(pleasant music)
- Hey everyone.
Welcome back to my channel.
My name is Nicole and today, I'm gonna be talking about
must know salad hacks and little tricks and tips
to actually making your salads taste delicious.
So you actually want to eat them.
I get it salads aren't the sexiest thing,
but we're gonna make them really sexy in today's video.
So you wanna eat them and they taste really yummy.
So if you're not already subscribed,
click that subscribe button down below,
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I do what I eat in a days, family vlogs, mommy tips,
recipe, videos, and hack videos like this one.
Let's hop right in.
Now let's be real.
There are a lot of boring salads,
and there's probably a couple things that you're doing
that you could just tweak a little bit
to make a big difference when it comes
to prepping your salads.
So I have a few ingredients laid out in front of me,
and we are gonna make some salads together today.
And I'm gonna go over my must know 10 hacks
to make them so much better.
Okay first thing is we are gonna wash our lettuce
and when washing your lettuce, one second.
You're gonna need this guy.
This is not an unnecessary kitchen appliance.
It's is it an appliance or tool?
It's probably a tool.
This thing is amazing.
It is called a salad spinner.
And if you eat salad, get one of these.
It makes the biggest difference
because when your lettuce is still wet,
the dressing is not gonna stick to it well,
and it's also just not that appetizing
to eat sloppy, wet lettuce.
You know what I mean?
It even sounds gross.
So dry your lettuce.
So let's, let's wash and dry together.
Shall we?
(pleasant music)
Okay we're gonna just give her a lettuce quick chop
and then transfer to the salad spinner.
You just pop the lid on and you push down.
They all kind of work a little bit differently,
but this is essentially how they work
and you know, it doesn't take too long
and you're gonna see how much water
comes off of the lettuce.
And then there's a little button here.
You just press to break it.
And now you can see all that water in there
that would have been in your salad
if you didn't rinse it.
There you go, Mr. Plant.
You can take that salad water.
Now, when it comes to kale or something more hearty
that has like a thicker stem,
before you put it into the salad spinner,
you wanna actually take the stem out.
So you just, there's different ways to do this,
but I basically will just run my fingers
along the stem and it just comes right off.
The stem just makes things like it's super hearty and woody.
So, you know, you can use in like stews
and stocks and stuff, but it's not so great in your salad.
You can even juice it.
Juice it, add it to your smoothies,
but take it out of your salads.
The other thing I love about the salad spinner is that
once things are chopped and dried,
you can actually just store it in this in the fridge.
So a lot of times I'll chop up a couple of heads
of romaine lettuce and then just store them in this.
So they stay nice and crisp and they last
a few days like this.
So it's definitely worth the investment.
Not investment, these are cheap.
So it's definitely worth the buy.
I use it all the time and if you make salads, you need one.
So I've already done a rough chop of my lettuce,
but my second hack is to actually take
some kitchen scissors
and I've actually been doing this for years
and you're gonna go right into your salad
and you're gonna cut into it.
And this just helps make everything nice bite-sized pieces.
You know, no one likes a big piece of lettuce chunk
when they're, you know, trying to eat a salad.
So this is just a nice way to get it all chopped up
And you just have nice little, little bite-size pieces.
This is also great if you have a mixture
of different lettuces and stuff,
just kinda mixes them all up together
and you can add, obviously,
your other ingredients and stuff.
But I have been using this little trick for years
and it works every time and it's definitely a go-to of mine.
All right, next hack.
My next tip is to massage your heartier greens
like kale, cabbage, give them a little massage.
Otherwise they're very tough and a lot more bitter
if you don't break down that cell wall.
So by massaging it, you're softening the greens.
You're making it easier to digest, to chew,
and it ends up making the greens
taste a little bit sweeter in my opinion.
So I'm gonna add it to a bowl
and then add a few different things and give it
a little, little massage, a little, a little self-care
before we make it into a salad.
So I have a mixture of some leafy kale,
as well as dinosaur kale.
