3 Summer Salads To Take Away (or Prepare In Advance)

Summer is coming, temperatures rise, the days are longer, we go out to the countryside, to the beach or to the pool and the body asks for fresh food. Also a lot of hydration. It’s the perfect time for salads!

Although we have some great salad greens, there are many that are not in season, and if we are going to put the salad in a beach container, with the dressing included, or we want to leave the salad ready for when we return, we may find that the leaves that we have chosen have lost their vigor.

When we are going to transport a salad, the recommendation is usually that the sauce or dressing go separately, and mix everything at the moment. However, it is also true that if it is all together it takes up much less space and even, in some cases, greatly improves the flavor. If the ingredients allow it, you can take the seasoned salad with you. In the case of these recipes, which do not have green leaves, you can do it more easily.

So here are three fresh, healthy and delicious salads, but without green leaves.

1. Beet and tomato salad

You can use raw beets and cook them yourself or buy them already cooked or canned. If you buy a package of cooked beets, they usually come 3. The third beet can be used to add to a hummus and make a pink hummus.

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 2 large tomatoes
• 2 cooked beets
• 2 carrots
• 1 white onion
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
• 1 handful of basil leaves
• Salt and pepper

preparation:

1. We wash the tomatoes well and cut them into medium cubes.
2. After draining the beet well, we also cut it into cubes. The same with the carrot.
3. We peel the onion and cut it into julienne.
4. We wash the basil leaves well and carve them.
5. In a bowl, we prepare the dressing. To do this, we mix the basil already cut with the olive oil, vinegar, nutritional yeast, a pinch of pepper and a pinch of salt.
6. Once everything is well incorporated, we add it to the vegetables.

It is not usually necessary to lighten the sauce, since the tomato tends to release water and it will be very useful to bind everything.

2, White Bean Salad with Tahini and Pickled Onions

This salad is very easy to make if we have made the tahini sauce and the pickled onions, two recipes that you have below as well.

Although it is a very simple dish, it is nutritionally very attractive : it is loaded with vitamin C thanks to the pepper, iron from the sesame in the tahini and vegetable protein from the white beans. Sesame is also ideal for preventing osteoporosis.

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 400 g of cooked white beans
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 2 tablespoons pickled onions
• Tahini sauce

preparation:

1. You just have to wash and julienne the peppers, add them to the drained white beans and add the pickled onion.
2. To give it a touch of flavor, we add the tablespoons of tahini to taste.

To this salad we can add cooked and peeled potato, cooled. In this way we take advantage of resistant starch as a prebiotic and it becomes a very complete unique dish.

Tahini sauce recipe

• 4 tablespoons of tahini
• 2 cloves of garlic
• The juice of a lemon
• A handful of fresh parsley
• Salt

It could n’t be easier! We wash and chop the parsley. Crush the two garlic cloves in a mortar, together with the parsley.

In a bowl, mix the garlic and parsley with the lemon juice and add a pinch of salt. Finally, we add the tahini.

To lengthen the sauce or lighten it, we can add a couple of tablespoons of water, since it depends on the tahini, this can be more hopeful or lighter.

Pickled onion recipe

Pickled onion is more digestive than raw onion and also adds an excellent touch to your salads and sandwiches.

We can cut the onion very thin, so that it becomes more vinegar, or thick and crunchy.

If we pickle red onion, in addition, we will obtain a nice pink color in the resulting liquid, which is ideal to use as a dressing.

Ingredients:

• 4 medium onions
• 200 ml of rice vinegar vinegar
• 50 ml of water
• 1 tablespoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• Optional: coriander, parsley, or other spices

preparation:

1. In a bowl, mix the vinegar, water, salt and spices.
2. We peel the onion and cut it into julienne. We place it in a container with a lid and add the liquid, which has to cover the onion, otherwise we add water.
3. The proportion of water and vinegar should be adjusted to the right.
4. We keep it in the fridge and wait at least a day to use it.

The quick version is made by covering only with vinegar.

3. Green bean salad

Taking advantage of the green bean season, and if we have already made the pickled onion and the tahini sauce, we can also make this simple green bean salad.

Ingredients for two servings:

• 300 g green beans
• 1 cooked potato
• 1 tomato
• 5 pitted and unfilled green olives
• 1 pickled onion well drained
• 4 tablespoons of our tahini and lemon sauce

preparation:

1. We clean the green beans and steam them, for about 8 minutes, so that they remain al dente.
2. We wash the tomato and dice it, just like the potato.
3. We cut the olives into quarters.
4. We put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix it well. We serve as a starter or accompaniment