You’ll ACTUALLY want these salads | What I eat in a day healthy vegan salads - Blog Vegan

I can't say that salads are the thing that anyone really wants to gravitate towards, but there's so many health benefits + the variations you can make are truly endless. 

Today, I'm sharing 3 healthy salad options for the summer to keep you going.  These are salads that I actually love and get me to eat more greens. 

Check out these ideas and let me know which one you try (it should be all 3). 

High Protein Vegan Kale Salad

Salads For Every Need

If salad was a student in the classroom, it would be that one student that raises their hand for every question. And gets like this many wrong. Because often no matter what your needs are a salad can fulfill that.

It's like that saying um there's an app for that. Instead there's a salad for that. Hey I'm looking to lose weight, what can I eat? There's a salad for that.

I've been looking to get more protein, but I really want to keep things low when it comes to calories.

Any ideas? There's a salad for that. My car is not starting what can I do? If only there was a salad for that.

I actually don't even like salads and I mean that as in I actually prefer other options and salad is really just at like the bottom of the list.

To me and you know this isn't for everybody but I truly feel like they're a must.

To get my heart just drumming up excitement for a salad I actually go beyond the basics.

In this kale salad we're doing a lot and sometimes I actually do even more.

I typically would never go just full on one leafy green inside of a salad.

I may have a dominant green like the kale but then i'll mix in like spinach or arugula you know just to mix things up.

Or I'll go adding in like cucumbers or brussels sprouts you know just something a little different.

And there is such a thing as levels of salad eaters.

Kale is for the advanced salad eaters.

Put it like this you don't want to go from you know olive garden side salad to kale.

I did that and the experience was like eating construction paper while smelling potting soil.

But afterwards I felt like I can lift up a car, which is why my kale salad now is just accompanied with many other additions.

The sweet potato in these are just genius.

But I burnt a few and sometimes I just get so involved when playing with barbies.

I would blame it on my girls but I just lose track of time when I can see the happiness they have from dad playing barbies.

The sweet potatoes sometimes I'll cut them pretty thick, I want to say maybe like a half inch.

After baking those they get really crispy on the outside and they're still pretty soft on the inside.

It's almost like uh it's almost like having french fries in your salad.

Or I'll do that mandolin method that you saw me do here which is I get them fairly thin once they bake up they're nice and crisp it's like adding potato chips to a salad.

A mandolin is such a great tool by the way and if you don't have one I actually linked one in the description.

The chickpeas are also really crispy in the salad and my goal here is to just layer a bunch of different textures and tastes within the dish.

Obviously flavor matters too so I season everything.

Why you have to season all the layers of your salad

I mean even down to the add-ins like the avocado.

Which brings me to the point that if you don't season like your tomatoes or avocados with maybe just a teeny bit of salt and some fresh like cracked black pepper try it out I guarantee it's going to be really hard to go backwards after.

If you're looking to reduce the amount of oil used when baking, instead of drizzling the oil over top, sometimes what I'll do is actually put it in my hand and then I'll rub it onto each one of the potatoes and it gets it just very lightly coated at that point.

Why you should wash your kale

I also wanted to touch on the washing method i did in the very beginning that my mom taught me.

I use this method especially with leafy greens like kale because it's like you know ripply and curly on the edges so it's harder to be completely confident just rinsing that underwater and feeling good about the fact that it's uh you know sanitary in a sense to eat.

A little dirt won't hurt but you know sometimes other things live on your vegetables and that's kind of the thing you want to watch out for.

Using distilled vinegar and water to cleanse the vegetable just has me feel you know more secure.

I personally don't want my story to be I survived 2020 and it's shenanigans along with growing up in a really tough neighborhood to later say that I was uh taken down by a not so cleanly salad.

Vegan Taco Salad

Do you eat the rainbow?

I make a very perceptive effort to eat the rainbow.

To the point that when I'm closing in on the end of a week I will recap while I'm laying in bed what colors have I not had enough of this week.

I find it more effective than counting sheep which I've also never met sheep before.

But I hear they're really fluffy.

Things that excite this grown man.

I'm a city boy so I haven't really met very many animals at all.