These are actually from my garden.
They've been thriving.
And honestly, I like to find any reason
to add more greens into my foods
like soups and salads and smoothies.
So this is a great way to make them
that much more delicious.
So there are different ways to massage your greens,
but the basic go-to one is just a little bit of oil
with a little bit of sea salt.
So I just have some nice extra-virgin olive oil.
I'm just gonna give that a quick drizzle.
And then I just have some flaky sea salt here.
Yeah, just sprinkle on.
And then also this is optional.
You can even do a little lemon juice.
If you don't wanna do the salt,
you could just do lemon juice.
You want just like some kind of acid.
You could even use a vinegar
like apple cider vinegar or something.
And then you're gonna use your hands, some clean hands,
just go in there.
Give it a quick massage.
Even 30 seconds is gonna make a huge difference.
The kale's gonna get shinier, softer.
Also, it makes your hands really soft.
Look at how beautiful that looks.
And it's kind of like, you're already adding
the dressing in it.
If you just want to add in, you know, some cherry tomatoes,
avocado, you'd be, you'd have a salad.
All right, now that that's done,
I'm gonna wash my hands and we'll move to the next step.
My next hack is to actually spend some time
chopping your vegetables and fruit.
So a lot of times people
will just like roughly chop everything
and you'll have these like big chunks of tomato
and cucumber and like, yes,
there is a type of salad for that.
Like, sometimes a really nice,
chunky Greek salad is delicious.
I usually find when everything is really large in the salad,
you're not gonna get that nice bite
of all the different flavors and textures
that are in the salad.
And that's where you get really good flavor.
So I'm gonna spend some time chopping everything.
There are a couple of things you can do
to make the chopping a little bit quicker,
like using one of those like mini food processors,
or I'm gonna show you guys something in my next hack,
but just, you know, taking a knife,
a cutting board and just listening to a podcast
and actually chopping things up is gonna
make your salad taste a lot better
and just also look prettier.
It's really fun and pretty when you see all the colors
all mixed together.
Cherry tomatoes right now tastes like candy.
They're so sweet.
Mm!
It's like nature's gushers, you know?
Mm.
My next hack is I'm actually gonna show you
how to make a really fun chopped salad using a pizza cutter
and a wooden bowl.
So there's a lot of fancy cutting sets that you can buy.
I'll throw a photo of them here,
which I definitely want one, I'm not gonna lie,
but this is just a really easy way to get the same thing.
Kind of ish at home with things that you already have.
I'm sure you have a pizza cutter.
I'm sure you have some kind of bowl.
You can use wood or a metal one.
Wood is just easier, I find that the pizza cutter,
and this is fun because you can just kind of
mix all your things together and then
get a really nice, fine chop with this method.
And there's actually restaurants
that specialize in this method of salads
because they're so popular and they taste really good.
All right, everything is nice and finely chopped.
I'll show you the texture.
It's just all little, tiny bite-sized pieces.
And I'm telling you if you don't like big chunky salads,
definitely try this method.
This style of salad is delicious
and once you try it, you're gonna be addicted to it.
Let me tell you it's so good.
And then all you have to do is add in your dressing
and you're ready to serve.
All right, let's head over to our next hack.
I don't know, about you guys,
but I run into this issue all the time when making a salad
and it is making way too much.
I have my bowl, I fill it up with a bunch of greens
and veggies and fruit, and then there's so much leftover.
And depending on what kind of salad it is,
not all salad keeps well in the fridge,
especially if you're using like softer greens.
So I have a solution.
So we're gonna do next time you're making a salad,
whether for you and your partner or a full family,
or like a big dinner gathering, you're gonna measure,
pre-measure your salad and this is how you do it.
So you're gonna have whatever bowl that you're planning
to serve your salad in,
maybe just a standard like salad serving size.
So I just have a bowl here and I'm going to just pre-measure
how much salad is gonna go into each bowl.
