Prep time: 15 minutes | Serves 4
Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free, Sugar Free, Vegan
Nuts, seeds, and berries oh my!
A fresh take on a classic salad. Toasted berries take to the next level. With a bright pop of colour, tartness, and a slight caramel sweet hit, it hits all the right notes. Cranberries are great for that extra sharp note they have, but mulberries are also excellent, and a little more mellow.
Like many of our recipes, this a base that you can play with as much as you want. Take these basic principles – a herby mixed green salad with berries, nuts, and seeds, and have fun with it! This is a great way to make use of your garden if you have lots of young green leaves growing and just want to eat a bit of everything. It’s great too when you get carried away at the markets and have too many greens to fit in your fridge.
We ate this sitting in the shade of a magnolia tree, surrounded by bright minds shining in the winter sun. Some say the best seasoning is hunger, but maybe it’s really community.
Try using ingredients you might not be familiar with. Have you got farmers friend growing wild in your garden? Pick the young tips and throw them in! Cats ear, dandelion, or some of those herbs you never get around to using…
Eating a diet containing a wide mix of plants is one of the healthiest decisions you will ever make, and it just happens to also be incredibly delicious. So enjoy this simple, but wonderful salad.
Ingredients:
- A few big handfuls of bright, fresh greens. Whatever you have on hand – lettuce, baby spinach, young kale, beetroot greens, carrot tops, microgreens, edible weeds etc. Let the seasons & the garden be your guide.
- (optional) A handful of herbs – Whatever is young, fresh, and calling out to you from the garden or the market. Parsley, basil, mint, fennel tops, lemon balm. A mixed handful is perfect.
- 1 avocado, sliced
- 2-3 Tbsp of dried berries – cranberries, blueberries, or mulberries
- 1/2 cup organic activated nuts – Walnuts, almonds, pecans. Follow your heart here.
- 1 Tbsp black cumin
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/8 cup lemon juice
- Salt & Pepper to taste
Method:
Roughly chop and mix all your lovely greens together in a big bowl.
To make the dressing, combine olive oil, lemon juice, black cumin, a good pinch of salt and some freshly ground pepper, and whisk or shake in a jar. Taste and adjust. You might prefer is sharper or more mellow, so adjust the ratio to suit. This is a 1:2 oil-to-lemon ratio, but I often go as high as 1:1 for a nice tart dressing.
Give the berries a quick toast in a hot, dry pan. You want them to get a little bit brown but not fully cooked. This brings out some luscious caramel flavours, and plumps them up a little bit, but you can absolutely skip it if you don’t feel like getting the pan out.
Combine the greens with most of the berries, leaving a few for the garnish, then dress the salad, giving everything a good mix. Reserve some dressing to pour over the top. Transfer to your serving bowl.
Arrange sliced avocado over the salad, then sprinkle with nuts and remaining berries, and pour the rest of the dressing over everything.
Enjoy this bowl of nourishing goodness!
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