In an attempt to be creative in the kitchen while serving weather appropriate foods AND trying to be healthy, I spent last week serving sandwiches, soups, and salads for lunch.  Bag salads are easy and fast, but I try to reserve them for an emergency.  Interesting green salads are great, but we end up throwing away more than what we eat.  And, to be honest, I don’t really like salad greens!

I love potato salad, but I only had sweet potatoes.  So, a quick internet search found a sweet potato salad.  It was really great and healthy!  Sweet potatoes, black beans, and lime juice were prominent flavors.  Even my picky husband was a fan.  It can be served cold, warm or hot.  I went with warm.  If you are interested, check out the recipe here.  This is a blog called Chocolate Covered Katie.  I served the salad with a chicken and provolone sandwich.

The next day I served wild rice and mushroom soup with an apple and celery salad which was a riff off a Lee Bailey salad composed of apple, pear, and celery.  I did not have any pears, so I had to wing-it.  There are several salads by this name on the internet, but I didn’t see any quite like this one.  His recipe includes fresh raspberries, raspberry vinegar, orange juice, olive oil, and garlic.  I didn’t have the berries or raspberry vinegar, so I used blackberry vinegar instead.  Although it sounds weird, it was actually amazing.  It went perfectly with the soup.  Both were hits!

What I realized is that there is a world of salads out there that don’t involve lettuces of any type…and they are delicious!   Next week I think I may serve the traditional broccoli salad as well as the Asian cabbage salad that has Ramen noodles in it.  A Waldorf salad might make it to the table as well!

Other non-lettuce salad ideas include:

Ambrosia salad
Asparagus salad
Avocado and tomato salad
Carrot and raisin salad
Cherry salad
Corn salad
Cornbread salad (yummy!)
Fruit salad
Frogeye salad
English pea salad (for my favorite recipe, click here)
Greek salad
Green bean salad
Mushroom salad
Pasta salad
Pineapple salad
Potato salad
Seaweed salad (this stuff is amazing!)
Tomato and cucumber salad (my husband loves this!)
Veggie salad
Watermelon salad
Wild rice salad

So you may think of some of these as dessert salads, but if you are serving them with a soup or sandwich, it works.  And your family will love a break from the traditional green salad!