When it comes to refreshing salads nothing beats a refreshing watermelon salad inspired by Greek salad.
If there’s a Summer fruit I can’t stop eating, it’s the watermelon. I just love the crunch and the sweetness. I’m always happy when I find a watermelon that’s just perfectly ripe. And so I got a local one from my veggie deliverer and it slipped my mind that I never tried watermelon in a salad. I’ve seen people use it in a salad, so I tried and used it in a salad that we normally make at home all the time, but replace tomatoes with watermelon.
Haaa, a new world opened. So delicious!
So I’m sharing the watermelon salad recipe I made with you to try and enjoy. It’s extremely simple and so incredibly delicious. And if you’re into salads that include summer fruit, check my cucumber and peach salad.
For this salad, you’ll need a perfectly ripe watermelon. I prefer to go a bit underripe than overripe because overly ripe watermelon is too sweet for my taste and it also doesn’t hold its shape as nicely. You’ll also need some cucumbers, black olives and Feta cheese. and to top it all off you’ll need some fresh basil leaves and a few simple ingredients to make the vinaigrette – olive oil, lime juice, lime zest, salt and crushed white or red pepper.
Very simple, y’all know I like simple foods 🙂
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A refreshing salad like this shaved asparagus salad with a simple lemon vinaigrette is a healthy delicious early Spring treat!
I love my salads to be very flavorful and exciting. There I said it!
Slovenia is a country where green leafy salad is eaten at every lunch. There’s no way any Slovenian will make lunch and not serve it! But it can get boring after eating a plain old green salad that for years. So I like to add my little twists to make a green salad a little extra.
For this shaved asparagus salad, I’ve added, well… obviously some asparagus. Asparagus is extremely delicious and nutritious. It is loaded with fibers, folate, and vitamins. And if you didn’t know you can eat them raw, you now know! They are amazing raw, just as they are cooked.
For this recipe we are going to shave them with a vegetable peeler, so we get very thin strips of asparagus that are very delicate and still incredibly flavorful. You are going to end up with some leftover asparagus parts, and you can easily use them to make a delicious soup or use it to make vegetable broth.
I’ve added some extra stuff in there as well, to add some more flavor and crunch. We’ve got some pancetta, radishes, pine nuts and optionally you can add a hard-boiled egg on top. What a delicious combo.
For the vinaigrette, we only need a few simple ingredients and I can’t stress enough how only a couple of simple ingredients can make an explosion of flavor. So for this vinaigrette, you only need extra virgin olive oil, fresh lemons, garlic, salt, and pepper. This is such a versatile dressing. Very simple and it goes with almost any salad!
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100gfresh baby leaf salad(any kind you like or a mix of salads)
4radishes
70gpancettacubed finelly
2TBSPpine nuts
Lemon Vinaigrette
⅓cupextra virgin olive oil
3TBSPfreshly squeezed lemon juice
1clovegarlic
1/4tspsalt
a generous pinch of crushed black pepper
Extra topping (optional)
2hard-boiled eggs
Instructions
First, prepare the vinaigrette. Finely chop or crush garlic in a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well.
Use a vegetable peeler to make thin slices of fresh asparagus. There will be some leftover asparagus, which you can't shave. You can set those aside and use them for soup or some other recipe.
Finely slice radishes.
Chop pancetta into small cubes. Place them in a skillet and cook over low-medium heat until the fat has rendered out and the pancetta has crispen and got some color.
Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels.
Place shaved asparagus, fresh baby leaf salad, and sliced radishes into a big salad bowl. Pour over the vinaigrette and mix well. Add crisp pancetta, pine nuts, and sliced eggs on top.
When it comes to fall salads this persimmon salad is a winner. With the smoothest dressing made with olive oil and fresh orange juice this is a perfect fall lunch.
Time for another hearty salad. I posted a recipe for a fruity winter salad in the winter and now I’m posting another recipe for a salad that uses delicious seasonal fruits. This time it is persimmons. One of my favorite fruits of the season. One other way I like preparing them is to make homemade pudding, with no starch whatsoever.
Okay, back to the salad. For this salad you can use any variety of persimmons that has a solid center when ripe, so you can cut it in slices or wedges. The varieties that are only ripe when gooey are not okay, since they won’t hold its shape and honestly the texture would probably feel awful in a salad. So let’s stick with a solid meat persimmon! But make sure they are ripe.
What other ingredients are in this persimmon salad?
Lots of green leafy lettuce. You can uuse any variety you like or have in your garden. I used endive in my salad. The other leafy lettuce I used is radicchio. I love it both for color and its flavor.
