Tips to keep the Salad Bar Healthy
Many people choose a salad bar in a restaurant for a healthy meal. Here are a few tips to make sure you enjoy all the nutritional benefits of a salad and avoid the high calorie pitfalls of restaurant eating:
Choose a green lettuce base (the greener the better), like romaine or spinach instead of iceberg.
Then go put your dressing on because the lettuce is the part of a salad that needs flavor and moisture. Choose a low fat dressing and slowly drizzle to add what you need and no more. (Remember that regular ranch dressing is 146 calories for 2 T, and low fat ranch is only 66 calories for 2 T.)
Pile on fresh vegetables (low in calories and high in nutrition) like broccoli, carrots, celery, mushrooms, onions, bean sprouts, radishes, beets, cucumbers, and tomatoes.
Add 1-2 Tablespoons of things (higher in calories and high in nutrition) like garbanzo beans, soybeans, green peas, eggs, sunflower seeds, almonds, black olives, and marinated 3 bean salad.
Have 1 Tablespoon of things (higher in fat or lower in nutrition) like cheese, ham, carrot raisin salad, and pasta salads.
Consider skipping things (even higher in fat and lower in nutrition) like bacon bits, croutons, packaged crackers, and rolls.
Finally, for “dessert” go get a plate of fruit staying as close to the natural fruit as possible and avoiding heavy syrups and whipped creams.
Top it all off by drinking water or unsweetened iced tea and you have a low calorie, highly nutritious meal.
Now, I must give praise where praise is due. My husband is actually the one who discovered the trick to add the dressing straight on lettuce. We had been to a salad bar when he realized that the bland, dry lettuce is the part he doesn’t like about a salad. And that if he put dressing directly on the lettuce, he would solve the flavor problem and not be using extra dressing to coat things that already had a good flavor. Way to think outside the box honey!
Special thanks for the photo to cgrabig on flickr.
February 15th, 2009 at 10:30 am
My sister has always put her salad dressing right on the lettuce and there is never any salad left at the end of her meals.
We make our own homemade salad dressing out of Olive Oil, Balsamic vinegar, crushed and diced fresh garlic and Italian seasoning. The commercial versions always have preservatives, while ours is always fresh — and good for you.
February 15th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
@ David-
I too prefer to skip the msg, excess sodium, and preservatives and make my own salad dressings. I recently used Regina brand Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar with olive oil and herbs and really enjoyed it. It had way more flavor than other raspberry vinegars I’ve had.