FOOD : Vegetable Salads

 

Dressing for Vegetable salad

Hardly anything is added to mixed vegetable salad in Nigeria save for the store-bought conventional Heinz salad cream or mayonnaise. In some cases, we include some slices of boiled eggs.

What you find below is a plate of veggie salad, it looks delicious right? You can serve it this way or serve with any one of the rice meals.

Nigerian vegetable salad is number one on my list of Nigerian healthy foods. I could eat it every day if I had to 😀

When you combine it with jollof rice or fried rice, it’s to die for.

I realized that most Nigerians shy away from these natural foods and chose to spend more money on processed foods probably because they are often wrangled in extra sweeteners and sometimes look more delicious.

I made a decision some times back to replace a meal with either vegetable or fruit salad weekly.

Well, I gave up after some few months 😀

But I still make them often.

Vegetable salads will detoxify your body, improve your digestive system, make you feel lighter and even make you think smarter.

I have noticed that vegetables, when eaten in large quantity sought to awaken my neural pathway.
I am talking about raw vegetables and also some less sugary fruits, like cucumbers and watermelon.

here are basically two types of salads that are popularly eaten in Nigeria, Salads happens to be one of the healthiest set of foods that I know, especially the vegetable salad, I also like the fruit salad.

Below are the ingredients used in making Nigerian Vegetable salad, you can double or reduce it, depending on the number of people you are looking to serve.

Ingredients For Vegetable Salad

Medium size cabbage
4 medium size carrot
lettuce leaves
2 cups of chopped green beans
half cup peas (optional)
3 cooked eggs
one can of baked beans
2 big size of cucumber
salad cream (heinz, BAMA mayonnaise)

Just know that most vegetable salads are usually 50% cabbage, 30% carrot/green beans, 5-10% cucumber while the lettuce leaves, peas, eggs, and cream make up the other 10%

Preparation

Chop the carrot /green beans/cucumber and set aside in different bowls, I like to peel off the greenback of cucumbers and also remove the center seeds, you will learn how this is done by watching the video at the bottom of this page.

Slice the cabbage too in a different tray (we use tray often in our home), slice the lettuce leaves, boil the eggs and remove the shell (3 eggs).

You then need to soften the green beans, carrot, and peas, most of the time we heat carrot, green beans, and peas together and soak the cabbage in warm water for a minute.

Soaking the cabbage in warm water was a trick to soften the cabbage, these days, I don’t use warm water. I just wash with cold water, slice and mix with the rest of the vegetables. Voila.

The mixing is simple: sprinkle a handful of cabbage on the tray/bowl, and then sprinkle the carrot/green beans/peas, also the lettuce leaves and keep repeating the process until they are all in one place.

Then slice the egg and drop on the top of the salad. (the egg is mostly for decoration) The final mixing is done as people dish out the salad; you add the salad cream and baked beans. It is good for these two to be separate to avoid getting soured over a long period of time.

Salads must be eaten the same day it is made. It can’t be frozen or preserved with a chemical.

Nigerian vegetable salad is served best with either fried rice or Jollof rice it is also very delicious when served alone.