Spice up your Summer Salad – Try Something New!

Ah, the salad days of summer are upon us. This is the time of year when a crisp, cool salad sounds best. But serving up the same ingredients time after time can make salads routine and boring. They don’t have to be! There are so many varieties of fruits and vegetables to choose from, with varying textures and tastes, that you can have a different salad every time you decide to serve one!

For example, start with a base of your favorite type of lettuce or spinach, or try something that’s new to you. The pre-washed bagged lettuce blends available in your grocer’s produce section are a great way to try a new salad green. Then start building with tomatoes, carrots, radishes, onions and other kinds of your family’s favorite vegetables. Another fun thing to try is adding fruit, nuts, or beans to a salad to make it even more nutritious, colorful and flavorful.

Salads offer the perfect opportunity to try a fruit or vegetable that you’ve never tasted before because you can combine it with items that are more familiar. The cherimoya is a fruit that’s new to many people. It has soft, sweet, white flesh with several large black seeds and a tropical flavor that is described as a mixture of many fruits. Cherimoya Fruit Salad presents a wonderful way to try your first taste of this uncommon fruit.

Eating fruits and vegetables matters in maintaining a healthy weight and may reduce the risk of many diseases. They provide a wide range of valuable nutrients like fiber, vitamins and potassium along with the supreme combination of great taste, nutrition, abundant variety and multiple product forms.

Every step taken towards eating more fruits and veggies helps and it’s easy to add more when you understand that all product forms count – fresh, frozen, canned, dried and 100 percent juice. Toss some pre-thawed frozen corn, canned pineapple or dried cranberries on your next salad. Open a can of your favorite beans, drain and rinse them, then add them to your salad too. They provide added protein and fiber. Don’t forget delicious nuts that add crunch and a small amount of healthy fats.

Don’t think of salads as only side dishes or appetizers. With the addition of a little protein in the form of beans, meat, or fish, they can be an entire meal by themselves. Tuna Pasta Salad with Avocados is a tasty, one-dish meal that can be prepared in minutes, even by a novice cook. It’s inexpensive to make and will add lots of delicious and nutritious fruits and vegetables to your table.

To keep fat and calorie intake in check, choose low-fat or non-fat dressings and spread them over your salad sparingly. Using a variety of different fruits and veggies in your salad will boost its flavor and limit the need for very much dressing. Also try squeezing fresh lime, lemon, orange, or tangerine juice over your salad. It’s another fun way to boost flavor without adding fat. When ordering a salad in a restaurant, ask for dressing on the side so that you can control the amount you use.

Visit www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org to see the recipes for Cherimoya Fruit Salad, Tuna Pasta Salad with Avocados and several other fun salad recipes like Fresh Tomato and Pita Chip Salad and Greens with Pomegranate. The website also has user-friendly advice on how to add more fruits and vegetables to your diet, tips for getting kids to eat fruits and vegetables, and even videos.