I remember the first time I saw a bunch of wild turkeys.

I told my roommate I'm not going out there, there's like a ton of ostriches around my car.

The next day I'm just super excited to take on the challenge of squeezing in whatever the color is or colors that I'm missing.

So for example you know if it's red, you know I don't go crazy looking for any exotics.

You know, it's not going to be July and I'm like, where's the pomegranate? I keep it fairly chill you know, red bell pepper or strawberries, tomatoes, that kind of stuff.

I know super scientific method I've come up with to keep eating things in moderation, right? Just uh don't forget about me when it comes to nominations for the Nobel Peace prize.

My taco salad could definitely be debated as a lettuce wrap bowl situation than an actual salad.

But who really cares right? I mean that is the trick to find a way to get these leafy greens into the diet in a way that you just don't despise them.

And it works.

I mean don't get me wrong.

I'd much rather incorporate you know spinach into a pasta, so I can get my leafy greens in but there's something about eating greens raw that personally gives me a degree of satisfaction.

In this dish I mostly work with romaine because it's a really light leafy green and it's also super crunchy.

But it's also a really big leaf so sometimes I'll eat with my hands and I can kind of use it as a wrap.

Nutritional value on that leaf is fairly light though but I combat that by sneaking you know some other things in there such as like a little bit of spinach or something too.

I find this salad as just a you know good, fun, and just like overall jovial dish for the kids as well.

The method i've used for the sunflower seeds i've also done with walnuts you can see that in another video that I'll also link here.

You want the sunflower seeds to soak in water overnight for best results but if you're like me and sometimes you forget or you're doing it on a fly just boil some water and pour it over the seeds instead.

I chose sunflower seeds this time around because it really does help with that you know summer feel but also sunflower seeds are really good in protein and it helps you avoid nuts if you're looking to get something nut free.

The romaine leaves in this dish are cut in half or sometimes i don't even cut them at all and this is in case I want to use them as like uh you know taco shells or if I know I just want to eat this with a fork then I chop it up kind of like you would do in a burrito bowl.

This salad I almost never enjoy it with dressing I usually go for like a you know a very light sprinkle of some vegan cheese um or nutritional yeast and then I'll add on like a couple spoonfuls of fresh salsa.

If you have a family or some friends over and you're looking to surprise them with this for taco Tuesday, just don't.

Things will go very bad. Just speaking from experience.

Vegan Arugula Salad

How salads can help you save money

When I was really young I used to think how can someone have the audacity to pull leaves off of some plant wash them and then waste precious saucing on them.

I used to call dressing saucing and then voluntarily place that leaf in your mouth.

So when my kids stare at me uh enjoying my salad with that very same face I let them know it's uh it's not as good as it looks.

Their sigh of relief, okay thank goodness.

Prior to being vegan, when I did meatless Mondays for budget purposes I noticed that if salad was on the menu for that day I would dread the entire Monday.

So instead of doing that I found an alternative way to save money by simply incorporating smaller salads before dinner.

About two or three times a week I would have that along with my dinner and I wouldn't eat as much.

So it became less for me to buy for dinner, ultimately saving me much more money.

But also it took away that dread feeling that I had because I wasn't eating an entire salad for my meal but rather had just a small salad with a meal.

But what I want you to understand from that this is when my focus was really narrow when it came to creating salads.

This arugula salad is the answer to how do I put together the most basic, quick, but yet still interesting and filling salad.

The dominant green of choice here is arugula.

Which has like a peppery, spicy kind of taste.

Then adding in a little bit of parsley in order to balance it out as that's more earthy.

I like this salad best with like a vinaigrette or more of a you know a lemon style of dressing.

It's also good topped with like a small shaving of vegan parm.

And I have actually a homemade one linked in the description there isn't much to explain about this salad but I think it's good to have like a foundation on how to create your own salad.

Creating a salad formula

My method is a dominant green, add some color, add some texture, add some protein, and add some type of fat.

Usually like a avocado it may not be obvious but those five items can overlap in some way as well.

Thanks a ton for spending your time with me.

Who wants some food that is just the complete opposite of salad, check out my last video here.

And as always, believe in good.

peace.