Now, yes, you're gonna have like other toppings
and ingredients, but for the most part,
the lettuce is what makes up most of the bulk.
And if you know you're gonna add in a lot
of things like cucumbers and cherry tomatoes,
you can just like half that.
You know what I mean?
So what you're gonna do is just, you know,
fill things up and then when you're ready
to actually make your salad, you just dump them all in.
Like, so, and depending on, if you're, like I said,
making for two or four, you know you're gonna have
the perfect amount of salad.
This works great, too, for pasta.
You can fill up just like a mug or something
for each amount,
like serving a pasta that you're gonna be cooking.
You're gonna have roughly the right amount of salad
for the number of people that you're feeding.
This is just a really simple trick.
And I've been using it for a while now
and it works every time.
My next tip is getting creative.
So make sure you are combining different textures
and different flavors, not just the basic, you know,
garden salad with tomatoes and cucumber
and onion and lettuce.
You can really think outside the box.
We have some olives here, some feta
for that kind of more bitter flavor profile.
We have some creamy avocado,
even just oil or tahini are great,
like nice creamy texture, you can add.
If you wanna do some crunch, I have some pumpkin seeds.
You can toast these.
Croutons would also be delicious.
I got walnuts, even boiled, hard-boiled eggs
adds a nice protein, but also a nice texture as well.
We have some dried fruit like cranberries.
Also dried apricots are really delicious.
And then you can use fresh fruit as well.
I have some grapes, an apple,
which gives it a really nice crunch.
You can also add super juicy fruit like peach,
which is in season right now, pineapple.
You can really put whatever you want into a salad,
add some greens and it's a salad.
I mean, actually there's a lot of salads without greens,
but you get the idea.
You can really get creative and add
a lot of different colors and flavors and textures
into your salad and that's, what's gonna give it
a ton of flavor.
So I always try to add a little crunch,
a little something like briny or salty.
Oh even capers I have here.
Those are one of my favorites.
You know, just have fun with it and you can create
some delicious salad creations.
This next one might sound a little bit weird,
but it is to add salt into your salads.
And you may not wanna add it if you're already adding
salty ingredients, like say feta or capers,
but for if you're not adding anything salty,
you definitely want a little bit
of that saltiness into your salad.
It's gonna bring up the flavors
and just make it taste way better.
And now I'm not talking about like regular table salt.
I'm talking about nice, good quality sea salt.
So you just take a little pinch, sprinkle it on your salad.
Honestly, we grew up having salt and pepper
on all of our salad dressings,
and I just thought it was a normal thing,
but it really does make a difference
when you are adding some nice quality salt
and just try it one day, put it, put it in.
The next don't and you'll notice a huge difference.
And every anytime I forget,
I'm always like there's something missing here.
So you can add it to your salad dressing
or just right on top of your greens, toss it up
and your salads are gonna taste so much better.
Next tip is to adjust the type of salad dressing
for the type of salad you're making.
So if you're gonna be eating like a hearty,
maybe kale salad, you probably want something
that's a creamier thicker dressing
that's really gonna stick to it.
And if you are eating something
that's like a very light spinach salad.
If you were to put a really thick dressing on it,
it's gonna weigh down the greens
and it's just gonna overpower the salad.
So these are the two dressings I made.
This is my five minutes Caesar salad dressing.
It's a go-to.
I make it all the time.
And then this is just a very basic everyday vinaigrette.
And both of these will be linked in the blog posts.
So when it comes to making salad dressings,
there are definitely some ingredients
that I always have on hand, so I can really play
and mix and match with them.
For vinegars, I love apple cider vinegar.
It's a fermented product too.
So there's lots of good beneficial probiotics in there.
A good quality olive oil is key.
There are so many different oils to use.
I love olive oil, my Portuguese roots, I guess.
But you can also use avocado oil.
You could even use things like walnut or pumpkin seed oil.
Those are really cool, but like olive oil is a good go-to.
