New year Healthy Lunch Ideas - 3 Perfect Salads

Hey everyone and welcome back to Hayes Kitchen. Today I'm going to be doing some really really simple take to work with you salads. I see so many people coming into work and all they do is to have their lettuce, tomatoes, a little bit of cucumber and what I want to try and do today is make you see that salad doesn't have to always be boring. There's so many more things you can use than just lettuce, tomato and cucumber. So we've got a whole load of ingredients all around us today. We're going to be making up three different salads, really really simple. Take them to work, they'll be really light, they're going to be low calorie, we've got healthy fats in there, we've got some different grains, we've got different vegetables, we've got loads of different things going on. So what we've got on the table, we've got some pea shoots, we've got some mixed quinoa. With the quinoa I've put in a little bit of chia seed, just boiled that through with a little bit of vegetable stock. We've got tomatoes, a little bit of monster, we've got some green beans, we've got some cooked pre-done new potatoes and I've just roasted those off. We've got some spinach, we've got some beetroot, radish, we've got some stilton, we've got some little mini pitters. Over this side what have we got? We've got some chard, some carrots, some celery, cucumber, we've got some courgette and for dressing we're going to keep it really really simple. All these ingredients that we're going to be using create their own juices, so I don't understand why people put loads of salad dressing on, there's no need. If you use the correct kind of salad and the correct kind of vegetables it produces its own sort of moistness or wetness anyway so it gives you loads of flavour. So what we're going to use is very simple dressings of olive oil, balsamic glaze, some white wine vinegar and we've got some tangerines or satsumas, you can use oranges if you want. So the first salad we're going to be doing, we're going to grab ourselves a bowl and our first salad is going to be really really light and fresh. We've got some carrot here first up, we've got a spirallizer. Now I've mentioned these before, you can get something called a spirallizer which is a massive piece of equipment which you don't need. As I say these are like two or three quid on eBay or other websites that are available, Amazon, get one of these, these are absolutely brilliant. All you're going to do is you whack your carrot in, twist it round and you start making your almost like a spaghetti type base. So first of all we're just going to wind through a carrot, only a small amount, doesn't need to be massive. Now I'm going to try and make these into small container type salads so if you think about something like that you can take it to work, you can have one of those at 11 o'clock, you can have another one of those at one o'clock and you can make them two different salads with your own different choice of toppings or your own sort of carbohydrate, your own sort of grain or your own sort of vegetables. Two different salads, it means you haven't got that boring, you know when you get to lunchtime and you think oh I've got my lettuce and tomato salad, it's so tough and the great thing about these sort of things is when you've got your carrot like this you can spirallize your whole carrot, put some iced water on there, put it in the fridge and you can use that throughout the week. It will last about three or four days, just take it out, drain it out and make your salad up. That way there's not loads and loads of planning and loads of preparation, you can just make it up each evening, get your two salads done and you're sorted for the day. So next up to the carrot we're going to get ourselves some cucumber. The great thing about these little machines is you can just put anything through them, it's going to give you the same sort of effect. So cucumber, spin that through exactly the same sort of method and you see all the moisture and water coming out of that cucumber, that's going to create our dressing. Now into that we're going to actually add our small amount of dressing. So our dressing is actually going to come from our tangerine or our satsumas. We're just going to cut one of those in half, pour that in. Orange and carrot works really well together by the way, so those flavours are going to be perfect. Into that we're just going to add a very small amount of olive oil, a tiny bit of dressing over the top and then we're going to go with some cherry tomatoes. So one, two, three, four of these. Just going to chop them in half, mix that through again. Now this is the point where you can start choosing what you want to add to it. So for something like this I'm going to add some radish, a couple little fresh radishes. If you've got a slicer, these are brilliant, just watch your fingers with them. If you've got any group of knives just use your knife skills on those as well. Mix that up again, keeping all that dressing going through. Now I'm going to choose my grain. The grain I'm going to be using here is some mixed quinoa with a little bit of chia seed. Mix that through. Now I want some sort of herb in here as well, so I would totally recommend something like a little bit of coriander or basil would be perfect in there. So I've got some fresh basil here, just pull off three or four leaves, chop that through, nice and fine and again just mix that through the salad. Now up to you, that's going to be perfectly flavoursome exactly as it is but I'm going to add some meat to that. I'm going to use some chicken. If you've got leftover chicken from a Sunday roast or roast beef, that's absolutely ideal. So your chicken, just literally break that through and again just mix your ingredients back through again. That's going to pour that straight in. So that is your first salad done. You've got yourself some mixed quinoa, a little bit of