Salad inspiration needed

[LouisaJF]

I'm on a bit of a healthy eating kick and I'm trying to introduce some more salads at lunch time but I'm not feeling very inspired. I don't have very much time or money and I'm not a big fruit fan. Does anyone have any recipe suggestions? Warm salad options would be particularly welcome!

If you have the facilities to do warm salad at lunchtime, personally I'd go for veg based soups. They fulfil the "comfort" part of a meal much better than salad IMO.

However, I sometimes have salad for a change and have recently discovered that a mixture of half mayo, half plain yogurt mixed with a little mustard and a squeeze of lemon juice is actually an improvement on plain mayo and because it's runnier, you need less. Yesterday I used it to make Waldorf Salad.

I am appallingly bad at making soup, that one is a non-starter. I'm at home so there's no shortage of facilities, I just have a 2.5 year old and a 10 month old snapping at my heels.

Hello

How about

Rocket leaves and some finely diced beetroot (find those vac pacs very handy to have around) tossed in some olive oil/balsamic dressing, add some alfalfa sprouts, a scattering of pine nuts (or chopped nut of your choice) and some chicken. I often have this and really enjoy it, especially with some carrot sticks or olives on the side.

A good warm option for winter is chop some pre-cooked chestnuts, beetroot and leftover cold meat into cubes, pop in a dish in a medium oven for 10 minutes whilst you make up a salad with leaves, cherry tomatoes & peppers with some orange slices and a dressing made from a little bit of the orange juice squeezed from the dressing with some olive oil.

I find making up salads a lot easier when I have jars of things like olives, gherkins, skinless peppers, artichoke spread, capers in the fridge. Also vac pack beetroot and chestnuts, tinned potatoes, those tubs of sprouts. Having a couple of items you don't really need to cook/prep and can just throw in simply makes the salad much more impressive, varied and tastier. Plus, much, much quicker.

There are a lot of spanish people on the city I live in, so there is a spanish deli catering to those expats that I go to a lot that has lot sof interestign things at a very reasonable cost. Especially olives stuffed with gherkins. Look ridiculously phallic but very tasty, either with salad or a glass of wine at night.

For lunch today I had a cous cous and roast veg salad that I made last night. I also make the same salad with quinoa sometimes but as I had a packet of cous cous in the cupboard that was what I used.

I made the cous cous as per the instructions on the packet (and added some extra seasoning and cayenne pepper to it). Then I roasted a red pepper, yellow pepper, red onion and some mushrooms in the oven with chopped garlic, chillies, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. When the veg was cone I mixed it through the cous cous. There is enough for two very filling packed lunches.

I make quite a few variations on this with whatever veggies I have, and often add feta cheese or anchovies or olives too, really depends what I have. I always add lots of flavour in the way of chilli or smoked paprika or something. If I'm at home I made add some fresh avocado or rocket too when I serve it.

I like figs, ricotta, green beans, pumpkin seeds, grilled chicken

Pork chop grilled and sliced, plums griddled, roast butternut squash, green beans, apple dressing

Caeser of course.

Avocado, crispy bacon, boiled egg

Peas, goats cheese, peaches, sliced and fried courgette

Shredded white cabbage, celery, red pepper, red onion, carrot and radish pickle, dressing from Vietnamese dipping sauce, chicken

Mostly all on leaves of course and any other salad bits in the fridge

Missed beetroot off the top one

And crispy onions off the bottom one!

I basically copy salads that I like that I've eaten out

Have a good store of things that make salads great - seeds and nuts, dressing ingredients, pickles, olives etc

Google 'Ottolenghi salads' as he has a great take on them.