Spice Up Your Salads This Fall

Color, crunch and spice comes to mind when I think of fall food. Naturally I try to purchase produce that is in season, but since I eat salads almost daily, I wanted to revamp my sexy salad menu to delicious and nutritions autumn and winter options with a twist. I am sprucing it up a bit more than normal because I wanted to experience a larger change than just swapping out foods that are tossed in boring lettuce. Here ways you can spice up your salads this season too:

-Shave your vegetables and use that as your base instead of lettuce. Who doesn't like an intensely crunchy salad? Set your mandoline to the thinnest setting and use veggies such as brussel sprouts, beets, cabbage, carrots, and fennel for the foundation of your salad. Just make sure to balance out that super crunchy texture with some softer toppings like goat cheese, sauteed wild mushrooms and avocado.

-Use cubed and roasted tubers, beets, or butternut squash to form a warm layer over arugula or dandelion leaves in your other salad bowl. You definitely need some crunch or chew added to this healthy dish so think of sunflower seeds, dried blueberries, cubed jicama, or slivered almonds to round it all out.

-Add a twist of sweetness with bursts of fruit to any salad. Salads tastes that much better when there is a pop of fresh sweetness in each bite. Think pomegranate seeds, figs, clementine, or grapefruit slices as a nice variety to your autumnal salads.

-Protein. Feel free to go a bit heavier with steak strips, dark meat chicken or turkey, black rice, quinoa, or roasted chickpeas for protein options this fall and winter since your meal is vegetable based.

-Add fresh herbs to your dressing. Take any oil based dressing and fancy it up with fresh herbs- think sage, rosemary, thyme, or mint. Just thinking of sage and thyme puts my mind right at Thanksgiving!

Bon Apetit!