5 healthy salads and nothing boring

With simple tricks you can give your salads all the complexity of flavors and textures you want. Put them into practice with these healthy creative cooking recipes.

PURPLE MASHED POTATO WITH A TOUCH OF PICKLES

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 400 g purple potato
• Radishes
• water
• ice
• salt

For pickle mayonnaise:

• 180 g unsweetened soy milk
• 200 g sunflower oil
• 50 g pickled pickles
• juice of half a lemon
• pepper
• salt

For sauerkraut:

• 500 g cabbage
• 50 g carrots
• 50 g turnip
• 24 g sea salt

Preparation (30 minutes):

Although this salad is prepared in only 30 minutes, if you use homemade sauerkraut you will have to have prepared it in advance.

To make sauerkraut at home, chop the cabbage, add salt and massage the leaves well until they release their water. Then mix them with the rest of the vegetables cut to taste and let ferment in a covered glass jar for 7 days (vegetables always below the liquid). Once done, you can start preparing your purple potato salad:

1. For the mashed base, take a saucepan with boiling water, add salt and cook the purple potatoes for about 20 minutes.
2. Once cooked, cool them under the tap, peel them and crush them with a rasera until you get a puree.
3. Laminate the radishes and leave them in ice water.
4. For mayonnaise, mix the ingredients, minus the lemon and pickles, and emulsify. Add the lemon and pickles. Correct salt and pepper and add it to potatoes.
5. When serving, put the puree with mayonnaise in the center of the dish, place a little sauerkraut or other pickled vegetables on top and crown with the radishes.

SEAWEED TARTARE WITH PIPARRAS DRESSING

Ingredients for 4 people:

For the tartare:

• 50 g fresh brancheweed
• 50 g spaghetti seaweed in salt
• 50 g nori seaweed in salt
• 50 g pitted olives from Aragon

For fat:

• 60 g soaked sunflower seeds
• olive oil
• dried oregano
• skin and juice of half a lemon
• salt and pepper
• mineral water

Piparra vinaigrette:

• 200 g piparras
• 1 g xanthan (optional)
• olive oil

For plating:

• 50 g fresh arugula
• red chicory

Preparation (15 minutes):

1. For the tartare, desalt the seaweed (you can use others, as long as they are in salt), chop them and mix them with the olives. Reservation.
2. For the fat, mix the ingredients in the blender and process until you get a pâté. If you consider it necessary, you can add a little water to give it a kinder texture: add to the tartare and mix well. Reservation.
3. For the piparras vinaigrette, make a smoothie and lightly texture with xanthan (optional).
4. When serving, in a deep dish, place a bottom of piparras juice. Arrange 3 quenelles (balls) of the tartare and garnish with fresh arugula and red chicory.

FRUIT SALAD IN SYRUP WITH MINT JUICE

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 200 g yellow peach
• 100 g conference pear
• 50 g pitted cherries
• 50 g white nectarine

For the syrup:

• 150 g mineral water
• 50 g coconut sugar
• 10 g lavender flowers
• 5 g green cardamom seeds
• orange peel
• a pinch of salt

Mint juice:

• 15 mint leaves
• 1 green apples
• 1 celery stick

Preparation (15 minutes):

1. Peel and cut the fruits: peach, pear, cherries and nectarine. Reserve in the fridge.
2. Mix the ingredients of the syrup, bring to a boil and infuse 5 minutes. Strain and let cool. Once cold, pour it over the cut fruits and reserve in the fridge.
3. Then prepare the mint juice. Blanching for about 30 seconds the mint leaves and cool them quickly in ice water.
4. Dry the mint and pass them through the coldpress or blender next to the green apple and celery stick. Strain and reserve until the moment of use.
5. Serve the fruits very cold in a bowl, without the syrup. At the table, “salt” with mint juice.
6. You can serve the syrup as a shot or keep it in the fridge for future elaboration.

Variant: you can choose other fruits and use them in the same proportion.

BEETROOT WITH MUSTARD ICE CREAM AND CRUNCHY CUMIN

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 400 g small beets
• coarse salt
• 100 g green apple (Granny Smith)
• 100 g red apple (royal gala)
• Cumin papadum
• oil

For the tartar dressing:

• 100 g avocado
• Cooked beef trimmings
• First cold pressed olive oil
• pepper
• salt

For ice cream:

• 4 “green” bananas (not very ripe) thinly sliced and frozen 12 hours
• 60 g green mustard

Preparation (60 minutes):

1. Place the beets on a baking sheet and cover them completely with coarse salt.
2. Bake at 180°C for 45-60 minutes. Check that they are cooked and then let them cool. Reservation.
3. Cut the beets into brunoise, that is, into small cubes of 1 or 2 cm on each side. Mix well and reserve in the fridge.
4. Crush the frozen banana together with the mustard until you get a smooth and homogeneous cream. Leave it 30 more minutes (at least) in the freezer.
5. Mix all the ingredients of the dressing and process in the Thermomix or any other processor until you get a smooth and fine reddish cream. Mix this dressing with the brunoise and rectify salt and pepper. Reserve in the fridge.
6. With a ring, plate the beet tartar in the center of the plate and crown with a quenelle or scoop of ice cream.
7. At the moment, pass the papadum (Indian bread) through oil at about 160 ° C until it inflates like a soufflé. Shape it on kitchen paper and serve it to accompany.

