Big Bowl Salad and Zesty Lemon House Dressing
2012
If you want to eat a lot of raw foods or are planning on going raw it’s a good idea to get used to eating salads! I never used to like salads, and if I can become a salad person, anyone can. Trust me, they grow on you!! Now I almost always have a salad as a side dish, but also I often will make this big salad as a main dish – and this Big Bowl Salad is it, or the base for it. Sometimes I also will add nutmeat (recipe coming) or steamed vegetables to fill it out and warm it up, which is a nice change.
Tips on making a Great Salad
- Find the best and freshest ingredients you can.
- Mix up and combine interesting textures and flavors.. such as creamy avocado with crunchy cucumbers; mixing currants or figs with onion or olives to make a nice contrast or citrus with bitter lettuces.
- Add color: red and yellow peppers, carrots, radishes, tomatoes, beets, corn, purple onion..
- Use interesting greens, from romaine and iceberg (not so nutritious but a great crunch) to oak leaf, spinach, frissee, red leaf, lolla rosa, bibb and even microgreens (tiny baby leaves) or sprouts. There are bitter leaves, soft leaves, red leaves; mix them up and experiment. Remember dark leaves are more nutrition packed and bitter leaves have special, extra-healthy properties.. but sometimes it’s nice to combine them with lighter and softer leaves for contrast.
- Most importantly – Get Creative! Keep it new and fresh and interesting so you don’t get bored with your salads.
The Big Bowl Salad
Use as many ingredients as you like or have available from the list. Almost any combination of these ingredients works well together. ..and then get more creative and add your own toppings!
Ingredients
Big bowl full of Salad Greens
Veggies – shredded, sliced or chopped: Red, Orange or Yellow Peppers, Carrots, Celery, Cucumber, Avocado, Tomato, Snow Peas, Fennel, Zucchini, Green or Red Onion, Beets
Seeds and Nuts – Pumpkin, Sunflower, Hemp, Pine Nuts, chopped Walnuts
optional: Dried Fruit – Currants, Raisins or dried Cranberries
Directions
Put all ingredients in a bowl and toss. Serve with Zesty Lemon house Dressing or other favorite dressing.
Zesty Lemon House Dressing
This is the dressing I most often make at home. It’s easy to change this up and sometimes I add different herbs or spices to change the flavor. A few of my favorite additions to this are: basil pesto or sambal oelek to spice it up, or a bit of Mayo (recipe coming) to give it a more creamy base.
Ingredients
½ c Olive Oil
1 Lemon – juiced
1 T Apple Cider Vinegar
3 T Honey or Agave
1 t Salt
1 t Natural Herbal Seasoning blend (Mrs Dash, Spike or dried herbs)
½ t Pepper
2 T Water
Directions
Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl or blend in a blender. Easy!
This dressing will keep for at least a month in a glass jar in the refrigerator.
Enjoy!!
