Tips for Making a Green Salad - Fast!

Spring is salad season.  At the farmers markets you will find luscious lettuce leaves to don your dinner plate.

I like eating salad as long as it's not boring.  Translation: there has to be variety in flavor.  However, variety in flavor usually translates to work.  Because I want to minimize work, I've found some short cuts for making a salad fast.  Maybe this is my version of batch cooking with fresh veggies.

1.  Prepare lettuce all at once.

My salad spinner gets a work out in the spring.  When I bring home lettuce, it is rinsed and rough chopped.  Store either in a plastic bag or bowl with a lid in the fridge.  Keeping the air out will keep your lettuce from wilting. I like to toss in a paper towel to absorb extra water.

2.  Chop everything at one time.

This may seem like a no-brainer out there to most of you, but I just made this discovery recently.  Chopping the entire bunch of green onions ensures they get used because the work is done.  We love green onions on most everything.  Bonus: onions are prebiotics and good for gut health.

My husband loves green olives on his salad.  I could take or leave them.  Usually they get left off salads because I'm too lazy to chop one. more. thing.  This week I chopped a whole jar at once for future salads.

I used to dread making salads because I'd have to clean up a huge mess (after myself).  Grating a carrot is so messy!  So, I pulled out my food processor and grated a whole pound of carrots.  Just be warned, grated carrots will spoil quickly (about 5 days).

Other salad toppings:

-grated cheese

-red bell pepper

-lacto fermented banana peppers

-cucumbers

-nuts/seeds

3.  Use lacto-fermented veggies on your salad.

This idea came from my new friend, Brandy.  When she gave me a jar of lacto-fermented ginger carrots, she said, "I just sprinkle a few on my salad."  Genius.  I get more probiotics in my diet and this solved the problem above (that raw grated carrots spoil quickly).  After I gobbled up the jar she made, I made my own variation of dilly carrots with turnips from my FarmShare.

4.  Make a giant batch of salad dressing.

This is my current favorite salad dressing (I double it). But also here is a yummy dressing and here is a recipe for ranch and honey mustard.  Salad dressings are easy to make and very easy baby steps to take if you're beginning a real food journey.

What do you enjoy on a salad?

-Julie