Now that the weather is really warming up, I’m trying to fix more salads with our meals. I know, this is something I should do year round, but in the winter, I mostly want to make comfort foods like soups, stews and lots of bread 🙂 This time of year, we grill out more, and I try to buy more fresh fruits and vegetables.
I’ve bought lettuce the last two weeks and have been trying to fix a “side salad” with our nighttime meal. But, I seem to just be putting the same thing in our salads. I need some new ideas.
Here’s the problem – I don’t eat tomatoes and Tim doesn’t eat cucumbers. I know, I know – I could buy cucumbers for me and tomatoes for him, but it just seems easier to skip those since half of us don’t eat them. I have some things on hand (croutons, craisins, etc) that I could add, but I’m trying to watch the calorie content of what I put in the salad. You know, trying to stay healthy. So, I’ve been adding these things to our green salads: carrots, mushrooms (marinated, usually, not fresh), olives, pickles and sometimes hard-boiled eggs, and if I have it, red onion. Sometimes we sneak in some grated cheese, too. I would like to add more veggies, but I don’t seem to buy them often enough to use them up. If I plan ahead, I like to buy a bag of fresh broccoli, cauliflower and carrots and add that to the salad, but that doesn’t happen very often. Oh, and I would add fruit, dried or fresh, but Tim doesn’t “do” fruit, especially in a salad. I have a recipe for a great Oriental type green salad that has mandarin oranges in it and Tim won’t go near it. I have to add the oranges just to mine 🙄
So, that’s today’s Question of the Day – what do you add to your salad? What kinds of things do you keep on hand to put in a salad, and what healthy items do you add to your salad? As you can see, my vegetable crisper in my brand new refrigerator is very empty:
Help, I need some ideas! 😀
Hmmm… pretty much lettuce and croutons will do it for me. But when we go to buffets, which we do a lot, I have these three things as requirements for a “good” buffet salad: garbanzo beans, cheddar cheese, and croutons. Anything else is extra. 😉
I think that no salad is complete without some type of meat in it. I personally prefer to add pepperoni, diced ham, or diced turkey to my salads.
Also, almonds and pecans are excellent additions to salads.
PS I found your blog as part of the scavenger hunt.
Ooo, I love this question! I have several salads every week, and they tend to be pretty much the same all the time, give or take a vegetable or two. 😉 (And I’m with Tim — fruit and vegetables have no business whatsoever mixing. heee!)
Let’s see, my recipe for a typical salad is lettue (romaine – it took a while for me to get used to something other than iceburg, but now I don’t like anything but romaine), carrots, onion (I love the red ones, too!), green pepper (if we have it), grated cheese (I either use fat-free or part-skim mozzarella), and a meat. I MUST have some sort of meat in my salad. Might be a little canned tuna or torn up shaved deli turkey, grilled salmon, chopped up breaded chicken tenderloin, or chopped Morningstar Chik patty. Oh, and I add a very few chopped walnuts and some grated parmesan cheese. My dressing of choice is fat-free ranch. 🙂
I’m not opposed to broccoli in my salad, as long as it’s chopped up well — don’t like big stalks. And once in awhile, I LOVE kidney beans in there, too. Fun question, Stacy!
Nuts, garbanzo beans, black beans, sunflower seeds, apples, sun dried tomatoes, sugar snap peas, cottage cheese, celery, radishes, lunchmeant (as mentioned), leftover steak, hard boiled eggs (as mentioned), blue cheese, feta.
We’re trying to eat a big salad before our meal so that we don’t eat as much meal. So far it’s working!
Just about everything has been mentioned! I usually add green pepper, summer squash if I have it, purple onions, chunks of blue cheese, tomato, broccoli if it’s available. How about radishes? Sliced thin. I also like left-over cooked chicken and sometimes some left-over shrimp.
We don’t make a lot of salads. I love salads loaded with a lot of stuff, and I would eat it as a meal. For a side salad, I add red peppers, sometimes those banana pepper rings, cheese, carrots, tomatoes or whatever vegetables I have on hand.
The reason I don’t make salads often however is that I don’t often have “salad stuff” on hand.
