Easy Everyday Salad

Healthy, crunchy, creamy and smashingly tasty everyday salad for weeknights. This salad recipe is vegan and highly adaptable.

Hello HTS Community

Healthy eating shouldn’t be a matter worry for anyone. It is so easy to make a salad that is fresh, nutritious and at the same time filling. Most of the times salads are eaten on side with something, and are overlooked. We are going to do the opposite, and make salad the star of the show. Two other star salads that you and others can enjoy are Crunchy chickpea salad and Tabbouleh.

Vegetables and Protein

The recipe is adaptable and you can put whatever you have available in your kitchen. All you need are greens, some vegetables, a protein source and a simple dressing to make everything flavourful. I am using a combination of variety of lettuces, tomato, cucumber and zucchini for vegetables and boiled chickpeas as the protein. You can use spinach with lettuce, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower in vegetables and any protein source, literally. Paneer, tofu, chicken, red kidney beans, boiled eggs all of them excellent sources of protein.

Garnishing

Garnishes and extras are optional, but they do impart a great flavour combination. In this recipe I am using walnuts and feta cheese. Microgreens, roasted seeds, apples, orang slices, olives, jalapeños, avocado, chopped almonds, roasted peanuts are great examples of garnishes. Each of these add another layer of flavour, plus crunchy notes.

Salad Dressing

Next item is the dressing on the salad. A salad dressing is a sauce, typically with oil and vinegar combined with herbs and other items to put on a salad. For this salad I’ve made a sriracha and garlic dressing. There is another simple sriracha dressing recipe that you can try. Honestly, I love the little heat that comes from sriracha and makes the salad super tasty.

Tahini with lemon juice and little sugar is another great dressing for salad with chickpeas. My recipe of a betel leaf salad consists of a tamarind based dressing, which works very well with carrots and peanuts. Balsamic reduction is great when you are using avocados.

So you get the idea, right? Mix and match dressings and vegetables and you will come up with a beautiful bowl of salad. These dressings require minimum ingredients and are best homemade. Of course you have the option to buy from a store, but believe me, the fresh ones taste much better. Salad dressings can be made ahead in time and stored in refrigerator for a week.

Ingredients for Everyday salad

• For the dressing
  • Sriracha- 1 teaspoon
  • Garlic- 2 small cloves
  • Brown sugar- 1 teaspoon (you can use honey as well)
  • Black pepper- 1/4 teaspoon
  • Salt- 1/4 teaspoon
  • Lemon juice- 2 teaspoon (vinegar is also fine)
  • Extra virgin olive oil- 2 teaspoon
• Rest of the items
  • Lettuce- about 100g (mix of romain, kale, arugula and green oak)
  • Cucumber- 1, roughly chopped
  • Tomato- 1, roughly chopped
  • Zucchini- 1, roughly chopped
  • Olive oil- 1 teaspoon
  • Salt- to taste
  • Black pepper- 1/4 teaspoon
  • Boiled chickpeas- 1 cup
  • Feta cheese- 50g, for garnish
  • Walnuts- 2 tablespoon, chopped for garnish

Steps:

• Put all the ingredients of the dressing in a mixing bowl or a mug and whisk until thoroughly combined. Keep aside.

• In a large bowl, start with layering lettuce that has been roughly teared by hand, followed by cucumber and tomatoes. Make sure the lettuce is washed and cleaned.

• In a pan heat olive oil and cook zucchini on high heat for a couple of minutes until you see a little char. Sprinkle salt and black pepper, turn the side and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Layer on top of the lettuce in the bowl.

• Add chickpeas to the bowl, followed by feta cheese and walnuts. Pour the salad dressing we prepared earlier and serve immediately.