Whether you’re packing lunch to take to work, cruising a salad bar, or putting together a no-cook summer supper, a big salad can be the healthiest meal of your day. But it’s also possible for salads to miss the mark. If certain key ingredients are missing, your salad may be little more than a bowl of chewable water that leaves your stomach growling after 45 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, too many high-calorie, low-nutrition ingredients can turn a salad into a dietary disaster.
Here’s how to build a great salad, one that delivers lots of good nutrition without too many calories, and also keeps you satisfied until your next meal.
Step One: Build a Better Base
You don’t necessarily have to build your salad on a bed of leaves, but if you do, make sure those greens are pulling their weight. In addition to the ubiquitous romaine lettuce, mix in some more nutrient-dense options such as arugula, spinach, baby kale, or even a handful of basil, mint, or other fresh herbs.
See also: Are Herbs Good for You?
Step Two: Add a Rainbow
Next, add an assortment of colorful vegetables. Cucumbers and radishes are great for crunch and flavor. But to really up the nutritional ante, go for shredded carrots, red and orange peppers, tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms, and/or caulifower. (Even though they are both pale in color, mushrooms and cauliflower are both packed with nutrients.) You can also add leftover cooked vegetables, such as steamed asparagus or broccoli, roasted butternut squash, sauteed green beans, or whatever else may be on hand.
Fruits like berries, oranges, pomegranates, and kiwi are also great on salads, although you’ll want to consider the overall flavor profile of the greens and other toppings. Spinach and berries make a better pairing than scallions and kiwi.
Step Three: Turbocharge It
Salad vegetables tend to be high in carotenoids, a family of antioxidant nutrients that fight cancer, protect your eyes, and may even help guard against dementia. Your body can also convert carotenoids into Vitamin A, a nutrient that about 40% of us are not getting enough of.
Eating more salads will increase your carotenoid intake. But there’s another delicious salad ingredient that can boost your absorption of those carotenoids, as well as your ability to convert them into Vitamin A. Research shows that the addition of avocado to a salad can triple or quadruple your absorption of carotenoids from the other vegetables in the salad and also enhance their conversion into vitamin A.
As a bonus, studies have found that adding half an avocado to your salad is likely to reduce your desire to eat over the next several hours and reduce the number of calories you eat at your next meal. Nice trick. But we’re not done building the perfect salad yet.
Step 4: Power It Up
Our salad so far features lots of nutrient-rich vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats but not a lot of protein—and a meal without protein is a missed opportunity to build up and maintain that all-important lean muscle tissue. Adding protein will also help keep you from getting hungry as quickly. Top your salad with a couple of hard boiled eggs, crumbled feta cheese, cottage cheese, a can or pouch of tuna or salmon, or some leftover chicken, turkey, fish, pork, or beef. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh make good vegan alternatives. Garbanzo beans, cooked lentils, edamame or other beans and legumes can also add some plant-based protein, along with some filling fiber.
Step 5 (Optional): Bulk It Up
Depending on your appetite, activity level, and calorie budget, you may also want to add some nutrient-dense, high-fiber starches to your salad. In addition to the beans and legumes I just mentioned, this might include roasted sweet potato or root vegetables, or leftover cooked whole grains like quinoa, sorghum, black or red rice, or bulgur wheat. (As you may have noticed, salads are a great opportunity to use up leftovers!)
Step 6: Dress It Down
It’s time to pull it all together with the perfect dressing. I prefer vinaigrette-style dressings to creamy dressing for a couple of reasons. First, a lighter dressing allows the flavors of your ingredients to shine through. If your idea of salad is a pile of bland lettuce with a slice or two of cucumber, I can see why you might be attracted to a gloppy dressing. Once you start building better salads, you may find that you’re not as dependent on the dressing to supply all the flavor.
The second reason I prefer vinaigrettes is that you usually need less dressing, which cuts down on excess calories. The thinner consistency also makes it easier to distribute the dressing evenly on the ingredients. So, instead of alternating bites of undressed greens with mouthfuls of too much dressing, each bite is perfectly dressed. (I also highly recommend tossing your salad thoroughly after adding the dressing, for the same reason.)
Making your own vinaigrette is simple, and I have yet to taste a store-bought vinaigrette that compares to homemade. You can whisk up a little dressing in the bottom of your salad bowl before building each salad or whip up a batch in a blender or shaker container to use throughout the week. (Here’s quick video tutorial)
"Right Size" Your Salad
As you build your salad, keep in mind that while salad greens and vegetables are very low in calories, avocado, cheese, eggs, meat, beans, and grains are much more calorie-dense. The more of these ingredients you are adding to your salad, the less you need of each. As a rule of thumb, these more calorie-dense ingredients should add up to no more than one cup (250 mL) of your salad.
I’d love to see your salad creations! Post your best salad pics on the Nutrition Diva Facebook page!
Image of a deconstructed salad © Shutterstock
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