower seeds, salted and roasted (or roast pinenuts if you’re feeling fancy and spendy)
1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese (or just the whole 4oz container if you love it like I do)
1 avocado, diced

Dressing:

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil (or 4 if you like less vinegar)
1 tbsp maple syrup
salt and pepper to taste

Shake up the dressing, and you may find when you pour it that you have a little extra. This container stores it really well for future salads!

Bon Appetit!