Good Idea: Make It Into a Salad

Having a salad makes for a simple, healthful, diabetic-friendly meal.

I know. I know. Salads are boring. Lettuce, tomato, vinaigrette. Lettuce, tomato, vinaigrette. Lettuce, tomato, vinaigrette. How many days can I eat such plain food?

Or the other complaint I hear is that salads are too fussy. To be interesting they have to be filled with exotic (and expensive) ingredients like dandelion. Somehow I don’t think I can just go out to the front lawn and harvest some of those.

A well made salad is filled with flavor, nutrients, and yumminess.

The ingredients can be whatever you like. Have the olives, or don’t. It’s a good way to get variety in your diet. A little bit of broccoli mixed in can be more appealing than staring at a pile of it at the corner of your plate. You can even break the rules. Who says you can’t use steak sauce as a salad dressing?

Add a protein and you have a meal. The protein can be anything you like: beef, chicken, seafood, tofu, nuts, eggs… Often anything you would marinate a protein in makes for a good salad dressing.

Salad offers endless possibilities.

I’ve found some of my best salad combinations (or recipes, if you like) on the menu of a burger joint—of all places. It’s called The Counter and it’s one of those custom built burger places. On their menu they offer salad bowls in place of rice bowls or the traditional burger on a bun. The ingredient list is a nice combination of the traditional and expected (feta cheese, carrot strings, Caesar dressing) and the daring (horseradish cheddar, fried egg, horseradish mayo).

You just have to think outside the salad bowl to find the nutrition and yumminess of a salad meal.