I love salads, especially crunchy salads that make a lot of noise – resonating with the sound of freshness and goodness!
“Noisy foods correlate with freshness,” says Charles Spence, Ph.D., a gastrophysicist and professor of experimental psychology and head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the University of Oxford, “The fresher the produce, like apples, celery, or lettuce, the more vitamins and nutrients it’s retained. It’s telling us what’s in the food.”1
I started to experiment with adding various fruits and vegetables when making salads a few years ago, and by far this one is my favorite. Mini cucumbers, shredded carrots, and apples provide the crunch I love, grape tomatoes, and blackberries bursting with a tangy flavor in your mouth, while sweet peppers and dried cranberries give the salad that tiny bit of sweetness which makes a salad dressing optional.
Preparing a salad for dinner is one of, if not the easiest, meals to make. It only requires washing your ingredients, a little bit of slicing and dicing, and there you have it, dinner ready for plating!
There are so many ways to make a salad that your entire family will enjoy. Start with your favorite greens, and then be sure to add vegetables, fruits, and berries that your kids will eat!
Tips: I use a salad spinner to remove excess water from my Spring Mix to avoid soggy greens, and an apple corer slicer makes short work of slicing the apples. I also dice the sweet peppers and mini cucumbers a day or two ahead to save time, and I like to make the fruits and veggies bite-size for the little ones.
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Here’s a list of veggies and fruits I included in my salad pictured above.
Spring Mix
Shredded Carrots
Mini Cucumbers
Small Sweet Peppers
Grape Tomatoes
Gala Apple
Blackberries
Dried Cranberries
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1The Science Behind Why We Crave Loud and Crunchy Foods
