5 Healthy Salad Recipes: Full of Vitamins and Minerals

With a little time and creativity, you can enjoy easy, delicious, nutritious and satiating salad recipes. Take advantage of seasonal ingredients and refresh yourself with summer flavors.

Throughout the year the salad is a starter or complementary dish that enriches the menu with vitamins, minerals and fiber that helps satisfy appetite and regulate blood sugar levels. But in summer, in addition, the salad can become a complete, digestive and refreshing dish.

Salads can be as diverse as food cultures exist. The possibilities are endless. However, not everything goes when mixing ingredients, because what may be appetizing, may not be convenient for the body to digest it or to balance nutrients. That is why it is key to organize meals.

HOW TO PREPARE AND COMBINE INGREDIENTS IN SALAD

Fresh, colorful versatile and nutritious, salads allow you to combine prepared ingredients with different techniques. There may be fresh, blanched, water-cooked or sautéed ingredients.

Try maceration, a respectful preparation method, which is done by letting one or more ingredients stand for several hours in a mixture that could well be quality oil, salt, citrus juice or vinegar, along with spices and aromatic herbs. This technique is very appropriate, for example, to prepare tofu, tempeh or vegetables.

To achieve a nutritious, delicious and balanced salad you just have to try to include seasonal and proximity foods, a variety of green leaves, aromatic plants, toppings (seeds, nuts, etc.) and whole grains, tofu, tempeh or cooked legumes, which will provide protein. The formula is completed with a healthy fatty food, such as extra virgin olive oil, flax oil or avocado. Unleash your creativity and enjoy!

5 SALADS COMPLETE WITH ALL THE NUTRIENTS YOU NEED IN ONE MEAL

These salad recipes from Sonia Mengual are complete, delicious and easy to prepare.

WHITE BEAN SALAD WITH CHERRY TOMATO AND PEPPERS ON ARUGULA BED

For two people

• 500 g cooked white bean
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 yellow pepper
• 1 onion
• 75 g cherry tomato
• 30 g pickled capers
• Arugula to taste
• 1 head garlic
• 1/2 tablespoon baking soda
• Apple cider vinegar
• Extra virgin olive oil
• salt

Preparation:

1. For beans, soak them with half a teaspoon of baking soda overnight (12 hours). Then, drain them, pour them into a pot and cover them with water up to two fingers on top. Add half a tablespoon of cumin, two bay leaves and a head of unpeeled garlic.
2. Cook them over high heat and when the water boils, lower it. Keep a soft boil for 40 minutes or until softened. You can also use the espresso cooker.
3. Remember to cook legumes always without salt so that they do not harden. Add it in the final cooking or in the dressing.
4. Reserve the drained beans and peeled garlic head at this time.
5. Cut the peppers into brunoise and the tomatoes in half. From the tender onion you will use the green part; Clean it and choose the greenest and freshest piece. You can add a quarter of onion in very thin strips.
6. Drain the capers, mix them with all the vegetables and salt and pepper.
7. Crush the peeled garlic with a tablespoon of vinegar and 60 ml of oil. You can do it with a fork or use the mixer.
8. Mix the already cooled beans with all the vegetables and dressing.

You can eat it warm at the moment or leave it prepared, but without dressing the arugula leaves.

FIG SALAD, MACERATED KALE AND TOFU WITH SESAME SEEDS

Ingredients for two people:

• 100 g natural tofu
• 4 ripe figs
• 6 kale cabbage leaves
• 1/2 red onion
• Juice of a lemon
• Turmeric powder
• Sesame
• Extra virgin olive oil
• salt

Preparation:

1. To macerate the kale, wash the leaves and separate the stem (you can use it to make a vegetable cream or soup). Once dry, put them in a bowl and add a pinch of salt, a splash of oil and half the juice of a lemon.
2. Massage them and let them soften for 20 minutes, until they look like you’ve scalded them. Actually, with this maceration you have achieved a kind of “cooking” without heat.
3. Cut the onion into julienne and incorporate it into the bowl with the kale, so the onion loses some strength due to the effect of the lemon juice and will be more pleasant when eaten raw.
4. For tofu, tear it with a fork or fingers, the idea is that it is of different sizes. Then, put it in a pan with a little oil, a pinch of salt and half a teaspoon of turmeric powder. Leave it over medium-high heat until golden brown.
5. Then, lower the heat to a minimum and add the washed and quartered figs. Cover it and wait about 10 minutes.
6. To plate, place the kale, without the excess juice, and on top the tofu with the figs. Add some sesame seeds to give it a crunchy touch.
7. Tip: If you use ripe figs, some of their juice will caramelize and when mixed with tofu will make a natural and sweet sauce.

