We love salads! We often have meal-sized salads for dinner, especially right now with all of the locally-grown greens we’re getting our hands on, but I’ve got to say – we’re pretty particular about our salads. They have to fill us up! They have to be hearty and include a variety of textures and nutrients so that we can feel satisfied after having a salad for dinner. Here are some of my favorite salad tips:

– Include both fresh and roasted veggies. I love raw cucumber and tomato, but I also love adding leftover roasted veggies to our salads. Roasted broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, or potatoes are favorites.
– Add a grain. I love adding a couple of spoonfuls of cooked rice or quinoa to our salads.
– Add toasted nuts and or seeds. This is a non-negotiable for us. I love a little crunch throughout the salad and toasted nuts or seeds are the way to go. We usually do sunflower seeds, walnuts, pecans, almonds, or pumpkin seeds. This will also add some healthy fats to your salad as well, which will help to make you feel satiated.
– Don’t forget the protein. This is also a non-negotiable for meal salads. We have been loving beans lately – raw or roasted chickpeas, red beans, black beans, lentils – but use any protein that you please!
– Don’t be afraid to season your salad. When I dress our salads with just a drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar, I always liberally season the entire salad. I mostly do salt, pepper, garlic powder, and dried oregano but it’s fun to get creative with dried herbs as well.
– Use fresh herbs. I love chopping and adding fresh herbs to our salads when I can. Any that you have on hand will do. They add such a complexity of flavor to salads.
– Make homemade dressing. Another non-negotiable for us. Like I said above, sometimes I do just a drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar, but oftentimes I make a small batch of homemade dressing. The honey dijon dressing in this post is one of our favorites, or this hemp dressing. Lately, we’ve been obsessed with this 4 ingredient sesame dressing that I’m sharing today. It is so easy to make and has a rich, Asian-inspired flavor. Homemade salad dressing is so easy to make, and I always say that once you start, you’ll never go back to the store-bought bottles.

The amounts listed below make enough dressing for 2 large meal-sized salads. Adjust as needed. Here’s the recipe:

4 Ingredient Sesame Dressing
3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon coconut aminos
1 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice

Add ingredients to a bowl and whisk until the dressing comes together. Toss with greens, veggies, nuts, seeds, protein, etc. Enjoy your tasty salad!

Notes: I linked the toasted sesame oil and coconut aminos that I use in the recipe above for reference. If you’re curious about coconut aminos, check out this article. You could use soy sauce in place of the coconut aminos if you’d like.

The salad pictured below was our lunch on the day I took the photos and was delicious! It had mixed greens, toasted sunflower seeds, raw tomato and cucumber, chickpeas and the sesame dressing. Happy salad eating!