“What’s in a salad? That which we call a salad by any other name would taste as good.”
For the longest time, I thought a salad had to have lettuce or spinach in it. And after years of eating salads, I grew tired of lettuce and spinach. Now the sight of raw baby spinach makes me cringe, and all I can think about is how much I dislike the taste of dry, metallic-tasting leaves in my mouth.
When I started eating clean, I needed to re-define my salads. Mainly because it was hard to keep lettuce and spinach fresh in my fridge all week. Secondly, I was bored of raw greens.
I first listed off all the things I craved:
Spring rolls
Hamburgers
Tacos
Spaghetti
Then, I tried to turn them into salads. I went through a phase where I made a healthy version of taco salad every week. Now, I'm really into this spring roll salad that satisfies my Asian food craving.
Ignore the giant pieces of vegetables (the smaller the pieces, the better)
Here's a salad recipe that doesn't require lettuce or spinach:
FOR THE CHICKEN
2 chicken breasts, boiled and pulled apart
FOR THE PEANUT SAUCE
3 tbsp almond butter
1/3 cup full fat, unsweetened coconut milk
1 tbsp coconut aminos
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp fish sauce
FOR THE SALAD
1 daikon, peeled and spiralized
2 radishes, sliced thin
1 small jalapeno, sliced thin
1 carrot, peeled and cut into small sticks
1/4 red onion, sliced thin
1 avocado, sliced
1 small handful of fresh mint
1 small handful of fresh cilantro
1 small handful of fresh basil