What makes a good salad?

If you do it right, a good salad can be a fantastic addition to your diet. Eating a salad can support your health goals if you want to lose weight. Remember, one salad will not make you healthy, and one ice cream will not make you unhealthy. It’s about balance and consistency.

Consistency is the key to weight loss and your health goals. Here are our 10 healthy salad recipes to help you lose weight this summer AND feel full!

What can go wrong?

A couple of things go wrong when clients start making their own salads at home (and I encourage you to do so, as it is so much cheaper and often more nutritious than anything you can buy in the shops).

The most significant barrier is that clients can’t think of what to put in a salad to make it exciting. Here, I’m thinking of the ham, cheese, tomato and radish salads. A salad is a celebration of colour and healthy foods.

The other thing is that clients create their perfect salad of all time. They are throwing everything into it and eating it every day. It doesn’t matter how amazing it is; you’ll get bored very soon. So then it’s ‘salads don’t work for me’. Pretty soon, you’re back in the less healthy world of the sandwich.

Find tasty combinations of a handful of ingredients that will give your salads an Italian, Spanish, Japanese, French or Greek spin.

This blog is about making your salads exciting and sustainable so you will want to eat them. I will give you a list of stuff to have in the fridge and cupboards to make putting your salad together a breeze—don’t dare even pretend you can’t find the 5 minutes of a morning (or even the night before) to prepare something delicious and healthy.

There are things you might want to prepare in advance (frozen, pre-cut roasted vegetables—you are putting them in the oven, not watching or attending to them, and it takes 2 minutes of your time tops, so enough already).

Golden Rules

1. Pick the leaves. Romaine lettuce, lambs lettuce, baby gem, oak leaf, endive, spinach, chicory, radicchio, rocket, watercress, red cabbage, bagged leaf mix.

NOTES: Iceberg lettuce contains virtually no nutrients and is possibly the dullest and most tasteless of your options. Rotate your greens, having different ones every day/week.

2. Add unlimited non-starchy vegetables (but remember the rule employed by the professional pre-made salad makers on switching up the variety!). This includes raw red onions, spring onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados (½ max.), peppers, and celery. Roasted asparagus, red onions, peppers, courgettes, and aubergines. Steamed asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans.

3. One portion (fist size) of starchy vegetables (optional), raw carrots (grated), roasted sweet potato, squash/ pumpkin, beetroot, butternut squash, and sweet potato.

4. Protein amounting to one portion (palm-sized, unless mentioned below):
Cooked poultry/meat: chicken, turkey, beef, pork, lamb.
Fish: tuna (tinned or steak), salmon (tinned, smoked, fillet), trout, hot smoked (flaked), prawns.
Cheese (30 g/person): mature cheddar (grated), Roquefort (crumbled), feta cheese (crumbled), goat’s cheese, parmesan shavings, halloumi (grilled, baked, fried).
Pulses (tinned): kidney beans, butter beans, cannellini beans, flageolet beans, chickpeas, lentils (pouch/tinned).
Nuts: walnuts, pecans, pine nuts, hazelnuts, cashews, flaked almonds.
Other: eggs (boiled), tofu.

5. Add a garnish. One tablespoon (optional) jarred antipasti, such as sundried tomatoes, roasted peppers, olives, jalapeños, and artichokes. Seeds, like sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds. Herbs, parsley, basil, and coriander. Dressings: Two tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, one tablespoon vinegar, one teaspoon mustard, salt, pepper. OR 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, one tablespoon lemon juice, salt, pepper.

That, my friends, is the secret.

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Recipes to get you started

1. Antipasti salad

Chicken, roasted peppers (from jar—I also love the spicy piquillo peppers you can now get in most supermarkets), artichoke (antipasti jars, from the supermarket), chopped cucumber, chopped tomato, olives, a handful of leaves, fresh herbs (basil, parsley, or mint would work here), and chopped pistachio nuts (add at the end—they will go soggy in a salad).

2. Chicken and avocado

Chicken, chopped avocado (of course), cherry tomatoes, and a handful of spinach leaves. A creamy dressing works brilliantly here, or a lemony one. And I adore adding alfalfa, a weird, cress-like thing you’ll find in the salad leaves section of the supermarket. Just so you know, alfalfa is a phytoestrogen, a plant source of oestrogen that has magic, hormone-balancing effects. Try it.

3. Tuna Nicoise

Leaves, boiled egg, cooked (and chilled) green beans, cherry tomato, cucumber, black olives, tuna (leave out the bread or croutons).

4. Prawn and rice salad

Leaves, cooked jumbo prawns, whatever salady veg you have to hand (tomato, cucumber, pepper, avocado, etc), a couple of tablespoons (max) of flavoured, pre-cooked basmati rice (I’m more than a tiny bit in love with Tilda’s black bean, jerk & coconut rice).

5. Chicken tikka salad

I’d love it if you could make your own tikka (cubed chicken covered with a mix of natural yoghurt and tikka paste, then grilled), but you can buy the pre-made stuff in the supermarket chiller cabinets. Track down some Tilda split pea, green chill and coriander basmati rice. Add in bits and bobs like tomatoes and chopped pepper. You’re welcome.

6. Stir fry leftovers

Always worth making more if you’ve got the wok out. Brocolli is a great one to stir fry and is lovely served cold in a salad.

7. Lentil salad

Pre-prepped and flavoured puy lentils, chopped walnuts, goat’s cheese, chopped avocado, chopped parsley or coriander (if liked) and whatever other excitements you can muster.

8. Quinoa salad

There are two versions: roast vegetables, harissa paste, quinoa, griddled/ grilled halloumi cut into strips OR fried onion, harissa, wilted spinach, chickpeas (just rinse straight out of the tin), quinoa, and chopped chicken. You can get quinoa pre-made (find it in the rice aisle).

9. Falafel (chickpea balls)

Spinach leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, olives, hummus, and a sprinkling of seeds. Serve with half a wholemeal pitta or flatbread, if needed.

10. Cauliflower rice (you can buy it ready-made from most supermarkets now) with assorted salad veg and either some tinned fish or chicken.

Adds bulk but not carbs. I love to mix mine with herbs, and, as I usually make it anyway, I always add some chopped garlic and cumin for an Asian-inspired twist. A small note on the cooking… I always find it takes at least an extra 5 minutes of cooking time. For a speedy salad, I’ll often add some nuts (any nuts, but I gravitate to almonds), crumbled feta or goat’s cheese, finely chopped red onion, chopped coriander, grated carrot and a little chopped chicken.

10 Healthy Salad Recipes to Help you Lose Weight this Summer