There’s also some thinly shaved carrots for bite and freshness. And I topped it all with some chopped almonds and goat cheese.
And now the best part…
The orange dressing. This persimmon salad wouldn’t be so delicious without the orange dressing. The orange adds a nice freshness to the salad and I also added a little turmeric, just because we all need to boost our immune systems right now, do you agree?
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This refreshing Cucumber and peach salad is the perfect intro toSummer! With some prosciutto, feta cheese, and spicy basil dressing it’s a winner!
Yay! It’s officially Summer and that’s my favorite season for salads (and cocktails).
Eating fresh veggies and fruits topped with a bunch of goodies and a delicious dressing is my Summer jam. If it’s your too, keep reading!
The other day I had some cucumbers left from a photoshoot and then my husband brought some very ripe nectarines and I got the idea of putting those together since I love fruits in salads. So I tried this salad and it was so good. Okay, I called it a peach salad and that’s because I actually love peaches just a tad more than nectarines, but the fruits in the photos are nectarines. You can use both, of course 🙂
Peaches, cucumbers, prosciutto, feta cheese, fresh basil, and spicy basil dressing. I call this a perfect Summer salad. Fresh crunchy cucumbers go so well with soft and sweet peach and I loved it so much I even made a recipe video for the very first time! I’ll be sharing it soon…
I was hoping June would be a little better this in terms of weather, but I was so wrong. Yesterday was the first day of June when we could actually be in shorts the entire day. But otherwise, we had so much rain and wind it almost felt like Autumn. Not very Summery at all. So weird!
Anyway, I’m pretty sure this cucumber and peach salad will scare the bad weather away. And I also can’t wait for fresh tomatoes to grow in our garden, so I can make my spicy goat cheese pesto pizza.
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When it comes to winter salad recipes, nothing beats arugula and kale salad with avocado, apples, feta, hazelnuts and some delicious mustard dressing.
The temperatures are finally getting more wintery over here, but there’s no sight of snow whatsoever!
Either way, a hearty winter salad with some fruits, cheese, and nuts is making me feel like Winter is as it should be.
It’s the beginning of a new year and it’s the time when a lot of us (including me) look more closely at what we eat. The thing is, in my personal experience if we give ourselves a tough challenge of eating lots of veggies we tend to fail soon if we’re not used to it.
I think it’s because we go to boring veggie foods. And I don’t mean veggies are boring, but they may seem this way if we don’t lift them up with some delicious add-ons.
And that’s what I love this salad!
It has some amazing leafy greens, but what it gives it heart and soul (and a chance that we’re not going to fail the healthy eating habit!) is the fruitiness of apples and pomegranate, creaminess of avocado and almond mustard dressing, flavor kick from feta cheese and some crunch from hazelnuts and also pomegranate.
It’s really such a simple Winter dish (or side dish), but I honestly couldn’t stop eating it when I first made this.
I used kale and arugula as the leafy green part, but if you grow or have excess to any other leafy greens I’m sure they will work just as well. As for the apple part, you could also use pears or some red oranges. Or all of them.
I’ll be a little shorter today. My poor sick son is asleep so I’m just trying to write this post and recipe as quickly as I can before he wakes.
Anyway, have a lovely weekend friends!
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This healthy Kale and Radicchio Quinoa Salad is a Winter favorite at our house. With fresh kale and radicchio, quick spring onion pickles and feta cheese I’m sure it will be in yours too.
Today’s recipe is inspired by all the delicious Winter leafy produce that is still available although the long-awaited Spring has arrived. This salad is loaded with some of my favorites like kale and radicchio.
A lot of you have been asking me to share more quick lunch recipes. So here’s another one. And the great thing about it? It’s meant to be cold so it’s super easy to take with you to work! Yay 😀
Alight, so here’s the deal. I usually make quinoa warm and throw in some roasted veggies when I need to take lunch with me. So it occurred to me I should make it a dish that’s meant to be eaten cold in the first place. Like a salad. And whoa, was I right! You should see my husband’s reaction to this kale and radicchio quinoa salad. He was super excited. Who wouldn’t be, just look at these colors!
The best part of this salad is the quick spring onion pickle. It literally takes a few minutes and you can make a bigger batch so you can use it on other dishes as well. In this recipe, I use the pickling liquid as a vinaigrette. Since I cook chunks of beetroot with the spring onion the dressing has a beautiful vibrant pink color. And this salad is all about color.
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Whoever says comfort food can’t be healthy, has obviously never tried popped beans and steamed broccoli salad with toasted spicy nuts and lemony mustard dressing. Hungry anyone?
Hey, hey! We’re having broccoli today.
