Simple salads

Salads are a great way to enrich your daily diet. They give you the antioxidant boost with minerals and vitamins. Here are 9 simple salads that are easy and quick to make, budget-friendly and healthy.

Salads as side dish

Salads are a great way to enrich your daily diet. They have fruits and veggies and can complement your main meals of the day and make them colorful and variegated. They are rich in minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. Moreover, one can add a lean protein source to it such as legumes or lean white meat like chicken or turkey. Consider adding healthy fats in form of cheese.

Nine simple salads

Here are nine simple salads that are quick and easy to make. Additionally, they are affordable and healthy too.

Japanese cucumber salad or Sunomono

This is readily made from ingredients that are available all over the world. The classic salad has Japanese cucumbers. You can use any type of cucumbers if you do not have access to the Japanese ones. One can dry the slices of cucumber with paper towels or add salt to them. They are delicious, crunchy and cool. They refresh and hydrate too.

Simple salads
Japanese cucumber salad (Source: Hungry Huy)

Simple cabbage salad

This has cabbage cut pieces or thin slices tossed in an easy dressing. They are crunchy and are best during the fall season when the cabbage are in their sweetest form.

Beet salad

This has just a few ingredients. What outshines are the roasted beet pieces. They give the dish an earthy, aromatic and sweet flavor. It is a delight for the eyes and taste buds.

Loaded broccoli salad

This contains broccoli vegetable with bacon, scallions, mayonnaise, sour cream, and Cheddar. It is irresistible. With addition of rice vinegar or cider vinegar it turns mind blowing.

Spinach, Butternut Squash, Apples & Cheddar salad

Simple salads
Beet salad (Source: Happy foods tube)

As the name suggests, it has fresh spinach with roasted butternut squash, apples, pecans and Cheddar. It is colorful and healthy. Serve with chicken or turkey. Or make it a main dish with additional chick peas, and chopped turkey or chicken.

Chickpeas, Olives & Feta salad

This is a quick and easy salad to make. It has inspiration from the Mediterranean world. The salad dish contains chick peas, cucumber, feta cheese and olives. It has vinegar and garlicky oil dressing.

Broccoli-bacon salad

It is a favorite on picnics. And it contains bacon, broccoli, cranberries and water chestnuts. Bacon added is in small amounts. If can be part of the backyard barbecue party menu too.

Orange and avocado salad

The inspiration seems to be from the Mexican cuisine. But it is healthy and great for immune system. Similarly, one can combine avocados with pineapple in a salad. Pineapple increases the digestive power of the food.

Also, read Egg Salad Recipe, Tangy flavor, Creamy

Grilled Eggplant Salad

Simple salads
Grilled eggplant salad (Source: Simply delicious)

It takes less time to prepare and is extremely healthy. It contains grilled eggplants with slices of onions, tomatoes, red peppers, and herbs. One can have this salad warm or at room temperature. It serves as a good weeknight dinners and can be suitable for casual parties too. One can eat it with hummus and pita bread. Or with fish or chicken.