My favorite meal salad is a taco salad. Just delicious and so summery too. In fact, we’re eating it tonight!
Great QOTD!
I feel your pain at the difficulty of trying to make everyone happy. Philip won’t eat salad at all, though, so salads are easier for me to make, since it’s only me & G who eat them–and he’ll eat any kind of salad concoction.
Garbanzo beans are a great idea if you both like them. I do that a lot. Or canned chicken breast.
I do my salads different ways depending on how I’m feeling, but this is my favorite way & the way I do it most often: Lettuce, cut up grape tomatoes (I don’t like “real” tomatoes, but I can tolerate the grape tomatoes if they’re cut up), red or white onion, chopped baby carrots, and either ranch or Italian dressing. I also put in some big gourmet croutons, but only a few since I watch calories, too.
My MIL likes to put seasoned sliced almonds into her salads, which are very tasty, but I don’t do it because of the calories. You can buy them in resealable bags, in the salad section at Walmart…there are a few different seasoning options.
I used to be one who would shy away from a salad with fruit but let me just say I LOVE it now! I also used to only eat Ranch dressing. Has Tim tried salad with fruit in it? If not, you should really try it Tim! LOL! I like a mixutre of lettuces. I usually buy a head of iceburg and a bag of spring mix from Walmart. I mix the two and get a pretty tasty bed of lettuce! In a regular salad I like to add almonds, croutons, bacon pieces or pepperoni, cauliflower, green pepper, or any of the veggies you mentioned above. I just try and mix it up. If I want a break from the traditional salad, I make caesar salad…I don’t always just use romaine though. I mix the greens and add parm. cheese and croutons. For a good salad with fruit, I mix the greens and cut up seedless grapes, raisins or craisins, almonds, bacon pieces, mandarin oranges, blueberries, and throw some strawberry or raspberry vinaigrette dressing on top…..YUM YUM!!! Salad with fruit is my favorite spring or summer type salad! Now, come on Tim! Embrace the salad with fruit! LOL!
Our salads tend to be pretty boring…lettuce, carrots, radishes, cucumber, green pepper. Sometimes onion, broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes. When I’m feeling really fancy, hard-boiled egg, steak, shredded cheese. Used to have salads with nearly every meal, but have been pretty bad about it lately. Rich is right there with Tim on the whole fruit issue.
‘Making me hungry for salad! Everything mentioned above is great! I started putting thin strips of zuchinni in our “green salad”, as Mama used to call it!
We have salads pretty often, even in the winter…..I keep “real” lettuce and tomatoes at all times for it. I like leafy green lettuce or romaine for the green; grape tomatoes (because they are like candy!) carrots, onions, squash or zucchini maybe, garbanzo beans or kidney beans, cantaloup or chopped apple (because that’s the way the Crown makes it!) and usually I keep a mixture of the crunchy stuff that goes in slaw to add to salads and if I don’t have that then some other kind of nut like almonds or walnuts etc. Peppers, mushrooms, red peppers, I pretty much put whatever I have on hand in a salad! Not cheese so much because I save it for other things. You could probably even put steamed green beans in it, snow peas, edamame or something like that.
hi…i guess you could say that i’m a fiend of gail’s well trent and shanna…anyway..i love hearts of palm in salads (canned from the veggie aisle) not sure about the calorie content but they have a unique taste for a bit of something different
I don’t usually make salads at home since I’m the only one eating them, but for me it has to have lots of tomatoes and I’m happy, but I love sunflower seeds, carrots, bacon bits, croutons, baked chicken are my favorites 🙂
I have this problem often. And a lot of times, my bagged salad will wilt in the fridge for lack of things to add to it. We don’t eat tomatoes either. My granny used to make me the best salads with real bacon, shredded cheese, apple chunks, and raisins. I personally like mandarin orange slices and a peanut sesame dressing.
I usually buy field greens and add tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, hard boiled eggs, swiss cheese, and croutons to my salads.
avocado, as much avocado as we can afford, beyond the typical cukes, tomatoes, onion, lettuce thing
Now you got me craving salad!
