Let me preach about one of my favorite resolutions: eat something dark and leafy green. I get it out of the way early by eating a salad for my first meal of the day.
I’ve been experimenting with this early salad thing for the last six months and it’s the bomb-diggity. I recommend it. You get the vegetables out of the way with ease. I also practice intermittent fasting and only eat from noon to eight. Most of the time.
So I eat this salad at noon and it doesn’t feel weird. But if you get up at seven am, I still think you totally could eat it that early. A salad is better than sugary cereal. Or a Pop Tart.
I had tried bringing a salad to jobs in the past, but I didn’t really know what I was doing when it came to assembling. Like most things in life, it’s an art.
Here are my staple grocery list items that I always have on hand to whip up a salad
- Lettuce type #1
- Lettuce type #2
- Carrot
- Broccoli
- Any type of berry
- Maybe an apple
- Any type of small tomato (I like cherry, but not grape)
- Boiled egg
- Red onion (unless I care about someone smelling my breath later)
- Avocado (unless it’s not ripe enough yet)
- Cottage cheese
- Balsamic vinaigrette
- Sunflower seeds.
- Maybe some chia seeds if I have them on hand.
This, I think, is the best way to assemble the salad for efficiency and freshness of produce.
Prep
1. Wash and cut the lettuces.
I like playing around and trying different varieties of greens. As long as it’s a leaf and it’s edible raw, I’m game to try. I like having at least two different types in a salad, if not more. The only problem with having too many different kinds of lettuce is that produce goes bad faster than you realize.
So far, I’ve tried green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, spinach, baby spinach, red chard, romaine, kale, sprouts. They’re all good. Except for kale, which is just okay.
Put the lettuces on a plate to dry or blot with a paper towel before putting in Tupperware. Or buy a salad spinner. I’ve heard those are awesome.
2. Shred carrot.
This is my least favorite task. I know that’s not relevant.
3. Cut the broccoli into small florets.
4. Cut the onion into rings.
5. Throw the dry lettuce, shredded carrot, cut onion, and cut broccoli in a Tupperware container in the fridge.
I have a big enough container for four to five days worth of the ingredients above. Roughly. Which means I do this prep every four to five days.
5. Boil some eggs.
I put enough water to cover the eggs in a medium saucepan. When the water boils, I gently place the eggs inside and set my timer for eleven minutes. When the timer dings, I transfer the eggs to ice water before I put them in Tupperware in the fridge. I usually do a dozen eggs for two weeks.
The older the eggs, the easier it is to peel the shell.
I think those are all the egg-related fats.
Morning of
- Pull out all the ingredients: Tupperware prep you just read, boiled eggs, an avocado, cherry tomatoes, apple, cottage cheese, sunflower seeds, balsamic vinaigrette.
- Put some of the Tupperware mix into a giant bowl.
- Cut the apple into small pieces. You don’t want to do this too far ahead of time or the apple gets brown. Throw those into the bowl. If you’re worried about carbs or are lazy and don’t like to cut things, you can throw in berries instead of apples.
- Peel the boiled egg and cut into smaller pieces. You can use a fork if you’re too lazy to get out the cutting board.
- Cut the cherry tomatoes in half. You can throw them in whole if you’re too lazy to get out the cutting board, but the quality of the salad may go down if the quality of the tomatoes doesn’t hold its own.
- Cut the avocado into smaller pieces. You can do this over the bowl if you’re too lazy to get out a cutting board.
- Salt the pieces created from steps 4 and 5 and throw into the bowl. Or just salt the bowl directly.
- Add a couple of spoonfuls of cottage cheese to the bowl.
- And a couple of handfuls of sunflower seeds.
- Pour some balsamic vinegar dressing on top.
- Mix well. This is a key step.
- Eat and stay full for many hours.
- Get the vegetables out of the way early.
Ta da!
I should say that I’m not a nutritionist and I worry that this salad is too carby and that I should include more protein. No idea.
I always have to undermine myself.
Looks great! I’ve been on a healthy diet streak of veggie and chicken wraps and healthy smoothies for dinner since August 1st. This is a big change for me. If I can stick to it 5 days out of 7, I will be thrilled.
I have noticed it makes me feel better and fuller than what I was eating before (microwave dinners and too many McDonald’s Double Cheeseburgers).
The self-undermining habit is something I share – self-talk is that it’s better/safer to be small and humble than… good at something.
Also I’m not a nutritionist either but I’m going to preposterously claim that the salad you describe is better health-wise that what 77.924% of people in the Western world will have for lunch today (especially it being Sunday – treat day- but the statistic is based on 7 day average – if it were a stat 🙂 )
It’s better to be small and humble than narcissistic. It’s hard to be humble when you’re big, but not impossible.
I’ve never had a McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger.
4 eggs will be a good way to avoid sarcopenia as you continue to age as the lucine threshold kicks in around the 30g of protein in a meal.
Sarcopenia is a good word. Too bad it denotes something bad. I eat 1-2 eggs normally. I think I’d be too full with four eggs, but something to research.
Darn it, a breakfast salad just makes sense! This one sounds great, thank you for laying it out–I’m anxious to do this.
I wish I had done this sooner, but it’s been about seven months and I’m loving it. I hope you love it as well!
I am in the middle of reading ‘Omnivores’s dilemma’ by Michael Pollan. I have watched quite a few documentaries about our food crisis but this book is really good in describing the details of U.S. industrial food complex. I am sure that you have already read it. I highly recommended it to all who care about what they are eating.
Michael Pollan wrote How to Change Your Mind so I’m on board with anything he writes.
Looks great. I’m going to give this salad a try. And I’ll second your comment… salad spinners are indeed awesome! They are one of those rare items that have massively outsized emotional returns for the cost. You will never know how much drying salad with paper towels bothered you and never quite got the job done until you don’t have to do it anymore. Worth it :-)!
I’ve recently discovered premixed, prewashed, and precut lettuce. It’s more expensive, but — wow — is it convenient. I feel like I’m slow in learning this. I think a salad spinner is the middle ground between paper towels and pre-mixed. It’s on my wants list.
I would not have thought of adding cottage cheese to the salad but I will try it. I usually eat it separately with cinnamon on it. I have also made the layered salads in 1 quart jars and just add the dressing before eating. 4 days of salads in jars in the fridge is inspiring and pretty.
The jar of salad idea is great. I love how you phrased that emotion when looking in the fridge and seeing the manifestations of your intentions to eat healthy: inspiring and pretty!
https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/protein/
if curious about protein and why we don’t have to worry about it.
(Non profit site I volunteer for and do french translation. lots of data)
Thank you for this!
But watch out it may turn you into a whole food plant based 😉 he just also released a 1.5 hours long video on fasting …. tho I also really liked Panda and the Circadian Code book ( also intermittent fasting benefits)
I’m mostly there anyway. 🙂
yes, the more ones read and educate themselves about it, the more it make sens ( at least for me).
Like early retirement and personal finance. ( you need to save to have money … really!!! . You need to eat whole food to be healthy …. really !!!! :-)))) )
Looks a lot better than pancakes and scrambled eggs, I’ll give it try.
I just had one and it was delicious.