3 *NEW* EASY HEALTHY SALAD RECIPES | clean eating recipes

I am always looking to create new, easy, healthy salad recipes. It is a delicious way to work more vegetables into your diet and a great opportunity to take advantage of fresh seasonal produce. I'm Dani Spees and today I am showing you how to make my artichoke, asparagus, and green bean salad, a raw zucchini and tomato salad, and then finally an arugula and beet salad. Now a great tip to keep in mind whenever you're making fresh seasonal dishes is that what grows together goes together. Basically any ingredients that grow in the same season are going to taste really good together. So let's get started with my artichoke, asparagus, and green bean salad. This is the only one of the three salads that does require a little bit of cooking because I like to give the green beans and the asparagus a quick steam to take the raw edge of them. But before we do that, we're going to start with a nice big bowl and into that I'm going to add some finely diced red onions, one clove of crushed garlic, three tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, and two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Then I'll give that a little bit of salt and some black pepper. Gently toss that all together. And then I'm adding in one 15 ounce can of quartered artichoke hearts that were packed in water and then drained out. So I just get them in the bowl. Then I'm just going to gently toss the artichokes with the dressing, get them all with a nice light coating, and then set that aside. Now for my fresh veggies, I'm going to start by trimming off the tough bottoms of the asparagus. So what you're going to do is you want to look for where the asparagus goes from a nice bright vibrant green to a little bit yellow or brown towards the ends. And then I just line them up and slice the bottoms off. Then from here we're going to cut the asparagus into one inch pieces. Now for the green beans, we need to trim them as well. And what you're going to notice is that one side of the green bean has this long skinny end. We're going to keep that end on. And the other end is where the stem is. So if the green beans are fresh, the stem will still be attached. If they fall off, then it might look a little dried off the top here. Either way, you want to either just snap the top off like this, or you can line them up on your cutting board and just trim them. Then we'll cut those into one inch pieces as well. And these are ready to be steamed up. So here on my stove, I have a pot with a little bit of boiling water in the bottom. I'm just going to stick my steamer basket on top of that, place the veggies in, and then pop on the lid. I'm just going to let them go for two to three minutes. I'm not looking for them to get very soft and tender. I actually want them to still have a good bite to them. So as soon as they start to turn vibrant green, then I'm going to shut the heat off and get them out of the pot and transfer them right into my bowl with the dressing and the artichokes. I really like to get them into the bowl while they are still hot because what that does is it releases all of the flavor from the garlic and the onions, and it gives the salad a lot more flavor. So get it all in there. I give it another hit of salt, a little bit more black pepper, and then gently toss everything together. And you're going to notice that as soon as those hot veggies hit the bowl, that it gets super fragrant. You're going to smell the lemon and the garlic and the onions and everything just starts to come together. And then I really love to just finish the salad with some fresh basil over the top. It's just another pop of flavor and it makes the salad scream summer. I love how this salad takes a veggie from the pantry, like our canned artichokes, and then some other veggies that you might have in your garden, like the green beans and asparagus, and puts it all into one simple salad. It just makes it so doable and so delicious. Okay, so next on the agenda is my raw zucchini and tomato salad. Now this salad is ideal for any of you who make garden, because both of these ingredients tend to really grow in abundance in your gardens, especially towards the end of the summer. I know that's how this salad was born for me. Here in New Jersey, tomatoes and zucchini are always in our garden. So I had a ton of both of them on the counter and this salad came to life. Now some of you may be wondering if it's okay to eat raw zucchini, and you have nothing to worry about. You absolutely can eat raw zucchini. Not only is it delicious, it's 100% safe. But what I do recommend is that you look for zucchini that are younger and smaller, like I have here. This way you know they're going to be nice and tender. So you want to go small to medium. Now to get started, I'm going to use a really sharp knife to create nice thin slices of zucchini. Now you could also do this with a mandolin if you had one, but personally I do not own one. I'm not a big fan of a lot of gadgets. So I just like to use a knife. Once I've got them all sliced up, I'm just going to transfer them into a nice big bowl. And then I'm going to slice up some cherry tomatoes as well. I'm just going to slice these in half. And guys, when it comes to your tomatoes, really I just recommend buying the most delicious end season tomato you can find because it's such a simple salad. So the better the quality of the ingredient, the more delicious the salad is going to be. I'll get those into my bowl as well. And then I'm going to add in the zest from one lemon. Now remember, whenever