I find it challenging to eat a sufficient amount of fruits and vegetables every day… especially during the winter months.

For several months now, my family has been eating a salad every day. Whether it’s for lunch or dinner… it’s a great way to make sure we’re getting a couple extra servings of vegetables in our daily diet.

To make our daily salads convenient and easy to prepare there are a few things we do:

• We purchase prepackaged, prewashed, organic mixed greens.
• We add a variety of vegetables to our salads so every bite is a “surprise”. Some of the vegetables we put in our salads include; snap peas, carrots, celery, peppers, tomatoes, and cucumber.
• We also add salad items that aren’t as common such as; dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and pomegranate.
• We chop all of our fixings ahead of time and store them in glass jars in our fridge. This way there’s not a lot of work needed when it’s time to make a salad.

• We usually make our own dressing (olive oil, white wine vinegar and spices). The dressing is healthier, fresh and not much is needed because it’s so flavourful!
• We sometimes make our own croutons. We cut multi-grain baguettes into little squares, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with our choice of spices and bake at about 300 degrees F for about 10-15 minutes. They’re tasty and a lot healthier than the store-bought, packaged, croutons.

Does your family eat salads very often? What do you put in your salad?

Jennifer Bly

Author of My Kitchen, My Classroom: An Introduction to Homeschool and creator of The Deliberate Mom. Jennifer writes about parenting, homeschooling, her faith, and life with her husband and two girls. Jennifer has a Bachelor of Applied Human Service Administration Degree with a specialization in Early Learning in Child Care.