THAI PAPAYA SALAD WITH CILANTRO

Ingredients for 4 people:

• medium papaya
• 200 g coconut milk
• coriander sprouts

For Thai sauce:

• 100 g papaya trimmings
• 25 g orange juice
• 10 g lime juice
• 5 g lemon juice
• 1 g ginger
• 1 g orange peel
• 1 g salt
• 1 g pepper
• 20 g coconut milk
• 25 g olive oil

Preparation (40 minutes + freezing time):

1. Anticipate coconut slush: place the coconut milk in a container and leave it in the freezer all the night before.
2. With a Parisian spoon (or sacabolas) cut the papaya into balls of various sizes and set aside.
3. Prepare the Thai sauce by crushing all the ingredients together, except the olive oil. Strain and bind the sauce by adding the olive oil to the thread.
4. Macerate the papaya in this sauce for at least 30 minutes, inside the fridge, to cool.
5. Serve balls of different sizes with your sauce. At the moment, grate with a fork the coconut granita (take it out of the freezer 10 minutes before) and finish with some cilantro sprouts.

GOOD IDEAS FOR MAKING CREATIVE AND FUN SALADS

It is important in our kitchen not to limit salads to simple green leaves or the classic mixed salad. Today we have at our disposal an immense variety of terrestrial and marine vegetables and, in addition, we have the necessary information to be able to work them correctly and get the most out of them in our dishes.

Nor should we limit salads to a single texture, as we can serve liquid salads, such as gazpacho. In creative salads there are no limits.

In fact, the creation of a salad depends on three food groups and four indispensable elements in the dressing. Let’s start with food:

RAW VEGETABLES

• Among the lettuces: oak leaf, trocadero, red lollo, chicory, endive…
• Green leaves: spinach, arugula, watercress, lamb’s lettuce…
• Seasonal fruits: pear, apple, orange, strawberry, tomato…
• Fresh herbs: coriander, parsley, chervil, basil…
• Raw vegetables: fennel, carrot, radishes…
• Ferments and pickles: sauerkraut, kimchi, olives, pickles…
• Seaweed: nori, sea lettuce, sea spaghetti…

COOKED AND CHILLED VEGETABLES

• Green vegetables blanched for two minutes: broccoli, snow peas, green beans, cabbage…
• Cooked vegetables: roasted beets, baked pumpkin, steamed cauliflower, sautéed mushrooms, carrot in salt, semi-dried tomatoes…

SEEDS AND SPROUTS

• All kinds of seeds: pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, almonds… and germinated seeds of any vegetable.
• Cooked and cooled carbohydrates: brown rice, quinoa, millet, sorghum…
• Vegetable proteins: cooked and cold legumes, or legume purees, such as hummus.

A GOOD DRESSING

In every salad, the key is the dressing, and in this, the key is the correct balance of these four main elements: salty, sour, sweet and fatty.

• Fat: it is the conductor of flavor. Normally, we will use olive oil of first cold pressing, but we can also use a cream of pipes or a light mayonnaise.
• Salt: enhances the flavor, but we should not limit ourselves to always using it (whether marine, pink, black …). We can also enhance it with salty condiments such as miso, soy sauce or umeboshi, or even with seaweed, high in iodine instead of sodium.
• Acidity: the acid contribution refreshes, cleanses the mouth and gives us some counterpoints that dynamize the flavors. We talk about the different vinegars, but also citrus fruits (lime, lemon, kumquat, tangerine …)), both the juice and its skin.
• The sweet: a sweet spot in a vinaigrette takes the experience to another, higher level. I think the most successful thing is to use rice, corn and maple molasses in very low contributions, but any juice or fruit puree can also work.

The dressing gives you the final touch, so it is important to take care of the details. We must unify all the ingredients well to create a homogeneous and uncut sauce. Thus, the flavors are homogenized.

For this I recommend using hand rods and adding a couple of drops of mineral water, which will help to release the sauce a little if necessary.

Do not dress until the moment you go to eat the salad. Leave the leftover undressed, since the action of these fatty, acidic and salty means cook the food, leaving it useless in minutes.