you are zesting a lemon, do your best to find an organic lemon if you can. Give it a good wash under some cold water. Then you want to zest that bright yellow skin on the outside. That's where all of the oils are, all the flavor is. But once you get to the white pith, you want to stop because the pith is very bitter. So you're just going to do a couple strokes to get the outside and then rotate, rotate, rotate until you've got all your lemon zest. Get that into your bowl, then slice that lemon in half. And let's get the fresh lemon juice in the bowl as well. You want about three tablespoons of lemon juice, which is what you should get from one nice, fat, juicy lemon. Next up, I'm going to add a few ounces of fresh feta cheese. I'm just going to break it off and crumble it over the top. My dear friends, very important, if you can when buying feta cheese, always try to find it in a block like I have here. And for those of you who don't do cheese, remember, Kalamata olives are always a great sub-in. They're rich, they're buttery, they're salty. They're going to give you that same decadent experience without the dairy. Then I'm going to drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over the top. Season with a little bit of kosher salt and black pepper and then a little bit of fresh basil. Gently stir this all together. Get everything well incorporated. So easy, it's so beautiful and so delicious. This salad just screams summer. I personally love to serve it with some grilled chicken or some grilled fish. And it's also a great salad to bring along to a potluck or a barbecue. The third and final salad that I'm going to show you today, it's probably one of the easiest yet, is my arugula and beet salad with cranberries and walnuts. Now to keep this salad super, super simple, I like to buy the pre-steamed beets at the grocery store. They come in a package just like this. You can find them in the produce section and it really saves a lot of time and a little extra mess when you want to make the salad super quick. But if you wanted to make the beets yourself, you certainly could. You could either roast them or steam them and I will leave links down in the description box below showing you how to do both of those. But whichever road you travel, you want to have about six small beets or three large beets, somewhere around eight or nine ounces of beets that are cooked and peeled. Then I just slice them in half and then I slice them in half again and slice them right across so they're like little quarter slices just like this. Now keep in mind whenever you are working with cooked beets like this that they can stain your fingers and they can stain your cutting board. So I always work on a plastic cutting board so I don't ruin my wood cutting boards and I don't do it but if you wanted to protect your fingers, you could also put gloves on as well. Once the beets are ready to go, I'm just going to set those aside and make my dressing. So into a spatted cup or you could also do this in a mason jar, I'm going to start with a quarter cup of extra virgin olive oil, a quarter cup of balsamic vinegar, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a clove of crushed garlic, and then some kosher salt and some black pepper. Gently whisk that all together, get it all combined and then I'm going to set that aside so I can build the salad. So in a nice large bowl I have five ounces which is about six cups of baby arugula and to that I'm just going to sprinkle over the top the chopped beets. Then I have a half a cup of chopped up walnuts and a quarter cup of dried cranberries. Then I also love to dot some creamy goat cheese over the top. This just adds a bright little tang and it really adds to the texture of the salad but again remember whenever you don't want to do these cheeses, you can always resort back to Kalamata olives. Get my dressing, give it one last whisk and then go ahead and drizzle that right over the top of the salad and then start to gently toss the salad together. Just want to get all of the ingredients incorporated and combined and then transfer that into your serving bowl, doing your best to get all of those yummy ingredients over the top of the greens. I just love how all of the flavors and the textures of this salad come together. You have the spicy arugula with earthy beets, the sweet cranberries, the nutty walnuts, and then of course that creamy tangy bite from the goat cheese. So good! So there you have it. Three super simple salads that you could bring along with you to a barbecue or a cookout or that you can make for yourself and enjoy for lunch or as a nice light dinner or as a side dish. So many options and I cannot wait to hear which salad you think you're going to try first. Come on down to the comments below and please do let me know and when you try these salads be sure you snap a picture and tag me on Instagram and on Facebook so I can see all the clean and deliciousness that you're whipping up in your very own kitchens. If you haven't already, please take a moment to like, subscribe, and share this video with anybody else you know who wants to make healthy eating easy. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Dani Spees and I'll see you back here next time with some more clean and deliciousness. Cheers! Dear friends, if you haven't already, please take a moment to like, subscribe, share this video with anybody else you know who wants to make healthy eating easy. Thank you so much and I'll see you back here next time with some more clean and deliciousness. Peace! So we'll take it from the top. Ready?