And then I also have other vinegars,
like a red wine vinegar.
I also have balsamic vinegar.
These are delicious and just add a ton of flavor.
And then other things, you know,
lemon is a great go-to.
Garlic, so great for flavor.
Good for immune boosting.
And then I have a couple of different mustards.
This one is one of my favorites.
It's by Kozlik's.
It's like a, this is their classic Dijon,
but they have so many flavors.
A regular yellow mustard is good.
And then I also for, if you don't wanna do
the olive oil route, like that kind of style,
you can also just use tahini,
which is blended up sesame seeds.
It's so good.
This one, this brand in particular is really good, Soom.
And I'll just mix it with a little water to thin it down
because it is quite creamy.
Also I have some capers here.
I will mash up the capers into my dressings,
like my Caesar salad dressing, but even the brine,
like the juice in here is really delicious,
adds a punch of flavor.
We also have some maple syrup,
which I like to add for a little bit of sweetness.
It really balances out the sour and acidic-ness
from the vinegars, with the olive oil.
For some seasonings, I love garlic powder.
If I'm not doing fresh garlic, black pepper,
Italian seasoning.
I also have fresh herbs that I love to add.
This is dill.
Even fresh parsley would be so good,
but during the winter months,
maybe when it's not as readily available,
dried is just as great.
Then I also have some sea salt because like I said,
it is a great ingredient to your salads.
It just really adds some nice flavor
and a little does go a long way.
And then nutritional yeast,
which you may not think to add to salad dressings,
but it's great.
It's also in my Caesar dressing.
Adds a really nice like, cheesy flavor.
It's a plant base.
I believe this is grown off of black strap molasses.
I remember reading that somewhere.
It's really great.
It's usually four to five with B vitamins.
So if you are plant-based,
this is just a great addition to your meals.
And there's more other ingredients I like to add
to salad dressings, but these are some key ones
that I usually have in my pantry.
You can just make your own homemade salad dressings.
It's cheaper, it's healthier and it's really convenient.
'Cause you can just like make them like that
and then store them in the fridge for a couple of days.
This next one might sound obvious,
but it is to mix your salad with the dressing
in a large bowl.
Lot of times people are just using these small little bowls
or they're just dressing.
They're like individual bowls.
And like, I even do that sometimes
if I'm just making a personal, like individual salad,
but it really does make a difference when you just
have a nice big bowl, like even sometimes
bigger than this one.
The bigger, the better.
And you just really toss everything and evenly coat it
with the dressing and there you have it.
That is a delicious salad that I wanna eat.
So definitely makes a difference to do
a couple of those steps that I mentioned in today's video.
Like, don't overthink your salad.
These are just some helpful tips just to help
make things a little bit more enjoyable
and make you fall in love with salads
because they can be delicious.
They can be a great side to any dish.
And they're definitely a healthy meal to have
every single day.
I'm gonna enjoy this for lunch.
And I hope you guys are inspired
to make some fun, delicious salads.
Leave me a comment down below letting me know
what your favorite salad is to eat.
And also give this video a thumbs up.
If you like these hack videos,
I have a ton.
I'll link a playlist of them down below.
I have ones for baking, cooking, meal prepping,
even preventing food waste.
So I'll have those linked down below
for you guys to check out as well as a full blog post
sharing all of my tips with any links to products
and any additional recipes that you guys can check out.
Some of my favorite salad dressings and salads
will be linked in there.
And if you're looking for more delicious salad recipes,
definitely check out my cookbook, "The Health Nut Cookbook."
It is a best seller and it has so many delicious salads
that there's grilled ones, there's chopped ones,
not just like your regular leafy green ones.
And there are just a whole section 'cause that's how much
I love salad.
So thank you so much for watching.
Be sure to subscribe.
So you don't miss out on future videos.
And I will see you in the next one.
Bye guys.
Ima eat some salad.
With this, this is how you do it guys.
(pleasant music)
Mm!
Happy, salad making.