CiCi's Simple Summer Salad

Simple Summer Salad

Summer is the best season of the year in my opinion. If you have read my previous posts, all the reasons are there. Sometimes when it gets hot, I don’t want to heat up the kitchen and sweat over a hot stove. A light summery salad just might be the easiest and most refreshing meal choice.

My friend CiCi shared her summer salad recipe with me. She came to my house and we made ceviche and her delicious summer salad. We accompanied that meal with a light, crisp and cool Rose’ and it was the perfect summer meal.

I would like to share CiCi’s recipe with you. I like to keep things simple, so I used bagged, ready to eat arugula.

Ingredients:

1 7oz bag of arugula

8 oz sliced strawberries

3 mandarin oranges, peeled

½ cup of crumpled queso fresco or feta cheese

½ cup of roasted pumpkin seeds

3 tbs of olive oil

3 tbs of balsamic vinegar

Directions:

This is an easy one! Just put the first 3 ingredients into a large salad bowl. Mix the olive oil and the vinegar. I like to put it in small jar and shake it. Drizzle the dressing over the salad. Give the salad a good toss and then add the cheese and pumpkin seeds. This is a great salad and you can always add chicken, salmon or shrimp for some more protein.

These delicious ingredients are also very good for us:

• Arugula is rich in quercetin and carotenoids with antioxidant properties

• Strawberries and oranges offer vitamin C and fiber

• The cheese offers calcium and fat, which helps the body absorb the nutrients from the fruits and vegetables.

• Olive oil also helps with the absorption of nutrients.

• Pumpkin seeds have add protein and fiber.

I hope you give this simple recipe a try. If you do, let me know how you liked it. Maybe you can post a picture in the comment section of this post!

Eat well.