Exciting salads. Is there such a thing?

[SpiderCharlotte]

Tell me you most lovely salads please - nothing too fatty or oily as it'll play havoc with my stomach and I'm trying to lose a few pounds anyway.

I do like salads a lot, but god I'm bored with my usual chicken salad!

Nicoise? Avocado yum, griddled asparagus and cheese?

Couscous salad is a favorite in our house. Cous Cous, red and yellow pepper, olives and beetroot (extra beetroot juice to make it bright pink!). Finish it off with a drizzle of olive oil and some salt and pepper.

Cubes of roasted squash, halved baby plum tomatoes, spring onion, crumbled feta in put lentils with fresh herb and a dressing is a lovely one.

I buy the ready cooked pouches of lentil for extra ease.

I love adding feta, it's not too fatty and nice and salty! And with pomegranate seeds to give a lovely flavour too.
Or
Oives, walnuts, pear, small bit of blue cheese

I’d add lovely things from jars. Olives, capers, beetroot, roast peppers, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes etc. Also pine nuts/other nuts are great.

My favourite is chicken marinated in a bit of soy sauce and cornflour, then cooked in a non-stick pan, with Chinese leaf, cherry toms, peppers, cucumber, sugarsnaps and radishes, with a grating of cheddar which melts under the hot chicken. Mr Twiglet likes to add dressing, but I don't bother. Sometimes, I add some bacon, or blue cheese instead.

I should have said I'm kind of avoiding cheese at the moment - every time I have it I seem to get a dodgy stomach, so I'm cutting right down/out. Which is a shame because I bloody love it.

Loving the idea of chicken in soy sauce ...

I did a salad with chopped piccolo tomatoes, cubes of cucumber, feta cubes, canned tuna and cracked black pepper. All in a big bowl with a drizzle of Virgin olive oil and a good toss around. It was crackin' 👍

Fattoush

Have a look at Ottenghi salads

Salade nicoise with eggs, tuna, green beans and olives.

Salad leaves, asparagus, cherry toms, tuna steak, cream fraiche with basil mashed into it.

You need to check out this website OP!

womenlaughingalonewithsalad.tumblr.com/page/3

Kale with croutons, pumpkin seeds and red onion. I add Parmesan but you wouldn’t have to.
Chicken, rice noodles, carrot, cucumber, peanut, mint and coriander with whatever vaguely Asian dressing I can rustle up using fish sauce.

I have ‘Around the world in salads’ by Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi on my Kindle. It has the most amazing, exciting salad recipes. It has really livened up my repertoire, and I am eating way more veg than before I got it.

I love a salad with mango and prawns and chilli. Add some rocket and is a wonderful flavourful salad

Roasted butternut squash, beetroot, sweet corn. Plus all other average salad stuff.

I love a good salad but I find lettuce really boring so I tend to make grains then add lots of bits and pieces. DH and I both got salads last night when eating out and they were delicious.

Quinoa with avocado, greens, tomatoes, sliced almonds, avocado-lime yog dressing.

Seared brussels sprouts with cauliflower, crimini mushrooms, edamame, sesame seeds and a maple-tamari dressing.

Can't be doing with salads at the moment, but these are my favourites for when I do:

Cobb salad (basically whatever you want in it, but I'd say (all chopped so easy to mix) lettuce, tomato, hard boiled egg, blue cheese, lardons or bacon bits, chicken, avocado, maybe some kind of onion (red or spring).

Quinoa salad: (I do a mix of quinoa with bulgar wheat, as that's just the packet I buy from Ocado!) cooked and cooled peas and broad beans, feta, chopped cucumber, chopped toms, chopped spring onions, maybe some avocado, lots of salt and pepper and extra virgin olive oil drizzled over the top.

Nicoise: lettuce, tuna, toms, hard boiled egg, maybe some red onion, some cooked French beans.

But basically whatever's out there, I also like adding artichoke hearts to salads, and sliced radishes for some heat.

I make a lovely salad, copied from one I eat in a cafe in Liverpool.

Rocket leaves
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Roasted figs (cut them into quarters, bit of oil, then roast for 15 mins)
Cashew nuts
Roasted sweet potatoes (cubed)
Feta cheese crumbled all over
Balsamic vinegar

Today I had one at the cafe and noticed they'd changed it a bit - roasted red pepper strips instead of the figs, and olives and red onion in it.

A restaurant near us does an amazing salad with smoked salmon, mango and walnuts. It also has feta but you can leave that out if you don't if you don't want cheese. I think they use a mixture of rocket and spinach leaves rather than bog standard lettuce.

Fantastic suggestions, thank you! I'm seeing artichoke hearts mentioned a couple of time - I will confess that I have never tasted an artichoke heart in my life. Please don't judge me. What do they taste like? (Don't say artichokes ...)

Artichoke hearts are amazing - very delicate, maybe a tiny bit soapy. A bit like asparagus. I like them in oil (from a jar or deli counter) not tinned.

The green roasting tin is good for veggie salads op.

One of my faves is kale rubbed with lemon juice, honey and olive oil, then mango added. The kale goes all velvety. Chuck on toasted pumpkin seeds too. Very simple, very nice.

Salads are bad when they're all the same texture, nuts and seeds or cooked veg help mix it up.

Mexican super bowl
Google but stuff like: Rice, black beans, tomatoes, avocado (optional), greens/salad leaves, red onion

Cobb salad 😛

Carluccios did a lovely salad this summer - leaves, toasted hazelnuts, dried apricots and balsamic sauce (thicker than balsamic vinegar). I've tried to reproduce it at home and it’s been really nice, not the same, but very nice.