Your salads suck. Let’s fix that. Here is a foolproof formula to make your salad less boring so you can get your daily dose of veggies.

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You’re not eating enough vegetables. Let’s just go ahead and put that out there, because it’s true.

Maybe this is because you simply don’t like veggies.

To be fair, leafy greens tend to be solely associated with healthy eating. As a result, they get tossed on a plate as an after-thought.

Eating vegetables can sometimes feel like paying penance for all of the cookies we eat during the week. It’s as if you have to eat them to cancel a few french fries out and justify the pizza you’ll eat later.

Let’s put a stop to that right now.

You need to be eating more vegetables each and every day

In fact, you should be getting closer to five solid servings of veggies per day. That little half of a cup of broccoli on your dinner plate is not going to cut it.

One of the biggest ways you should be doing so is through what I call a daily BAS.

A Big. Ass. Salad.

Cue the pushback here.

“Salads are boring and mostly gross. Just a bunch of lettuce.”

Yeah, of course your salads are boring. You’ve been conditioned to think that they’re part of your punishment for being fat.

In this article, we’re going to talk about how to make your salad less boring so you can get more vegetables in your day.

Let’s get into it.

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Every single day, one of the first meals I eat is a BAS

It’s loaded with four to five handfuls of leafy greens and some extra veggies of my choice. Then I throw in a good five to six ounces of some kind of a protein option. And it’s all tossed in a little poor man’s dressing that I make up on the go.

All of this is then chopped up using my salad chopper and humongous bowl.

Takes me a good 30 minutes to eat.

But it covers a couple of things:

1) I’ve hit almost all of the servings of vegetables that I need for the day in this one bowl. If all else fails and no other meal includes something green, my bases are still covered.

2) Protein is high here (upwards of 60 grams) which along with the fiber from the veggies keeps me full.

3) Healthy fats from things like avocados or olive oil work hand-in-hand with the extra protein to prolong that satiation for hours. As a result, cravings are few and far between.

How to make your salad taste better

It all starts with the base.

Find yourself some leafy greens that you enjoy, not the ones that some whack Instagram influencer told you to eat because it’s a “superfood.”

Mixing up that base will help add some variety, but be careful at first. Adding a bunch of peppery arugula to your salad bowl might be overwhelming to your pallet if you’ve never tried that before.

What’s your protein?

This is the question you should ask yourself before every single meal, not just before the daily BAS ritual.

Tossing a few palm-sized portions of protein to your salad will go a long way towards hitting your daily protein goals, but also ensuring this meal is a filling one.

Get creative with this option.

• Toss in chicken breasts or thighs.
• Opt for tuna or salmon.
• Don’t be afraid to go with options like ground beef or turkey.

If you keep the leafy greens base the same every day but mix up the protein offering, it will still provide lots of variety to your daily BAS.

Once you’ve got the two pillars satisfied, it’s time to crank up the creativity to make your salad less boring.

Add some textures

This is where most people fail.

They’re convinced that salads are just leaves and maybe some chicken with a bit of creamy crappy dressing.

It’s so much more than that.

Add some crunch to your salads every day with options like:

• Sliced almonds (just watch the extra fat calories).
• Chunks of apple (also adds a bit of sweetness).
• My favorite option: tossing in some broccoli slaw, which adds crunch and some added fiber.

Play around with temperatures

I like to think of salads in layers.

With some of those layers I like to add a bit of heat, so I’ll lightly warm up the protein or perhaps grab some roasted vegetables from a previous nights’ dinner, nuke ‘em for a few seconds and add that to the bowl.

Salads do not have to be cold.

You can have several layers of flavor, texture and temperature, too.

Compliment with flavors

Things like apples or other fruit options can provide a pop of flavor for minimal calories. Just watch the dried fruits like raisins or cranberries.

Why?

Because when the fruit is dried and processed, it loses nutrient value and some fiber. With the reduced water content, it loses volume, too.

You get all the calories without the nutrients, aka, empty calories.

It’s not that you can’t include these things (moderation after all). But just be careful because the calories will add up. Use the dried fruits sparingly.

Now, that said, citrus can take a crappy meal and actually make your salad less boring without much effort at all.

Hitting your salad with some citrus like a splash of lemon juice can bring out subtle flavors that enhance the dish. Especially if you’ve added some roasted vegetables from a previous dinner or if you’re using some proteins that are outside of the usual flare.

Sprinkle some finishing Maldon salt on your creation as another way to bring out the tastes of the creation you’ve tossed together.

One hidden, yet incredibly important step, is to find yourself a salad chopper

They are available on Amazon for cheap and it’s a worthwhile investment for something that you could be potentially using daily.

Salad choppers perfectly blend up the mixture along with the added dressings. And perhaps the best part is that it breaks up those big, chunky leaves from the greens you’re eating.

Your salads are boring because they look and taste like salad, break up those leaves by chopping them and it will go a long way towards sprucing up your salad.

Dressing it up

When it comes to dressings, this is where most salads go to die.

You end up drowning your vessel in tons of creamy, nasty, calorically-dense ranch dressing. Gross. Like, seriously.

You’re better than ranch.

I want you to hit the pause button on reading this right now. Go to your kitchen. Open up your refrigerator, find whatever bottles of ranch you have in there and immediately toss it in the trash.

Okay, now we can have an adult conversation.

Stop buying your salad dressings. They are loaded with calories and sodium and chemicals. And they cost money. You can and should just get creative with your own.

My simple dressing that works wonders every single time is …

• 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• ½ juice of a lemon
• 1 tablespoon of full fat greek yogurt
• 2 squirts of sriracha (yes, squirts is super scientific)

Spice. Creaminess. Some citrus and a little acid. Flavor for days.

Add all of this to your bowl before chopping. Mix it all in there. Chop it all up. Eat it like a Khaleesi, without the horse meat of course.

You now know how to make your salads less boring now; so eat one every day

Get creative and stop treating your daily dose of vegetables as a chore or a punishment for last night’s pizza.

With some ingenuity, some innovation and one or two pieces of equipment, you can make your salad creation taste like something you’d order for $14 or more.

Instead, you can make this from the comfort of your own home while ensuring a lower calorie, higher protein, fiber-heavy meal that will help bolster that calorie deficit.

You might even, dare I say, start to enjoy your daily salad.

Let me help you figure how to make your salad less boring … 

Finding the right time and right workout plan can be incredibly overwhelming. But, I’m here to help you out.

If you have any questions, reach out. I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “Make Your Salad Less Boring” and I’ll answer any questions you have about eating your daily dose of veggies.

Or you can hit me up anytime on the socialz on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

If you enjoyed this post, maybe you’d like more knowledge bombs from me. I’d be honored if you join my mailing list to get regular updates every time I post something pretty dope.