Get Creative with Your Salads - Here's a Start

I love a good salad loaded with veggies and nutrients. I won't lie though, every once in a while I could use some help with being more creative with salad choices. One night out I noticed an interesting salad option on the menu containing roasted vegetables. I was intrigued, I don't usually think of roasted vegetables served on a bed of mixed greens or baby spinach. Anywho, I ordered my standby dish but kept the idea in my head so that someday I could venture out and explore roasted vegetable ideas for salads. Another night, my refrigerator was a bit lean but I did have green beans and sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes have long been praised for their dietary fiber and complex carbohydrate content so they seemed like a good choice. Green beans are loaded with nutrients and are a low calorie option. I kind of took it all and rolled with it and came up with a delicious roasted sweet potatoe and green bean salad. What do you think?

Green Bean and Sweet Potato Salad

2 medium sweet potatoes, cubed

1 medium red onion, chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

2 cups cooked green beans

1/4 cup walnuts

Salad greens (I used baby spinach)

Line a cookie sheet with foil, layer sweet potato and red onion. Toss in olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Bake in oven at 450 for about 20 minutes (or until tender). Add the walnuts and green beans and roast for another 5 minutes. Remove veggies from oven and serve over greens. This can be warm, room temperature, cold. The roasted veggies last well for a few days.

My favourite dressing option:

My dressing of choice was a tzatziki like dressing using non-fat greek yogurt, garlic and vinegar. Mix together 1 cup of yogurt, 2 cloves of minced garlic and 2 tbsp of white wine vinegar. You can use less garlic if you don't like a potent garlic flavour like me! The dressing lasts for a while and can be used as a dip with crudite or even with pita bread, yum!

The whole thing - approximately 10g protein and 47g carbs. A little higher on the carbs, but complex carbs and whole foods are a good thing. Lighten up on carbs at your next meal, this is worth a shot.