Summer produce season is in full swing and we’re seizing every opportunity to indulge in all those gorgeous fruits and veggies in their peak-season glory. An added benefit to eating lots of fresh produce: It does wonders for your immune system. Need some salad inspiration? We’ve rounded up six colorful, immune-boosting salad recipes that are every bit as delicious as they are healthy.
Summer Salad With Corn and Shrimp
Winner of season three of ABC’s “Great American Baking Show” Vallery Lomas recommends adding quinoa to salads as a tasty way to incorporate more whole grains into your diet. Quinoa is gluten-free, a great source of fiber and a “complete protein,” meaning it contains all nine of the essential amino acids our bodies are unable to produce on their own. In addition to helping to build muscle and control appetite, protein also helps support immune function.
Vallery recommends making this salad using leftover corn from your summer barbecue. She tosses the corn with quinoa, grape tomatoes, feta cheese, spinach and sautéed shrimp in a simple, tangy homemade vinaigrette of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Get the recipe at Foodie in New York.
Healthy Tricolor Slaw Salad
Neka Pasquale says it was her two grandmothers’ love of all things food-related that sparked her interest in cooking and well-being. Pasquale, a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist, and certified Chinese nutritionist, created Urban Remedy from the concept that a healthy diet translates to a vibrant, healthy person — and that food has the ability to heal.
Pasquale’s signature Tricolor Slaw Salad blends color cabbage and kale that she says is “great for your digestion and for keeping your GI tract healthy,” which is critical to optimal immune system function.
She makes the slaw with purple and Napa cabbage, kale, microgreens, carrots, cilantro, radishes, toasted seaweed, and black and white sesame seeds and tosses it all with an umami-laden dressing made from miso, sesame and flax oil, fresh ginger, maple syrup, and garlic. Get the recipe.
Beet Salad
We can’t get enough of TikTok sensation Tabitha Brown and her upbeat, encouraging attitude and casual, accessible approach to vegan cooking. Just TRY to watch one of her 60-second recipe videos and not smile your way to the kitchen.
Here, Tabitha shows you how to make a simple, superfood-packed beet salad, while channeling her inner Michael Jackson and singing “Beat It.” She tops a bed of mixed greens with pickled beets, white onions, shredded carrots, sliced cucumbers, red peppers, pepitas, and vegan parmesan, then dresses it all with honey mustard dressing and some Trader Joe’s Everyday Seasoning.
Tabitha’s salad is bursting with health benefits. Beets contain vitamin C, folate, manganese, iron and phytochemicals that support your immune system. Pepitas, or pumpkin seeds, are packed with immune-boosting zinc and iron and also have anti-viral and anti-fungal properties. Red bell peppers are positively packed with vitamin C, delivering nearly twice as much of the immunity-supporting vitamin as other fruits and veggies.
See how Tabitha whips up this salad here:
@iamtabithabrownBeet salad or Beat salad🤷🏿♀️😂 ##tabithabrown♬ original sound – iamtabithabrown
Smoked Salmon Niçoise Salad
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Food blogger and cookbook author Molly Yeh recently added Food Network star to her resume. Her blog, My Name is Yeh, has long been our go-to destination for delicious, easy-to-follow recipes, and now we are loving her show “Girl Meets Farm.”
Molly’s Smoked Salmon Niçoise salad is supercharged with immunity-boosting veggies, and it gets an extra superfood boost with the addition of omega-3–packed salmon, which reduces inflammation. Kalamata olives deliver a healthy punch of polyphenols, which strengthen your immune system.
To make the salad, Molly roasts fingerling potatoes, haricot verts and eggs (!) in the oven and arranges it all atop tender Boston, Bibb or Butter lettuce along with smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes and olives. She drizzles it all with a simple mustard vinaigrette for a hearty, healthy salad that makes the perfect summertime lunch or dinner. Get the recipe at Food Network.
Chrissy Teigen’s Cobb Salad With Honey-Mustard Ranch Dressing
We have trouble deciding what we love more about Chrissy Teigen, her spunky personality that keeps us laughing on the daily on Twitter and Instagram, or her incredible recipes that keep our mouths watering. After taunting our taste buds with endless food posts on social media, Teigen finally gave the people what they wanted and launched two bestselling cookbooks, “Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat” and “Cravings: Hungry for More,” a website Cravings by Chrissy Teigen, and even a line of cooking accessories.
We’ve shared Chrissy’s Cobb Salad with Honey-Mustard Ranch Dressing with you in the past, but it’s been so popular that it had to make it back onto this list.
Our favorite immune-boosting component of Chrissy’s salad: avocados. As if you needed another reason to eat them, avocados are rich in immunity-enhancing vitamins A, C, and E, three powerful antioxidants that can help prevent cancer.
Buttermilk Salad Dressing Recipe
We’ll never turn down a truly inventive salad, but sometimes, we don’t care what kind of veggies are in our bowl as long as we have a delicious dressing to douse then with. Aaron Hutcherson of the Hungry Hutch shares s super-simple Buttermilk Dressing recipe that’s perfect for drizzling on your favorite salad mix or as a dip for cut veggies.
Buttermilk is a probiotic-rich, cultured dairy product. Probiotics support gut health and people who regularly consume probiotic-rich dairy like yogurt have been shown to get fewer colds.
Aaron offers two variations on this buttermilk-based dressing, one with and one without mayonnaise and suggests tossing in whatever dried or fresh herbs you have on hand. Get the recipe at The Hungry Hutch.
In the mood for even more great salads? Check out these delicious packable summer salad recipes.
Need some tools? Here are some of our favorite items from our salad-making arsenal:
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