Add More Salad to Your Life

Salad is a great meal all-year round (yes, I did mean, meal). Not only is it a healthy dietary option, it is also a tremendously elastic dish which works easily as either meal or side.

Summer always makes me crave salad, because it is such a refreshingly cool and delicious dish. If you want to avoid turning on your stove or burners, salad is the way to go. Especially with the many different summer food options, you have a great opportunity to make salads come alive with a multitude of fresh and grilled ingredients.

For dinner, there are lots of great salad options. Rather than focus on specific recipes, here are some ideas of how to create a substantial meal out of salad.

Add Meat

If you have leftover steak or chicken from a weekend BBQ, either is great for filling out just about any salad. Of course, you can also turn on the BBQ and grill up one or the other for your salad on the same day as well.

Add Fish

Salmon and tuna are equally great on most salads. The advantage of fish is you have the option of topping salads with cooked fillets, or with canned tuna or salmon. Both will work well, though with canned fish, you may also want to consider some additional ingredients like beans and/or eggs, similar to a Salade Niçoise.

Add Beans or Meat Substitutes

There are lots of great additions to salad, which are equally good for non-vegetarians. Canned legumes (beans) can be added to any salad for flavor, color, and fullness. Especially if you want to add something different and spicy, consider either cooked or grilled chickpeas.

For strict vegetarians, grilled tofu is another good option. But for vegetarians who eat more widely, feta cheese or hard boiled eggs are tasty additions and work nicely with many salad variations.

Now, for people who feel that salad is just not substantial enough as meal, it is easy to substitute lettuce with pasta, ravioli, rice, couscous, or quinoa, giving your salad a denser base. Or come up with your own idea to try out—experimentation is, after all, the root of delicious invention.

That’s what Jerry’s Kitchen strives to do every day: look for creative ways to make old dishes taste new. When catering in Doylestown, King of Prussia, and around the greater Philadelphia area, we strive to thrill the palate of our customers.

Source
TheKitchn.com