*Note: This post originally appeared on The Red Chef of NJ Facebook page
Today’s post is titled “You Don’t Win Friends with Salad.”
Maybe I should back up a little.
A major food struggle many of us deal with in the summertime is that it is much too hot to do any real cooking. A light saute isn’t too terrible, but turning on the oven to roast and bake? Making full meals with boiling pots and sizzling pans? Even if you’re in a position to afford the extra cooling costs that keep your home bearable, who *wants* to eat hot, heavy, greasy food when you’re already stuck to the couch in a humid, sweaty mess?
For this reason and many others — including wanting to stay active, and the fact that lots of produce is coming into season — summertime is a great time to up your fruit and veggie intake. But the kinds of vegetables most of us manage to stomach — asparagus, broccoli, kale, etc — still require cooking, and usually get paired with a protein or starch that, again, require long applications of heat.
The solution to this is a word that may as well be spelled with four letters. A word that conjures images of sad, flavorless greens. A word that turns a carnivores stomach. A word that describes not “food”, but that which “food” eats. I speak, of course, of… Salad.
*screaming and cacophony ensues*
I know, I know. “Salad” has become something of a dirty word. A diet food. Joyless*, complicated, and expensive.But culinarily, the word “salad” just means “a single food or a mix of different foods accompanied or bound by a dressing.” Fresh niblets of corn tossed with cilantro and lime juice are a salad. Pico de gallo is a salad. Sliced skirt steak tossed with bacon, blue cheese, onions, chopped spinach, and ranch dressing is a heart-stopping but oh-my-god-delicious salad (just don’t try to kiss anyone afterwards!). Basically, anything you can toss together in a bowl and still tastes good in one mouthful is a salad, and once we change our thinking along those lines, you see that a lot of options open up to us even if you’re a veggie hater.
(*I really cannot emphasize enough how much I do not enjoy eating vegetables)
Something else that usually keeps people away from salads is cost and perceived waste. Vegetables can be expensive, and we often find ourselves stuck with a surplus of leftovers that quickly rot. That’s why it’s important to choose ingredients that we can not only stomach, but can be reused in multiple dishes.
I use tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions, and romaine lettuce as a starting point. Even most veggie-haters can be convinced to choke those down, and depending on how you cut and dress it, you’ve got four different dishes right there:
Cucumber, red onion, tomato + lemon juice, olive oil, parsley = Israeli salad
Cucumber, red onion, tomato, romaine + lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, feta cheese, kalamata olives = Greek salad
Cucumber, red onion, tomato, romaine + dressing = Garden salad
Cucumber, red onion + vinegar, oil, sugar = Cucumber salad
We can build on this even more! Start adding things like avocado, bell pepper, and fresh or canned corn, and even more options open up to us:
Cucumber, onion, tomato, romaine, avocado, corn, shrimp + cilantro, lime juice = Shrimp Avocado Salad
hot/bell pepper, onion, tomato, romaine, avocado, corn, shrimp + cilantro, lime juice, taco cheese mix = Taco Salad
hot/bell pepper, onion, tomato, + cilantro, lime juice = Pico de Gallo
hot/bell pepper, onion, avocado, corn + cilantro, lime juice = Cilantro Corn Salad
You guys get the idea. As you can see, you can make a LOT of different combinations from just a few not-that-expensive ingredients. Even if the initial outlay seems like a lot of money, it can end up working out to less than $2/person for multiple quick, healthy, and tasty meals! If you’ve got the funds available, go crazy with things like dried and fresh fruits, nuts, seeds, and proteins. Taco shells and wraps are great too, either to crumble into your salads or to wrap them up in. You probably noticed that I listed shrimp in two of these recipes; chicken and steak are great in a salad, but since shrimp is low fat, reasonably cost-effective on a per-serving basis (about 8 servings in a 12-17$ bag) defrosts in minutes and cooks in seconds, its my main choice of protein in summertime.
You may also have noticed that most of these recipes call for tossing in lime or lemon juice. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll shotgun ranch and blue cheese dressing with the best of ‘em, but I’ve honestly never found a dressing that tastes as good as simple lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.
Below is my summer shopping list, which accounts for most of my summer eating, give or take the odd caprese sandwich (tomato + basil + mozzarella) or spinach addition. If you’re just starting down the garden (heh) path, its okay to start small with just a few ingredients; it took me a loooong time to work my way up to this much vegetable in my diet, and trust me when I say there are plenty of nights I still say “screw it” and just tuck into a bowl of instant ramen instead.
CHEF JENNA’S SUMMER SHOPPING LIST
THE BASICS (and then some)
Tomato
Cucumber
Red onion
Romaine
+avocado
+peppers
+corn, fresh or canned
++cilantro (usually i have it growing in my garden)
++basil (also usually in the garden)
+++lemon
+++lime
++++taco cheese mix
++++feta cheese
++++blue cheese (goes great with steak and spinach)
ACCOUTREMENT
Olives (green and/or kalamata)
Pepperoncini
Taco kits
NUTRITIOUS ADDITIONS (TBH, I don’t usually bother with these, but I probably should)
Nuts
Seeds
Dried or fresh fruit & berries like strawberries, blueberries, dried cranberries, and fresh apples
PROTEINS
51/60ct shrimp (these little guys are great in salads and tacos)
Chicken breast
Ground turkey (I use it to make tacos!)Steak (skirt is best IF you can afford it)
That’s it guys. I hope I inspired you today to try some new, fresh foods this summer. They’re good for your wallet, good for your health, and hopefully help keep your over-heated kitchen just a little more bearable.
Do you have suggestions for dishes you can make with the ingredients I’ve listed, or something similar? I’d love to hear about them, so comment below!