It’s Memorial Day Weekend, and you know what that means… Summer! My favorite time of year. With the bounty of gorgeous seasonal fruits and veggies available from your garden, grocer or farmer’s market, now is the time to make main-course salads a summer staple!
With a little luck and ingenuity you can rock the socks off your summer with this colorful and refreshing addition to your menus.
What makes a regular salad a summer salad?
Shoot, anything in season! These include hydrating fruits and vegetables like fresh corn, watermelon, cucumber, zucchini, tomatoes, strawberries, grapes… the list goes on. Simply add to a bowl of big leafy greens and—you’ve nailed it!
Markets will soon be overflowing with seasonal vegetables and fruits and booming with produce in all colors of the rainbow. This is a great time to start experimenting and incorporate more summer fruits and vegetables into your meals.
I didn’t post anything last week, as I was embracing creativity in a different form… salads! These beautiful and delicious summer salad ideas contain several seasonal veggie combos that I’m Positively Positive will leave you feeling well and optimally optimistic!
Spring mix with strawberries and flaked crab
Crab cakes, avocado and apple slices
One honey crisp sliced
One Avocado sliced
Spring mix
Your fave crab cake recipe
I use the recipe on the back of the Old Bay spice jar and add my jeuge, substituting corn meal and a few other ingredients to make ’em gluten free.
Snow peas, sautéed onion and artichokes
One jar of your fave artichoke hearts
One pack of fresh snow peas
One sweet onion chopped and sautéed
1/2 cup frozen yellow corn, added to sautéed onion and cooked until warm and no longer frozen*
Spring mix with sliced strawberries, avocado, and a sunny side up egg for breakfast
Sweet corn and watermelon
One head of butter lettuce or iceberg lettuce
2 cups diced watermelon
1-1/2 cups sweet corn kernels*
2 tbsp mint, chopped
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional)
Because my diet is an 80/20 blend of single ingredient whole foods, I love eating and meal planning according to the seasons.
I’ve found that it’s the most simple, delicious and stress-free way to maintain a gluten free lifestyle around celiac disease.
When you buy seasonal produce, you not only support local farmers (and spend less…), but you also prepare the best tasting and nutritious meals since the ingredients are so fresh. Many summer fruits and veggies are high water content foods, too. You eat fresh and stay cool at the same time. What’s not to love about that!
Growing seasons and availability will vary depending on where you live. I’m in South Florida, so my summer season starts earlier and lasts longer. If you don’t have a local farmers’ market near you, no problem! Here’s a basic list of great summer veggies to set your soul on fire and keep you feelin’ lucky.
Summer Vegetables (June–August)
Beets
Bell Peppers
Butter Lettuce
Chayote Squash
Chinese Long Beans
Corn
Crookneck Squash
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Endive
Garlic
Green Beans
Green Soybeans (Edamame)
Jalapeno Peppers
Lima Beans
Manoa Lettuce
Okra
Peas
Radishes
Shallots
Sugar Snap Peas
Summer Squash
Tomatillo
Tomatoes
Winged Beans
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Zucchini
* The idea to add corn to my salads was inspired by the above tweet from a little dynamo I know—Adrienne Pluta—an improv and stand-up comedian in NYC. Check out her amusing twitter account @adriennepluta.