chia seed, you've got some chicken breast, tomatoes, radish, some spiralised cucumber, some spiralised carrot and some fresh basil. That is going to be absolutely beautiful with that tangerine dressing. That is beautiful, perfect. First salad done. Second salad, this is going to be so easy. We're just going to literally go in with a little bit of our spinach. I'm going to use a little bit of our white wine vinegar, just a very small splash to go over the top. It's going to give it a little bit of acidity in there. We've got some beetroot, so literally just take your beetroot and just slice that through nice and gentle with your knife skills. Now I've got a bit of steak which I've just pre-cooked. I've literally cooked it for about four minutes either side. So that's what you're looking for, you're looking for just a little bit of a pink line going through the middle. If you're unsure about steak or want it slightly more done, by all means do it further. This is going to be sitting in the juices for the day so it's going to still stay beautifully tender for you and then onto that I'm going to add a very small amount of balsamic glaze. Now balsamic glaze is balsamic vinegar, it's just thickened up, it's a little bit sweeter. Not too much, just a small amount going through. Then again just spoon that through your salad and into that I'm going to add some beautiful cherry tomatoes. So literally just going to keep these whole. One, two, three tomatoes and on top of there just to give it a little bit more carb. So for instance I'm going to want a little bit more filling up because that's going to digest very quickly. We're going to add a little bit of our roast potatoes that we had left over. So I'm just literally just going to keep them in whole, little halves like that. Just chuck them in, mix that through. I'm going to add a little bit of salt and pepper. Now for me what I like to do with something like that is just take a small amount of stilton, just a little tiny bit, just literally just crumb that just over the top and that's our second salad done. We've got a beautiful medium rare beefsteak, we've got a little bit of stilton, some half, some roasted new potatoes, we've got our spinach, beetroot and some cherry tomatoes all done with a little bit of white wine vinegar and a little bit of balsamic glaze. Salad number two done. Right for our third and final salad, really really simple again. We're gonna get one of our courgettes. Spirulizer again. I'm just going to twist that through so if you want to flake some salmon in here that'd be perfect as well. I'm just going to try and keep this one nice and vegetarian for you guys, keep it all fair. We're going to go into that with a little bit of char. Now you can roast this off or just pan fry it with a little bit of butter. All I'm going to do is just grab the two leaf ends and I'm just going to finely, literally just curl it all over and just finely, really finely just chop that up. Just turn that through. Into that I've got some raw mange too. Again all I'm just going to do is chop them into like thirds. Chop them through. A little bit more of our quinoa. So our quinoa and our chia seed, reasonably good amount in this one. Mix that through. I've got one lemon. If you want to get the juice out of all your lemon push down hard on the skin, roll it backwards and forwards, cut that open and a lot more of that juice is going to come out a lot easier. Mix that through again and a few of our pea shoots. Sprinkle those through and then I generally like to go in with a little bit of celery. So one piece of celery. Just chop the slightly woody end off. Nice and thinly with that. Chop that in. Stir it through. I usually try and put something like a nut in there. So you have hazelnuts, walnuts. I'm actually just going to sprinkle a few pine nuts into there. So pine nuts, small handful. That is our third salad. We've got our courgette, quinoa, got some pine nuts, celery, some mange tout. All done with a little bit of lemon juice. Absolutely perfect little healthy salad. It's probably the healthiest one you're going to get. It's going to be a perfect little lunch for you as well. I don't care whereabouts you are, but you never seem to be able to just get yourself a decent takeaway salad like that. What's that take me? What, three or four minutes for each one? There's no excuse not being able to prep that up the day before. We've got a perfect healthy lunch the next day and you can go to work and be happy about your lunch. Now for something like that, if you want to bulk yourself out a little bit, you want a little bit more filling, you would just go in with like a half a pit of bread, something like a whole wheat, something like that, maybe a little bit of butter on there. And if you want to make up a dressing because there's not quite enough on there for you, try and keep any containers that you have, things like this. It's just like an old spice pot. All I do is put into there a little bit of olive oil, a little bit of balsamic glaze and maybe another half of your orange juice or satsuma juice like that. You can put some honey in there if you want. Pop your top on, sound effect time. There you go, take that with you, drizzle it over the top and you've got your perfect dressing. How simple was that? Three really, really simple salads. Hope you enjoy this one guys. We've got our beautiful courgette, carrot, tomatoes, a little bit of roasted chicken in there, quinoa, radish, we've got our beetroot beef, roast potato with stilton and pea shoot and we've got our courgette with small pitters, a little bit of quinoa, celery and monge tooth salad. That simple guys. Hopefully you enjoyed this one. If you do enjoy it, comment below, tell everyone about the House Kitchen channel, tell everyone about Instagram, House Kitchen and I'll see you next week. Cheers then, bye bye. Breakfast I had recently, which I fall in love with and have it lunch mornings.