Nourish & Flourish: 6 tips to up your salad game

Salads are one of the most popular ways to start eating healthier but producing a memorable and practical salad (easy to eat) is a must. Leslie Dennis Taylor of Fast Well Feast Well has posted a Salad Repair Manual with six tips that she says will up your salad game considerably.

1. Never use iceberg lettuce for salad. Wait! What? Yep. Great for burgers or sandwiches or subs, but not for salads. There are many other greens out there—romaine, arugula, butterhead, dandelion greens, and loose-leaf are some.
2. Store-bought dressing is out. This initially makes sense when eliminating processed food. It’s also practical, since salad dressing can usually be made from ingredients you already have on hand, like oil and various seasonings.
3. The dressing is never, I repeat, NEVER served on the side. Leslie’s rationale for this was a bit hard to get through, but it makes sense. “When you make a really stellar salad, with dressing pre-mixed in, you don’t have any leftover salad!” she writes. No more temptation to save the undressed greens just so they’ll go bad in the fridge.
4. Finely chop all of the ingredients, especially the lettuce. It’s easier to eat, she says, and it mixes better.
5. Thoroughly coat lettuce before adding toppings. Leslie does this, she says, because “toppings are heavy so if you mix the salad too much after they’ve been added, they fall to the bottom.” Just lightly toss them after adding to the lettuce.
6. Buy whole heads of lettuce. When you chop lettuce, you injure it and it starts decomposing. Keep that process from starting until it’s time to eat. She notes that you need to separate each leaf to wash, “paying special attention to the base.”

Get good at making salads, Leslie notes, and your family will prefer them and other healthy dishes over less healthy food.