Hmmm, the rhyme was unitntentional, I guess I’m feeling poetic 😛
I have a habit of steaming broccoli instead of roasting them. I dunno, I think it’s because of the vivid green color it keeps. Plus, it’s quicker 🙂 I was thinking what would go well in a steamed broccoli salad and then I remembered a Jamie Oliver show from a while ago. Can’t even remember the recipe, but I know he roasted the beans on a pan until they started popping. I tried those before and they were great. So, it sounded like an awesome idea to add them to the broccoli. Turnes out it was the right decision and with some added chopped parsey, pomegranate seeds and spicy nuts this makes a perfect winter salad.
The best thing about this salad is, it can be both a warm or a cold salad. For a warm salad, you dress it while everything is hot, for a cold salad, you rinse the broccoli with cold water after steaming and then decide if you want the beans and nuts to be warm or not. It’s up to you!
I’m seriously obsessed with mustard dressing. Although I’m normally not a fan of mustard as a condiment, it’s so amazing if you use it as seasoning.
This dressing is probably the one I use most on daily basis, because it’s super simple and mustard gives it an extra depth and richness. It works really well with bitter winter salads like radicchio.
So, some updates on what’s been going on in my life lately. We’re starting to prep more seriously for the baby. Yep, barely starting. I mean we have bought some things, made some and we’re getting lots of second hand stuff from friends, but we still have sooo many chores until I can really say, now we’re ready. We still have 10 weeks, but you never now, when the baby might surprise us. Oh, I have to tell you about the cutest little pants I’ve sewn. They are the cutest, but I’m affraid the fabric is not strechy enough and they’ll probably be to small to fit even a newborn. Luckily, I’m stacked with fabric and I’m making new ones 🙂
Ok, enough baby talk!
Besides all the baby preparations, we’re also starting to prep for the new dance show that we moved from Spring to Autumn, because of… well, baby. Yesterday, I started making my part of the coreography. You can imagine a big belly and a fast dance + some floorwork. It was fun, but also very chalenging!
Great, your all updated now, so let’s start cookin’!
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1cupcooked red beansif you’re using canned, rinse well before cooking
3TBSPmixed seedssunflower seeds, sesame, black sesame…
1tspcrushed chilli flakes
1tspground garlic
1/2cuppomegranate seeds
a bunch of parsleychopped
LEMONY MUSTARD DRESSING
5TBSPolive oil
3TBSPlemon juice
1TBSPmustard
pinchof salt
pinchof pepper
Instructions
Steamed Broccoli Salad
Cut the florets away from stems and cut them into bite size chunks. Cut the thinner stems into 1 cm chunks. Peel the thick main stem and cut it into 1 cm cubes.
Boil a little water (about a finger’s width) in a steaming pan and add the steming basket. Place the stem parts of broccoli into the steaming basket and the florets on top. If there are any leaves from broccoli place them right at the top. Cover with a lid, reduce heat to low and cook for about 5 minutes or until you can easily pierce the broccoli with a fork, but it’s still vibrant green. Be careful, because broccoli can go from vibrant to brownish color quickly.
If you prefer your broccoli to be cold, rinse immediately under cold water to stop it from further cooking. If you’re serving it warm, just remove from steamer and let it drain.
In a bowl mix together garlic and chilly flakes.
Heat a big skillet over medium-high heat and add beand and half of the garlic and chlli mixture. Cook them for about 4-5 minutes, tossing every now and then. Once you see most of the beans open, add the nuts and toss every now and then for a minute. Remove from heat and add the remaining garlic and chilli mixture.
Lemony Mustard Dressing
Beat all ingredients together with a fork.
Steamed Broccoli Salad
In a salad bowl, mix together broccoli, parsley, 2/3 of beans and seed mixture, 2/3 of pomegranate seeds and dressing. Top wih the remaining 1/3 of beeans and seeds and the rest of pomegranate seeds.
https://www.useyournoodles.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/popped-beans-steamed-broccoli-salad-6-1.jpg1050700Anja Burgarhttps://www.useyournoodles.eu/wp-content/uploads/logo_NEWW.pngAnja Burgar2017-01-19 07:36:282020-08-26 07:10:39Popped Beans and Steamed Broccoli Salad
There is no summer without a pesto pasta salad topped with a dash of crispy bacon!
Omg, I can’t believe I haven’t made a pasta recipe yet!!!
Banging my head against a wall right now…
I’m like the hugest fan of pasta in any shape or form. Ok, I’d probably choose any pasta over fettuccine, not fan of those – except homemade!
