16 tips for a tastier salad

Tired of your boring old iceberg, tomato and cucumber salad?

Janella Purcell, a naturopath and author of three healthy living cookbooks, including her latest, Janella’s Wholefood Kitchen, gave us some fantastic tips for keeping salads interesting and nutritious.

Follow these tips and you'll never have a boring salad again.

1. Roast some veggies instead of always having raw ones.

Slice pumpkin, potato, sweet potato, onions, garlic, beetroot, corn. Simply drizzle with olive oil, add some minced garlic and when they’re ready, fling them on your salad for extra yum.

2. Add toasted nuts and seeds.

Purchase some pine nuts or almonds at your local grocer and pan-fry in a non-stick pan with a little tamari. Voila! − a healthy and protein-packed addition to any salad.

3. Add all different types of fresh herbs.

You’d be surprised how different a salad can taste with the addition of fresh herbs. Try mint, coriander with seafood, basil with tomatoes or cheeses and chives and parsley with potato or egg-based salads.

4. Add a complex carb like local quinoa, organic brown rice, barley, millet or amaranth.

Boil or steam the grain, allow to cool, and add for an extra filling salad.

5. Add some crackers on the side such as spelt or sourdough. Serve with hummus or pesto.

You could also toast spelt bread or sourdough, slice into cubes and drizzle with olive oil and sea salt to create your own healthy croutons.

6. Experiment with different oils keeping them raw such as flax, walnut, coconut or chia.

Purcell said that some oils shouldn't be heated, as it destroys their essential fatty acids (EFAs).

"Since it's harder to use those ones (oils) for cooking, they must be raw, so make the most of their nutritional benefits by adding to cool salads," she said.

7. Try different proteins instead of chicken or tuna such as legumes and marinated tofu.

You could also try tempeh, beef strips, pork or fresh seafood such as prawns.

8. Make beautiful dressings and sauces to make it exciting to finish it off.

Why not try combinations like pumpkin and cumin hummus, coriander tahini dressing or macadamia and coriander pesto?

9. Don’t always use lettuce − the dark green leafy are better for you.

Some great examples include rocket, baby spinach, wilted kale, and Asian greens such as pak choy.

10. Add different spices like sumac, turmeric, paprika to jazz things up.

Each spice has its own benefits, for example, Purcell said turmeric is an excellent blood cleanser.

11. Add citrus rind or zest.

Purcell said there are loads of great properties in fruit zest.

"Lemon zest is really good for your liver, orange zest is packed with carotene, grapefruit is good for weight loss, and blood orange is wonderful for vitamin C," Purcell said.

12. Keep the skin on roasted vegies for extra fibre.

Purcell said some of the best nutrients exist just under the skin in vegetables like pumpkin and sweet potato. Simply wash them before you cook them and serve skin-on.

13. Try different vegetables.

Mix it up with vegetables like fennel, kohlrabi, asparagus, red cabbage and kale.

Why not try to find vegies that are grown locally?

14. Add pickled vegetables like ginger and cucumbers, for a sweet and sour, zesty flavour.

15. Try adding free-range eggs.

Poached or boiled, eggs add some extra protein.

16. Cube or crumble some cheese.

Purcell recommends a bit of blue cheese, fetta or goat's cheese for an extra special salad.