Best Tossed Salad
Serves 4
Total Time:
Eating vegetables is the key to changing your acid/alkaline balance. A lot of people think eating a lot of salads is what they have to do to make this change. Salads are great. They help you eat a rainbow of foods, and we all know that the different colors indicate different minerals and phytonutrients. Also, salads are flexible, and a great way to clean up vegetables that haven’t been cooked into something else.
However, a lot of people use way too much salad dressing. While you want to have the tangy flavor of the dressing in every bite, you definitely don’t want to wind up with vegetable soup. Here’s my technique for making a basic tossed salad with whatever I have on hand.
Ingredients
- 1 clove garlic, smashed
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons flavorful vinegar. Red wine or apple cider vinegar is pretty common, but you might have more exotic flavored vinegars, such as champagne, that will also work
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ½ cup protein: boiled eggs, nut pieces, or cooked beans are all great choices. Chicken, steak, or wild caught fish will also work.
- 3 cups fresh vegetables: use whatever you have in your fridge that can be eaten raw, such as cucumbers, carrots, onions, celery, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, leeks, or parsnips. You can also use any fruit with fairly firm flesh, like apples, pears, strawberries. You want to cut the vegetables up so they’re bite sized, which might mean dices, small sticks, or shreds.
- 2 hearts of lettuce, ripped into 2-4 inch pieces. Can use any combination of leafy vegetables that you enjoy raw, such as spinach, turnip greens, swiss chard, cabbage, or radicchio.
Directions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the garlic, mustard, vinegar. Drizzle in the olive oil and whisk that together until you have a creamy emulsion.
- Add in all of the protein and vegetables except the lettuce. Toss until everything is coated thoroughly. If any salad dressing remains pooled at the bottom of the bowl, pour it off.
- Add the lettuce and toss vigorously.