BULGUR SALAD WITH PINK TOMATO, RASPBERRIES AND A TOUCH OF LIME

Ingredients for two people:

1. 80 g bulgur
2. 100 g raspberries
3. 1 lime
4. 1 pink tomato
5. 1 cucumber
6. 1 bunch of fresh parsley
7. Extra virgin olive oil
8. Salt

Preparation:

1. Bulgur should be cooked in twice as much water. When it comes to a boil add a pinch of salt, the bulgur, and lower the heat by half. Cover it and leave it like that until it is fully cooked.
2. Turn off the heat when the water has been consumed. Add a splash of extra virgin olive oil and stir the grains with a fork (it is key to keep them loose). Let warm and store in the fridge.
3. Wash and chop the parsley, then cut the tomato and cucumber into half-centimeter cubes.
4. For the dressing, put the lime juice, four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt in a small jar with a screw cap. Close and shake until the mixture emulsifies.
5. Mix the bulgur with the rest of the ingredients and the dressing until everything is impregnated.
6. For plating, add the raspberries and a little lime zest.
7. Variations: Change parsley or cilantro, which provides freshness, character and a lot of aromata.
8. For another dressing, mash with the mixer a skinless apple, a teaspoon of old mustard, a teaspoon of vinegar, yeast, oil and salt. A sauce will remain, which is also great for sandwiches and wraps.

PEAR AND WAKAME SALAD WITH TEMPEH AND ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS

Ingredients for two people:

1. 1 conference
2. 3 teaspoons dehydrated wakame seaweed
3. 1 cucumber
4. 2 cups canons
5. 200 g chickpea tempeh or tamari soy
6. Roasted pumpkin seeds
7. extra virgin olive oil
8. salt

Preparation:

1. Leave the algae in a glass of cold water to hydrate while sautéing the tempeh cut into sticks in a pan with a splash of oil. When golden brown on both sides add two tablespoons of tamari. Turn off the heat so that the sauce does not caramelize too much.
2. Peel the pear and cut it into quarters. Keep part of the skin of the cucumber and chop it into thin slices. Mix both ingredients with the canons and the well-drained seaweed and dress the salad with a pinch of salt and a good splash of olive oil.
3. Toast the pumpkin seeds for seven minutes over medium-low heat. You’ll know they’re there when they start to swell and sound. Use them as decoration.
4. For the most daring palates and spicy taste, you can include fresh chilli in very thin slices or a cayenne chilli in the oil while the tempeh is browned. This will make the oil impregnated with the flavor of the chilli and transfer to the tempeh less intensely, but leaving a spicy touch.
5. This simple salad will be an ideal dinner for the summer because it combines the freshness of the pear, the silkiness of the seaweed and the taste of sautéed tempeh with the crunchy taste of the seeds.

WALDORF SALAD WITH CELERY, WALNUTS AND APPLE WITH PINK PEPPER

Ingredients for two people:

• Celery and its leaves (1 branch)
• 1 cup peeled walnuts
• 1 sour green apple
• 2 lettuce buds
• 75 ml unsweetened coconut milk
• 1/2 lemon juice
• pink pepper
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt

Preparation:

1. Let the nuts soak, at least an hour, to soften and remove the phytic acid. They will be more digestive and nutritious.
2. Clean the celery stick and discard the strands, using a peeler or lace. Then, cut it finely, just like the leaves. It is very important to preserve the leaves so that they are well present in the recipe, as they are even more important than the branch.
3. Cut the apple with a match or sticks preserving the skin. Then, finely chop the lettuce buds into strips.
4. Drain the nuts and reserve half for the dressing. The other half chop her with the knife.
5. For the dressing, introduce coconut milk, nuts, lemon juice, about four tablespoons of oil, salt and pink pepper to taste in a bowl and crush the mixture.
6. Gather the ingredients in a salad bowl and cover them generously with this sauce. Mix well.
7. Let stand in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. You can decorate the salad with celery flowers, which will give it a touch of unique flavor.

Tip: Moisturizing green leaves in cold water for 10 minutes offers spectacular results, as they recover their crunchy texture.

FILL YOUR SALADS WITH COLOR

• Green: vegetables of this color are depurative and contain vitamin K, which thins the blood.
• Red and yellow: These foods contain vitamins A and C, with antioxidant and regenerating effects.
• White: they are rich in potassium and magnesium. These minerals regulate blood pressure and are anti-inflammatory.
• Purpura: they provide antioxidant compounds such as anthocyanins, which collaborate with immunity.