Top 12 Healthy Salad Toppings
The best salad toppings combination will take your salad from a simple combination of healthy ingredients to a masterpiece your eyes will feast.
Healthy salads are go-to practical lunches that can be prepared in minutes. In the Caribbean, salads are usually a combination of lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Scallions, parsley, and peppers are other ingredients added for flavor. One common fruit you may find is apples. Usually imported, apple seldom makes their appearance in salads.
Back in the day, many Caribbean islanders did not use store-bought salad dressings. The traditional salad dressing consisted of oil, vinegar, lemon juice, black pepper, garlic, and salt. Simple to make and very flavorful. Nowadays, we are spoiled and want our French dressing and Ranch dressing.
With many topping choices to play with, we have been accustomed to spoiling ourselves and not worrying about size and portions. We add several ingredients or toppings to make the salad more palatable.
Here are the top 12 healthy salads toppings
- Dried Fruits: papaya, mango, cranberries, cherries, raisins, and blueberries
- Fresh Fruits: pear, strawberries, watermelon, grapes, bluberries, mandarin, tomatoes, apple, and avocado
- Nuts (sliced, tooasted, slivered, raw or candied): almond, cashews, pecans, walnuts, and pine nuts.
- Beans and Legumes: black beans, red kidney beans, white navy beans, cannelloni beans, garbanzo beans or chickpeas, lentils, and peas.
- Cheese: (cubed, sliced, crumbled, grated): blue cheese, goat cheese, parmesan, gouda, an any othe crumnled or hard cheese of choice.
- Grains: farro, quinoa, couscous, barley, brown rice, wild rice, bulgur wheat, and millet.
- Fresh Herbs: parsley, basil, mint, dill, chives, and green onions,
- Eggs: poached, boiled, and fried
- Meat/Seafood/Poultry: beef, pork, lamb, veal, bacon / oysters, salmon, tuna, conch, scallops, or leftover fish / chicken, turkey, duck.
- Jarred or packaged Store-bought ingredients: these includes marinated jarred artichokes, olives, sundries tomatoes, jarred roasted peppers, pickles, capers, chestnuts, and tofu
- Vegetables: beets, asparagus, mushrooms, radishes, corn, red onion, sweet potatoes, carrots, peppers, and cucumbers.
- Seeds: sunflower, pumpkin, and chia
Many of these ingredients are sold on Amazon, your local supermarket, and local health food stores. The key to choosing the right ingredients is to know what you want, your diet goals, nutrition goals, and living a healthy lifestyle.
Choose the toppings of your choice and enjoy eating nutritious salads.
Sources:
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/healthy-salad-toppings#TOC_TITLE_HDR_22
- https://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/g19905603/best-worst-salad-toppings/
