New and exciting salad ideas?

[rawnpawgirl]

I have been struggling with raw lately-- for some reason I have become extremely bored with salads lately.

I would love some new and exciting ideas on good salads. They just taste so boring and yuck to me lately.

My salads and I need to spice up our relationship. Please do share YOUR ideas with me!! I just am the type of person that needs variety!! But.. I really don't like raw "gourmet" dehydrated stuff.

[rawfigure]

try a mixed green salad with fruit, lettuce and grapefruit slices, romaine and sliced grapes, things like that. Use fruit juice as the dressing.

Try a chopped salad, shred/long slice or chop everything to make it interesting. Try with a little lemon, (I like a little pink salt) to bring out flavor.

[sport]

Have you tried adding raw olives

[sport]

Blend some cashews with some water and pour over chopped apples. Add the zest of an organic lemmon.

[JinxieKat]

A nice fruit salad is chopped bananas and apples with a few almonds chopped up and drizzled with a touch of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

I also like to add clementines to my salads, or chop up my salad stuff small then take my hands and work in avacado as a 'dressing'. Messy but good! Also in 'Raw food made easy for one or two people' she has a couple of salad ideas, including one for a medateranian (? spelling) salad that uses kale. Hmm.. it's really good!

Jinx

[Sharon in Colorado]

I used to put everything under the sun in my salads, so there was never any variety. Now I add no more than 3 additions so it changes a lot each time.

So if you have 10 additions the salad can be so different every time.

like:

tomato - cucumber - green onion

avocado - bell pepper - shredded carrot

cucumber - shredded carrot - olives

dried cherries - jicama - walnuts

[michigan roman]

i always shop for a variety of greens like spinach romaine dandlelion iceberg redleaflettuce roquette endive etc and shred them thin like rawfigure says , it gives the salad a more complicated taste and also includes a broader spectrum of nutrients .

then on dressings a big thing for me is fresh herbs pulverized with a garlic clove as the dressing foundation , pulverizing really helps disolve the herb taste into the entire mixture instead of the herbs just being little bits here and there .

[Lunar*Fey]

Try putting slices of citrus fruits over your salads. Use different ingredients with each salad. Some use sweeter fruits and greens, others less sweet fruits and greens, some vegetables...If I bought my own food, oh the combinations I could come up with...here are some ideas (although some I haven't tried)

greens and citrus fruit
greens with peeled and sliced broccoli stalks, avocado, dulse
greens with sweet fruits (mangos, bananas, etc)
greens with pear or apple sliced over it
greens with chopped carrots, broccoli, seaweed, other fav veggies
mixed greens with cucumber, tomatoes, fresh dill, and pine nut dressing
greens with apple and raisins or carrot and raisins or apple, carrot, and raisins...

etc...

despite the fact that I didn't throw out any really fresh ideas, I hope this helped and I'm sure I could come up with more if I thought...

[salsababy]

I get a box of fresh organic produce from a local delivery service. I wanted to make a salad with mixed greens, avacado, basil pesto dressing and tomatoes. Well, I thought that the tomatoes were an interesting color and they tasted a bit sweet like fruit- ended up being a persimmon. Hmm...good salad addition.

So, my new favorite salad
mixed greens, avacado slices, persimmons, and a couple of drops basil pesto dressing

Pesto Dressing- Cousens
1/2 cup pine nuts (unsoaked)
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup water
1 tsp. spirulina
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup fresh basil
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

Blend all together in a blender until creamy (mine ended up being a little watery which was okay because I used less).

[JEN]

I had a taco salad today. It was sooo good. I used lettuce,the chili recipe yani posted in the forum, made some fresh salsa, corn/golden flax chips, alissa's cheddar cheese (dehydrated but dont have to) crumbled on top and some black olives.

[Raw Magwene]

I love chopped salads. I like being able to take little bites and not look like swamp thing at the lunch table. This weekend, I bought small amounts of at least a dozen veggies...beets,carrots, red onion, broccoli, green beans, fennel, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash... you get the picture. Also a ton of lettuce and sprouts. Chop it all up, put it in tupperware, and then it's easy to put something tasty together in the morning before going to work.

Be sure to try alissa's dressing recipes! They are DELICIOUS! I haven't encountered a dud yet. In fact, they have all been superb so far.

PS the sushi place near my office has one great salad... perfectly ripe avocado and mango thinly sliced on a bed of greens with a sweet miso dressing...heaven! They garnish it with the black sesame seeds, which are so beautiful!

[maryonherway]

The other day I had spinich leaves, sliced oranges, pecans & dried cranberries with "Alissa's Dressing" from her book... very good!

[RowanC]

My favorite salads from Alissa's book are her turnip/apple salad and the beet/pear/jicama salad... also there is a carrot salad that is great.

I've made the beet/pear salad without the jicama and it's very good. The key ingredient is a crispy pear the same size as the beet, and the walnuts make it taste awesome.