In my tossed salad I like whatever fresh veggies I can lay my hands on out of my fridge. We love a marinated salad. Any chunky veggie you can think of like zucchini, fresh mushrooms, tomatoes (sorry), cukes (sorry again), peppers, red onion or green onions, broccoli, grated carrots, etc. and then just pour on an Italian or oi/vinegar dressing (not a creamy one) and refridgerate for at least one hour. Stirring occasionally. The longer you let it sit the better it is and you don’t need a lot of dressing for the veggies will weep a bit.
We also like a mix of romaine lettuce, chopped apple, walnuts and miracle whip.
First off I need to tell you that Amy and Michael said, Hello! Today is the first day for her scavenger hunt and she asked us to visit someone one her blogroll that we have never been so I chose you because I see your comments quite often, but have never ventured over. Okay, enough rambling from me!
I recently discovered banana peppers and absolutely love them! And I like to add a little meat to mine as well. It’s hard, isn’t it, finding new ways to dress up a salad that everyone will enjoy?
By the way, I am Amy and it is nice to meet you! I have bookmarked you so I can come back and play catch up! Have a great day!
My salads are pretty standard, I like romaine lettuce in mine, I do tomatoes, can’t stand cucumbers!! Then carrots, green pepper, radishes , celery, cheese, sunflower seeds and ranch, ALWAYS ranch dressing to top it all off!! YUM!
WOW! I usually use spinach or mixed baby greens. Then I add mushrooms always, feta cheese, and then depending on they type salad I’m making I put some kind of fruit (strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, peaches), tomoatoes, cucumber, and/or carrots. If I use meat it’s usually turkey but sometimes Canadian bacon and rarely chicken. (I usually save chicken salads for eating out). Then I vary between salsa, balsamic vinegarette, or Italian dressing. I NEVER use croutons…don’t like them.
I like lettuce, a few slices of tomatoes, carrots and cucumbers. I also like croutons and best of all crabstick or shrimps. I like japanese mayo for dressing. I forgot I also like slices of boiled eggs on it.
I also love avocado, love big chunks in my salad. I like the little grape tomatoes and I love green apple chunks too. Plus grilled chicken. I am pretty boring on dressings, I’ll sometimes eat salads plain. Otherwise a little bit of balsamic vinagrette.
I do see some good ideas to consider in making my next salad.
Last summer I was really trying to help my husband eat healthy. Of course salads were part of that plan, so I tried to make different kinds of salads – not just lettuce with vegetables. I started experimenting with things like feta cheese, cranberries, crunchy things like almonds, and salsa. I did a Works for me Weds. post about this: You can click the WFMW link in my sidebar and scroll down.
Maybe this will give you some ideas. It is a challenge to make and eat salads often.
I make a salad for lunch just about every day. I love adding orange or yellow pepper, sundried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, feta cheese, walnuts or almonds, green and black olives, shredded mexican cheese, bleu cheese, bacon bits, avacado.
Other items Tim would not like – pears, apples, dried cherries, grapes.
I try to vary my salad but lately I’ve been stuck on a Greek salad kick. I’m starting to get tired of it.
oooh, forgot pea pods, water chestnuts, mandarin oranges.
Wow, a lotta comments Stacy! Your QOD is quite popular! Look at me WAY down here at the bottom! I agree with Sonya….try the fruit. I was not convinced that it was something I would eat, but at a party, I tried a salad recipe from Homeade Gourmet and it was DELICIOSO!!!
My fav add ons are: fresh spinach leafs, or other mixed greens, avocados, boiled egg, fresh mushrooms, fresh brocoli, and sunflower seeds
We do lots of salad around here. Since we like variety, I keep lots of things on hand. I also do a little mini salad bar instead of putting everything on the salads at dinner time. Delaney only eats lettuce, Brenna doesn’t eat it at all, and Stephen and I will eat whatever’s available. Even though he and I eat the same toppings, I like for each of us to choose how much. Some of our favorites are Kalamata olives, almond accents, red bell peppers, queen sized green olives, black olives, and occasionally shredded cheese. We also really enjoy either crumbled feta or blue cheese.
Add A Comment