Today we’re making a freaking pesto pasta salad with crispy bacon, folks! And we’re making homemade pesto. How exciting is that!
I never, never, never buy pesto. It’s the easiest thing you can make, why buy it. I even have a trick for winter, when there’s no fresh basil. Every year I try to keep some basil in a pot in the kitchen over winter, but it ALWAYS dyes. 🙁 Boo hoo!
SIMPLE LONG-KEEP PESTO
So here’s the quick tip. Make a simple oil and salt only pesto at the peak of the season. Combine basil leaves with some salt and oil in a food processor and chop it up. It keeps in the fridge for over a year, but you’ll really need to be generous on salt otherwise it can spoil quickly.
That’s also my prefered metod of preserving basil. The taste is much more genuine than the dried one.
So, I want my salads to be fresh with loads of veggies, but there always have to be a goodie. Without an exeption! You know, the piece of feta cheese that’s basically the only reason you’re even eating a Greek salad. Or the pickle you’re dying to fish out of a Russian salad. Or apples in my delicious Millet and Carrot Salad with Creamy Almond Dressing. You see, every salad needs a goodie.
And here it’s CRISPY BACON!
I’m pretty sure my husband loves me more on days when I serve him bacon 🙂
It’s a perfect salad to serve at a picnic. It’s got pasta, tomatoes, bell peppers, mozzarella, pesto and bacon.
Refreshing but filling…
Who wouldn’t love that?!
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Not only is this pasta salad super simple and obviously SOOO delicious, but it’s also vibrant and beautiful!
Combine basil, almonds, parmesan, and garlic in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add olive oil one tablespoon at a time and mix until smooth. You'll probably need around 8 tablespoons. Season with salt and pepper.
Pasta salad
Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil and add pasta. Cook until al dente and rinse under cold water.
Place bacon strips into a large skillet and cook over low heat. When the meat starts to get dark red turn the stripes around with tongs. If there’s too much grease in the skilled, spoon it out. The bacon is done when it’s dark red on both sides. Move the stripes onto a plate covered with a paper towel and wait a couple of minutes until it crisps up. Then use your hands to break it apart into small pieces.
Put the pasta in a bowl and add the pesto. Mix it well.
Add tomatoes, peppers, mozzarella, half of the bacon, and lemon juice and mix well.
Season with salt and pepper and add a drizzle of olive oil if necessary.
Top with remaining bacon and basil leaves.
https://www.useyournoodles.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/pesto_pasta_salad_bacon_s-4.jpg1050700Anja Burgarhttps://www.useyournoodles.eu/wp-content/uploads/logo_NEWW.pngAnja Burgar2016-07-27 11:19:562020-08-26 10:24:32Pesto Pasta Salad with Crispy Bacon
Millet, carrots, beets, apples and some greens. What else would you need in a salad? Oh yeah, a creamy almond dressing with some fresh chillies. Enjoy my millet and carrot salad!
Happy New Year! I took a short break from my blog during the holidays, but now I’m back.
We abandoned our pretty decorated home to spend some crazy holidays with our friends in a mountain cottage near Velika planina. For my non-Slovenian readers: If you ever come to Slovenia it is absolutely necessary to go see Velika planina. In the late spring I like to rent a cottage up there together with my friends and spend a few days off in the stunning nature. This year we were lucky to be there when the shepherds were bringing cows up to the mountain. It’s a very ineresting day. You can see cows walking on their own from the valley and shepherds bring cows up on their trailers. It’s a very lively sight! Plus I love this place for picking wild herbs.
Me and my husband absolutely love millet. And by love I mean can’t go without it. So I created this beautiful millet and carrot salad with a nice and creamy spicy almond dressing. For an additional kick and sweetnes I added beetroot and apples and fresh baby salad leaves for some freshness. It’s a quite filling salad, perfect in this winter weather.
Note that the beetroot in this recipe is raw. I know many people don’t like raw beetroot, but if you slice it very thinly it doesn’t have such a powerful earthy taste. I happen to love the earthy taste, but if you are sure you can stand it, you can roast the beetroot before adding it to the salad. Just wrap it in foil and bake for an hour at 200 °C (400 °F). See more instructions on The Kitchn.
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MILLET AND CARROT SALAD WITH CREAMY CASHEW DRESSING
Prep Time25minutes
Total Time25minutes
Servings4
Ingredients
MILLET AND CARROT SALAD
1cupmillet
2cupswater
1/4tspsalt
1big carrot
1medium-size beetroot
2medium-size green applesChoose a juicy and sour type. I’m using Granny Smith.
