How To Rock A Salad

By Lev Novak

Ah, the salad.

The most boring and bland of meals is also the healthiest and easiest thing to make. Such a trade-off!

But what if we made it easier? Better? What if I could show you salads, simple salads, that could make angels weep?

Then maybe you could rock a salad, too.

1. Use Sparingly

You cannot have a salad for dinner. And you cannot have a salad more than twice a week.

Why? Because a salad is not a punishment, or a “we must get healthy” food to be obsessed over. If you have salad more than twice a week, it’s a chore. And if you have it for dinner, it’s a chore.

We’re here to love ourselves and love salad, not force it down our gullets.

2. Use Smartly

A salad is best used for a lunch on a hot day, after you’ve had a granola and yogurt breakfast, or something similar.

Why?

A day like that sets you up to be super healthy and active. You don’t even want heavy food for lunch on a hot day- you may as well commit to being healthy. And, the best part? After a day like that, you can enjoy a big, good barbecue later without feeling gross. That barbecue will be part of your balanced food day.

Ta dah! Salad just wingmanned you getting some barbecue without feeling gross.

Because salad is your friend.

3. Get Creative.

Here is how a salad works.

Get some lettuce, some vegetables, something else, and a dressing.

Pretty simple, right?

Wrong.

Baby spinach, slice peppers, sliced onion, sun-dried tomatoes, and a roasted garlic Caesar dressing? Because that dressing exists, and it’s fantastic.

Substitute croutons with crumpled up honey-dijon potato chips because you are a baller and this is a salad full of love and greatness.

Add some quinoa or another grain to it with roasted peppers or eggplant and bam! That’s more filling and super healthy, even without dressing, because roasted peppers are going to provide a little bit of that grease and wetness that can so enhance a salad.

What about fruit? You gonna put in some strawberries, bro? Some apples? Some walnuts too for some crunch and texture? Because you can. And if that sounds good, you should.

Cheeses? You can add some cheeses. Even olives. Whatever you like or want, you can find vegetables to work with that supplement the whole experience.

You see what I’m talking about? There’s a world of options in the salad hustle. Go forth and flourish.

4. Add Meat

Worst case, you can always add some meat. Blackened chicken, blackened salmon, or a hamburger- a straight up hamburger.

People might argue if that’s still a salad anymore, but I say whatever works. It’s protein, right? Make it good and make it work. Focus on the upside- you just had some vegetables and spinach leaves.

Congrats! You’re a hero of health, and a savior of snacks.

As long as you’re happy and fed, you’re doing it right.

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