A salad is a great way to eat a healthy meal, if it is topped right. You can convert a plate of lettuce into something amazing with just a few ingredients.
Besides veggies and fruits, be sure to include proteins and healthy fats when making your salad too. There are vitamins and minerals in greens such as lettuce, kale, and spinach that require healthy fats to make them extractable and usable by the body.
A great thing about salad is that it can use up leftovers from a previous meal, and it can be made a day or two ahead and refrigerated and still taste fresh when you go to eat it. That makes it a wonderful convenience and budget friendly food too.
One thing I really like about summer is cooking meat outside over hot coals. It gives meat such a delicious smoky flavor. And in my opinion, no meat on the planet tastes better with a side salad, or on the main entre salad than smoked meat! And a little goes a long way too. So go ahead and have a nice dinner with your grilled meat, but save a few extra pieces for leftovers to use as toppings on salads to enjoy later during the week too. Here is a delicious salad I made with leftover smoked grilled chicken breast.
Summer Grilled Chicken Pecan Salad
Ingredients:
Grilled Chicken 2 oz cut up
Romaine Lettuce 1 cup shredded
Baby Spinach Leaves 1/2 cup shredded
Romano or Plum Tomato 1 cut into small pieces
Pecans broken into large pieces 1/4 cup or 1 oz
Lemon 1/2 cut into wedges to squeeze out juice as dressing over salad.
Directions:
Wash, chop, cut, and toss!!! Your salad is now ready to serve! It just can’t get any easier other than if you made it up a day ahead, and all you had to do was walk to the fridge and pull out a delicious prepared salad when you are hungry.
Nutrition:
Calories 214 g; Carbohydrates 15.7 g; Net Carbs 12.4 g; Fiber 3.3 g; Protein 10.4 g; Fat 13.2 g; Vitamin A 6025 IU; Vitamin C 34.7 mg; Vitamin K 134 mcg; Niacin 3.9 mg; Folate 113 mcg; and a good source of manganese, magnesium, selenium, iron, potassium, zinc, and so much more.
Optional: a drizzle of good quality olive oil and a sprinkle of Himalayan sea salt would provide even more great nutrients to top off this salad with.
This is a delicious meal anytime of day. Lunch, supper, or split it into two side servings to go along with another meal. I would even eat it for breakfast too.
Enjoy!