4handfuls baby leaf saladlike lettuce, chard, rocket or any other
CREAMY ALMOND DRESSING
1cupalmonds soaked overnight
1/2cuplemon juice
1/2cupwater
1tspchopped chili pepperI’m using a bigger medium-hot chili pepper
1 1/2tspsalt
1/2tspblack pepper
Instructions
SALAD
Boil 2 cups of water and pour it into a small pot. Add millet and salt and stir. Set your stove to low heat and cover the pot. Leave to cook for about 15 minutes, checking every now and then, but not stirring. If the millet is still not tender to add a little more boiling water and cook a few more minutes. When it is soft remove from the heat, transfer it to the serving plate or bowl, and leave to cool a little.
Meanwhile, prepare the dressing (Instructions below) and cut the carrot and beetroot into very thin slices. Cut apples into 1 cm cubes.
When the millet has cooled a little, mix in carrot, beetroot, and apples. Top with fresh baby salad and dressing.
DRESSING
Rinse the almonds.
Put lemon juice, water, chili pepper, salt, and black pepper into a blender and mix until the dressing is smooth and creamy.
Notes
You can do the same dressing with any other nuts. I like almonds and cashews because they are sweet and go really well with millet.
If the millet is hot when you add the baby salad leaves, they will wilt, so make sure it is warm or even cool.
https://www.useyournoodles.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/milletcarrotsalad_5-Custom.jpg15001000Anja Burgarhttps://www.useyournoodles.eu/wp-content/uploads/logo_NEWW.pngAnja Burgar2016-01-07 09:24:322020-08-26 13:18:59Millet and Carrot Salad with Creamy Almond Dressing
Turkish Chicken Feast is a light and fresh dinner. Sumac covered soft chicken wings with a vibrant green salad with pomegranate and feta cheese and a yogurt dip topped with pomegranate syrup. And done in less than 30 minutes!
In my student years I lived in Turkey for four months. I made lots of close friends there and most of all I ate good. And a lot! Together with my friend Sanja I was writing a blog about our adventures there. You can find my blog here. It is in Slovenian, so sorry to all of you who can’t understand (Quick tip: Google can help you).
Tukish food is all about veggies and meat. My roomate was vegetarian and she had difficulties eating out. There is meat almost everywhere, not in huge amounts, but it is there. I am missing Turkish food so much, that I dedicated my Sunday lunch to Turkey. I’ve actually failed, because I haven’t made any excessively sweet dessert. I’m gonna leave that for another occasion.
This recipe is not a traditional Turkish meal, it was only inspired by some of the best Turkish ingredients.
This is my Turkish chicken feast. Sumac covered chicken with a feta, pomegranate and baby leaf salad. Two most common types of meat you can find there are lamb and chicken. I’m using the delicious chicken wings. Turkish people like to eat yoghurt on the side of meat, so I’m going to do the same. But I’ll serve it a bit differently.
Sumac is a spice that comes from the berries of a bush that grows mostly in Mediteranean countries and is a typical spice in the Middle Easter cuisine. It is a bit sour, but very aromatic and fruity and can be used in many ways. In this recipe I’m gonna use it to marinate my chicken.
Other unusual ingredient is pomegranate syrup. It has two versions. A more purified syrup called Nar Ekşisi and a cheaper syrup called Nar Ekşili. I’m using Nar Ekşisi and love it! I highly recomend buying one or making one at home. Use it in a salad dressing, in meatballs, in yoghurt. So many choices. Let’s start cookin’!
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4handfuls mixed baby leaf saladlike lettuce, chard, rocket or any other
1/2cuppomegranate seeds
120gfeta cheese
2TBSPsunflower seeds
zest of 1 lemon
DRESSING
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/3cupolive oil
1/4tspblack pepper
1/2tspsalt
2TBSPdried or chopped fresh mint
Instructions
Combine sumac, cayenne pepper, black pepper, salt, garlic, and olive oil in a big bowl and add chicken wings. Rub the spices in and make sure you get it all around. If you have time, let it marinate in the fridge for half an hour, if not that’s fine. Heat a large pan and add the chicken wings. You don’t need to add any oil, there’s oil on the chicken already.
Turn the chicken every minute for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Meanwhile combine lemon juice, olive oil, black pepper, salt, and mint in a salad bowl.
Don’t forget to turn the chicken every minute.
When chicken is done, move it to a serving plate and finish your salad. Add the salad leaves to the dressing and mix well. Serve it on a plate and top with pomegranate seeds, feta cheese, sunflower seeds, and grated lemon zest over.
In another small bowl serve yogurt and top it with pomegranate syrup. Mix just a little bit, to get the marbling effect. Use it as a dip for the chicken.
