Spring Green Salad With Mango Mint Dressing

Tired of the same old salad? 

This delicious spring greens salad made with spring greens and local spring organic strawberries and some freshly cut mango. It also contains a variety of salad greens as well as crunchy celery and cucumber. 

I dress it with a tasty, fruity, mango mint dressing that will delight your taste buds as well as boost your antioxidants! 

The mango mint salad dressing sitting in my mint planter

Salads can be tasty, healthy, and great for any dieter. But I do get tired of just lettuce, cucumber, and tomato. I've kept this salad to strictly greens since greens taste great with the fruit in the dressing.

Don't like the thought of daily salad prep? 

One Salad; Four Jars for four more days of salad

I like to eat a salad daily, (but not make salad everyday). So I make a big salad eat one on prep day and fill four jars for the next four days. It keeps really fresh if you don't open the jars until ready to eat it.

Prep Salads In Advance

I don't like to make a daily mess so I prep my salads for 5 days at a time and store in air tight jars such as mason jars or any jar that I have saved from spaghetti sauce, olives, etc. see link: how to prep salads in advance

Another large salad to eat and store in jars 

The local Farmer's Market is Open

The local farmer's have started bringing their spring produce to the weekly farmer's markets. This week I got some lettuce greens including dark dandelion greens, parsley, fresh cilantro, and local strawberries. 

Fruit Pairs Well With Greens

I used the strawberries in my salad for a pretty contrast of color with the dark greens and dressed it with a wonderful mango mint dressing.

I nestled the salad dressing amongst my begonias growing in pots on my deck

In a recent program that I did last week for a women's group, I focused on the 3 factors that are vital for good health: 

Fiber, Antioxidants, and Anti-inflammatories.  

Salads can give us all three (of course depending on what you add to your salad). I'm suggesting that consuming at least one healthy salad a day is vital to good health (of course check with your doctor before making changes in your diet. 

Again, this is my basic salad but you can use whatever greens you have or want to use.  

Author of blog: Judee Algazi

Prep Time for salad: 15 minutes

Prep Time for dressing: 5 minutes

Cook Time: None

Serves: Family of four good salad eaters

Ingredients: (double if you are prepping to store in jars)

3 heads of baby artisan romaine lettuce, washed well, drained, and chopped.

1 cup of parsley, chopped

2 cups of dandelion greens, chopped 

2 ribs of celery, chopped

2 Persian cucumbers, sliced

2 scallions, chopped

1/4- 1/2 cup of freshly chopped herbs (from my herb garden) such as basil and mint.

6 large organic strawberries, sliced in half for the edges of salad

optional: 1 cup of chopped fresh mango

Directions: 

Assemble and mix all of the salad greens and veggies. Place in a family size serving bowl and garnish with strawberries around the edges. 

Mango Mint Dressing: (oil-free)

1 cup of diced or cubed mango (if mango's are not in season, I use diced frozen mango and let it thaw first for 10 minutes) 

1/2 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice 

10 purple sweet grapes 

10 fresh mint leaves

2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lime juice

Directions: 

Place all ingredients in a NutriBullet or strong blender and blend until smooth and creamy. 

My Notes: 

1. This mango mint salad dressing tastes good on a simple fruit salad too. 

2. I use organic produce especially for items listed on the EWG dirty dozen list (produce with the highest amount of pesticides) such as strawberries, apples, and celery.

3. I get frozen organic diced mango in the local supermarket (Giant) to use for the dressing if I don't want to cut up fresh mango or don't have a ripe one.

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