My local grocery store, in an effort to sell more of its products, makes samples of foods and plies customers with those samples. All this in the hopes that the customers will like the food and will purchase those items. Their tactics work. Today’s salad is one of those samples.
The ingredients for this salad are simple, and they are easy to find in most larger grocery stores. The ingredients are listed “to taste.” That is, there are no specific requirements about how much you should use. Use them as you like them.
Ingredients
- Spinach
- Mixed Greens
- Peeled Orange and Grapefruit (to save time, I used the canned version)
- Chopped Pecans
- Chopped Avocado
- Crumbled Queso Cheese
- Sliced purple onion
- Pepper to taste
The recipe calls for an avocado dressing, but I ate the salad without any dressing at all (the citrus makes the spinach and mixed greens moist), and it was just fine. If I were to use the dressing, I would put it on the side, as it could easily overpower the other flavors of the dish. For the same reason, I opted to avoid the purple onion.
The textures in this salad and the different tastes are what make this salad so good. What might you include in such a salad? Please leave suggestions in comments below.
[Images by Billie Hara. Licensed under Creative Commons.]
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4 Responses to What’s for Lunch? Citrus Salad!
Ryan - February 3, 2010 at 10:37 am
My salad usually consists of the following:
Spinach and other greens
Shredded low-fat sharp cheddar cheese
Chopped turkey from the deli
Chopped veggies (celery, onion, bell pepper, whatever we have in the fridge)
Jalapeno pepper slices (from a jar) and a little bit of the juice
Sliced almonds
Ground flax seed
Ground pepper
Dressing of choice (more often than not I use Thousand Island)
Of course, substitute in a grilled chicken breast for the turkey if you please. It’s a great, healthy lunch you can pretty much make the night before or in just a few minutes if you’re pressed for time.
When I use orange slices I typically buy the Mandarin orange slices in a can that have juice rather than syrup. Then I pour a couple of those cans into an empty, resealable jar to keep in the fridge. That way you keep them fresh for longer and don’t have all that extra, unnecessary sugar from the syrup. :)
-rms
A. - February 3, 2010 at 11:59 am
That sounds great! It’s too cold here in the frozen north to think about making a salad for lunch, but I’ve just put this in my tickler file for when May comes around…
Delaney Kirk - February 3, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Yum, sounds good. I would leave off red onions (I think they overpower all other tastes). Might add dried cranberries…OK, now I’m hungry.
Delaney Kirk - February 3, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I’ve also used a combination of fresh lemon juice and walnut oil mixed together on similar salads.