Build a Meal: Easy Grab and Go Salads or Wraps
Did you know that our digestion starts with our eyes and with our noses? That’s right, smelling and/or seeing food sends messages to the brain and initiates our salivary glands to produce enzymes to ready us for digestion! Although most times we can’t smell a salad, we can certainly be enticed by all the colours in a salad! Salads are one dish that, if done correctly makes every bite a delight by activating our taste receptors, the sweet, the salty, the sour and bitter. Balancing these adds that “umami’ (means ‘yummy’ in Japanese!) dynamic flavour that people love!
Besides being a healthy option, here is one other reason to add nutrient salads to the daily menu: it helps feed our gut microbiome with healthy fibre! Our microbiome needs variety ( minimum 30 different plant foods) in order to maintain and produce a diverse colony of good bacteria in our gut. This is important not only for colon health and function, but for brain and immune health as well; plentiful whole fibre is the way to achieve a healthy brain and body! So, be daring, and explore outside the box with something you’ve never had! Experiment and try one or several new ingredients each time you build a salad.
Speaking of umami, what would a salad be without a dressing? And let’s be honest, a salad is just a salad if you don’t have the right dressing! Here you will explore how to build a salad to suit your own taste and have two tangy-sweet dressings to choose from to top off your perfect dish!
In order to have this salad as a ready option for dinner, lunch or an outing
there may be some extra preparation required. Choose a wide mouth mason jar or other convenient family or personal sized container/s to build your salad. Be sure to prepare the dressing in advance so that the flavours have an opportunity to blend in. Reserve the dressing in a sealed container till you are ready to use!
Here are some tips on how to build your salad.
To help you get started, click the link to my and view the video below.
Feature Salad : The Everything Veggies, Bean and Kale Salad
Two Dressing Options: Italian Viniagrette or Creamy Avocado
Grab and Go Salad
To help you get variety and keeping your choices simple, follow this quick guide to help build your choice salad. Have your fruit, vegetables washed and rough chopped, ribboned, spiralled or diced to enjoy a salad filled with variety and ready to assemble!
Simple Steps to a Great Salad:
GREENS: choose one or two sweet leafy greens: (eg. butter or romaine lettuce, kale, spinach)
BITTER: choose one bitter green/red leaf (eg. radicchio, arugula, mustard greens, chicory, dandelion)
FRUIT: (eg.tomato, grape or granny smith apple, strawberry)
FAT: one or more healthy fat: avocado, nuts ( walnuts, cashew, pecan, almond) or a seed (sunflower, pumpkin or hemp, flax (ground or oil) and olives (black, kalamata etc)
CRUNCH: one crunchy vegetable (eg. cucumber, celery, radish, celery root)
HERB/SPICE: one leafy herb (eg. basil, parsley, cilantro, oregano, chives (preference to fresh, dried okay)
PROTEIN: one protein plant or animal (eg. cooked quinoa, cooked bean/medley of beans, grilled chicken, salmon or tuna)
VEGETABLE SPICE: one vegetable spice/herb: (eg. red onion, garlic scapes, chives..)
DRIED SPICE: one or more powdered spice (eg. sea salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin)
OPTIONALS: feta cheese or cheese chunks of your choice. If you would like to add a tortilla wrap as a bottom, they make a delicious flavoured finale to the salad!
That’s a Wrap!
Click the link to access the full Build a Salad Guide, the Featured Recipe and more pro-tips!
Hi Anna, where you getting your tortillas from, what brand you using ?