Padding out salads

It has been hot here in the UK this weekend, and so I didn’t feel like cooking much. I could smell BBQs in the gardens around me which was probably served with salad. We eat a lot of salad in the summer, and grow most of our own in pots and mushroom trays. I re-sow lettuce and mixed leaves every 6 weeks so that we have a constant supply. I have noticed that the price of some salad staples has really increased in the supermarket this year. Cucumbers were 79p each last week, and tomatoes around the same price, these ingredients being nearly double what they were last year. To save money, and bring some variety to my salads, I add whatever I have in the house or garden to them. This not only makes the salads more interesting, but can increase the nutrition as well.

Here are some examples:-

1. Add apple to your salad, but put some lemon juice on it when chopped to stop it going brown.
2. Grate in some carrot.
3. Add some fresh peas or pea shoots.
4. Add some cooked beetroot.
5. Add some sliced onions
6. Add sliced mushrooms
7. Add cooked potatoes
8. Add some cooked chick peas.
9. Add some strawberries (my favourite)
10. Add spinach
11. Add nuts eg pistachio, walnuts, almonds or peanuts
12. Add seeds eg chia seeds or pumpkin seeds
13. Add dried fruit like cranberries, sultannas or apricots
14. Add mango or pineapple
15. Add cooked kidney beans or other types of beans including green beans. We had some young broad beans yesterday which were lovely.
16. Add raw bean sprouts
17. Add grains like barley, rice or quinoa
18. Add herbs like corriander, mint or parsley.
19. Add foraged leaves like sorrel or young dandelion.
20. Add berries.
21. Add cheese
22. Add crisps or tortillas chips.
23. Add peppers and chillies
24. Add avocado
25. Add edible garden or wild flowers.
26. Add left over roasted vegetables
27. Add hard boiled eggs.
28. Add any left over cooked meat, ham, chicken, beef etc
29. Add cold cooked bacon or left over cooked sausage.
30. Add sea food eg a few defrosted prawns from the freezer.
31. Pommegranite seeds and fennel are a lovely combination
32. Add fresh or defrosted corn on the cob kernels.
33. Add torfu
34. Add olives and cooked pasta
35. Add celery
36. Add grated courgette(this is really helping with my glut).
37. Add slices of orange.
38. Add croutons of diced toast.
39. Add pickles.

There are a lot of other ingredients that you can add too, as well as a simple dressing from some olive oil, vinegar and fruit juice. Adding things like nuts, fish, meat and beans increases the protein in your meal, and the grains, pasta and potato help fill you up and give you energy. During the summer we have a salad every day, and this is from what I find in the garden, left overs, foraged items and items from the cupboard. The salads are always different and so we don’t get bored. What do you like to put in your salads?