Salad for breakfast? Have I gone bonkers? Well, maybe, but not about food 😉 . All this early Spring sunshine has moved my mind away from warming comfort foods like soups and stews to something a little more vibrant and refreshing. After focusing for a while on what my body was asking for, it turns out the answer was salad 🙂
Of course there’s a huge range of salads to be eaten. Ranging from totally raw to all cooked and still warm, salads come in all rainbow hues. They don’t even need to contain many ingredients; sometimes the simplest are the tastiest, particularly when produce is at it’s ripest and most delicious. I am a keen salad eater and have lots of different tasty recipes already on the website here and in my book Eat Well Live Well with The Sensitive Foodie.
Unfortunately, early to mid March is not the most abundant time of year when it comes to traditional salad ingredients. Supermarket shelves still stock out of season fruit and vegetables but I prefer to avoid those wherever possible due to air miles and a higher carbon footprint. But there are still some locally grown hardy leaves like kale and chard plus salady bits to be had as well as the freezer to fall back on.
So why salad for breakfast? Is that even a thing? I used to think not, until we visited Athens last February. The beautiful apartment we stayed in also provided breakfast. Salad was one of the few options I could actually eat, so every morning I ate a freshly made pot of fruit salad (very normal) followed by a pot of fresh salad composed of leaves, tomatoes, avocado, olive oil and a sprinkle of granola (not so normal!).
It arrived in our room in a cute picnic basket and we could take it up to the roof garden to start the day with a view of the Acropolis in the distance. It was so romantic. And the salad tasted delicious too! It was also remarkably filling; even after walking miles around the city it kept me going until mid afternoon.
Having a bowl full of leafy greens which includes lettuce is a great way to start the day. Whilst they have a high water content, lettuce leaves also contain a range of essential vitamins and minerals, as well as powerful phytonutrient compounds that have an antioxidant effect in the body. The darker the leaf, the stronger the compounds. Eating a range of different leaves, including strong peppery flavours or purple/red coloured, increases the range of effects. Pairing green leaves with lemon or vinegar also helps to make the nutrients more available for absorption, particularly the iron content.
My Athens breakfast saladVariety is also key to gut health as the microbiome thrives when a range of different foods head it’s way. They particularly love polyphenol compounds, also found in fresh produce, converting them to short-chain fatty acids which can either act as friendly bug food or as messengers, sending signals to different parts of the body, including the immune system to calm things down a bit.
The breakfast salad I’m sharing with you contains a mix of fruit and vegetables as well as some healthy fats in the form of hemp seeds and cold pressed flaxseed oil. The raisins and granola provides a little sweetness which contrast perfectly with the sharp tomatoes and lemon juice. They both provide extra fibre; the soluble fibre in oats are also great for gut health and also help to remove unwanted LDL cholesterol from the body. If you struggle to find a low or no oil granola in the shops, then check out my recipe here. And if you’re worried about protein, don’t forget that all plants contain some. There’s even a little in lettuce! Hemp seeds contain a higher amount of protein than many other plants so they’re always a great addition to a meal.
I hope you give this salad a go – I’d love to know what you think. If you haven’t time to make it in the morning, the leaves, tomatoes, hemp seeds, raisins and cucumber can be put together in a bowl the night before and kept in the fridge. Just chop the apple in the morning and add it before topping with the granola, lemon juice and flaxseed oil.
Tasty breakfast salad
Ingredients
Method
- Wash the salad leaves, cherry tomatoes, apple and cucumber. Pat dry.
- Break the leaves into smaller pieces and scatter in the base of a large bowl. Cut the tomatoes into quarters and chop the cucumber. Scatter over the leaves.
- Cut the apple into quarter, de-core then chop into small pieces. Add to the bowl.
- Add the raisins or cranberries then sprinkle the hemp seeds on top.
- Pour over the lemon juice and oil of choice. Season if desired then top with the raisins.
- Eat straight away.
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