You could also make a waldorf type salad with apples and walnuts and celery. Use honey or agave (just 1 tablespoon) mixed with a tablesppon of lemon for dressing.

I know what you mean about salads.. they can get boring... but you have to stop thinking of a salad as "lettuce" because it can be a lot more.

Oh yeah! Another real favorite is the Kale/carrot/pine nut salad!

[Shmoopie]

If you eat nut butters, A salad with greens, apple slices, and peanut (or other nut) butter is really good...even though it might sound kind of weird.

Also, I like spinach and red grapes. Very plain and simple, but really good.

[asil]

Lately I've been liking marinated, then warmed in the dehydrator, veggies on a bed of lettuce. They remind me of my pre-raw days when I used to get this great pan fried potato with garlic over greens salad at my favorite restaurant. Right now I like:

marinated, warmed mushrooms and garlic over greens

marinated and warmed broccoli over greens

marinated and warmed corn and onion, seasoned with comino, over chopped greens, tomato, and avo

[rawmaddie]

rawnpawgirl,
An amazing dressing that works with so many salads is the Raw Food Detox Diet "Liquid Elixir Gold." I make half of a recipe & it keeps for 2 weeks in the fridge. It has a lot of fresh lemon juice and you can play around with oil substitutions. A bit of flax, Udo, or all EVOO. Amazing flavor. I'm eating it now on a plain mixed green salad. Yummy. It is terrific on Cousens' Rainbow Salad too!

rawmaddie
5 months raw on Dec. 6th
start weight=145 lbs.
now=122 lbs

[k-lee]

Here are a few items that I find really make a salad interesting: Slices of ripe pear (my favorite), dulse (whole, not flakes, if you can find it), hemp seeds, pomegranite seeds, sprouts, bee pollen, slices of zucchini. Not all at once, of course, keep it simple. But if I find my salad kinda blah, its usually because I'm out of most of the above ingredients and wasn't able to put them on my salad. Also, the idea of using citrus as a dressing is a good one. Sometimes I like to squeeze half of a valencia orange onto my salad. If you have other, less seeded citrus, then you can just put the slices right on the salad.

There's my $0.02 for the day. Don't spend it all in one place.

[Naiad]

I too was bored with my salads. I happened to find a special of organic Meyer lemons and that got me excited again!

New salads consist of:

Dressing - Macadamia Nut oil + Meyer Lemon juice + celtic sea salt
Chopped kale and baby bok choy
Sliced Avocado
Cherry Tomatoes
Scallions
Cucumber
Celery for crunch
Topped with raw pumpkin seeds marinated in Nama Shoyu and Eden Foods Dulse + Cayenne seasoning

Sooooo good :p

[k-lee]

mmmm...Meyer Lemons. I LOVE Meyer Lemons!!!!! Thanks for reminding me that they exist. I only see them around here every once in a while.

[Bobbie]

yesterday I made:

1/2 cucumber, cubed
1 red pepper, diced
2 tbs chopped dill
mixed with ketchup

[pattirose]

I got bored very quickly with salads too, until I started spicing them up with chili powder and cayenne.

I chop all my vegies and add to a bed of greens or spinach (or no greens just vegies) thenadd chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, green onions, red bell peppers, parsley, cilantro, which makes a colorful salad.

Then I add dried dill weed, parsley and cilantro (if I haven't added fresh). I generously sprinkle chili powder and cayenne pepper. This warms you up, too, for winter when it seems to cold to have a salad.

Drizzle with olive oil, fresh lemon juice and apple cidar vinegar, and toss. Very tasty, and not boring at all!

[DharmaGirl]

OMG, right now, I'm eating the most delectable salad from stuff I had in the fridge. Here it is:

1/2 avocado
small ear of corn
1 tomato
1 stalk of celery
handful of pine nuts

lime juice
celtic sea salt....

It's yummo :p

[Carmella]

Being bored too with the usual salads, I recently made the following which has become my new favorite. Yum!

I love Kale Salad
by Alex Malinsky

1/2 bunch green kale (chopped fine)
1/2 bunch dino kale (chopped fine)
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup nut butter (almond or cashew butter is best)
1 cup parsley (chopped)
1/2 cup soaked goji berries
1/2 cup sunflower sprouts
1 avocado (chopped)
1 tomato (chopped)
2 tbs. lemon juice
1 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

How to: Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and massage this mixture until soft and creamy. :-)

Carmella's comments: I've been making it with only Dino kale and replacing the nut butter with a couple tbs olive oil. I also like to throw in some seeds on top such as hemp or spicy dehydrated pumpkin and sunseeds. I made it once with goji berries (although I put way less) and it was delish but it's just as yummy without.

[rawnpawgirl]

Wow, all these great salad ideas are making me tres hungry!

I plan on trying them all!

If you have any other ideas, keep adding them!