If you are a health and fitness freak, counting on calories nothing serves your appetite like a fresh salad. Salads can be whipped up in a jiffy, in both vegetarians and non-vegetarian options.

All you need are fresh veggies, shredded cheese, paneer, fistful of nuts or some juicy chunks of meat with copious amounts of yummy dressings, all tossed in a bowl, be it for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

If you want to know make salads your staple diet and learn how to make a perfect salad, read on.

Health Benefits Of Eating Salads

Salads are a great source of natural fibre that help in keeping blood sugar, cholesterol under control, improve gut health and helps in losing weight.

Salads are a perfect way to get your daily dose of essential vitamins and minerals and for building stronger bones.

Eating salads regularly improves your skin health and tone.

A good salad should be vibrant in colour and offer a variety of great texture.

Size Matters In Salad

The perfect way of making a salad lies in the way the vegetables, fruits, cheese, nuts or meat chopped, sliced or shredded.

Start With Leafy Vegetables

Lettuce makes a great choice for a salad base. Add fresh spinach, or other dark leafy greens, to crunchy lettuce. Choose fresh leaves and toss them into a salad bowl. Make sure to chop the leaves into small pieces to make it easier to eat.

Add Colour, Variety

Carrots add colour to your salads, chop them into small pieces. Red, yellow and green bell peppers give a crunchy taste. Slice bell peppers into cubes, without seeds.

Onions add that extra kick, slice off the top and the bottom portion of the onion and chop into fine pieces.

Cucumber gives that cool crunch to your salad, remove seeds to make it look more appealing and chop into finer pieces.

Tomatoes provide a vibrant colour and juicy goodness to your salad, chop large, firm tomatoes into smaller chunks. Half cherry tomatoes and toss in the dish.

Add Proteins

Beans, nuts and seeds provide protein to your salad. Chickpeas and flaxseeds, sunflower seeds are the best combination, while walnuts, almonds add a tasty munch.

For the non-veg eaters adding little chunks of boiled chicken or salmon makes is the great way to add protein without overdoing it and also enjoying the meat.

Healthy Fats

Instead of going for salad dressing oil, choose healthy fats from natural foods. Avocado is an excellent choice to give that creamy texture to your salad. Scoop out flesh from avocado and chop them into smaller pieces or make a fine paste of avocado fruit and mix it well.

Salt or Sweet

If you like to have a touch of sweetness in your salad, add some raisins or dates. On the other hand, if you are leaning towards the salt side add some diced black or green olives.

Green Bean Salad Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup chopped lettuce

½ cup mixed vegetables (bell pepper, onion, tomatoes)

¼ cup cooked chickpeas

1 tsp chopped almonds

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp avocado butter dressing

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

In a bowl add chopped lettuce, bell pepper, onion and tomatoes.

To this add cooked chick peas, almonds, give it a niece mix.

Season with salt and pepper.

Finally add avocado dressing blend well, and drizzle lemon juice.