Meatless Monday: Green Goodness Salad

Back at it with a new Meatless Monday recipe!

This is the month where everyone is trying to ‘detox’ and eat healthier after a slew of overindulgent holiday get togethers – myself included. 

I truly enjoyed the holidays, and everything that came with them. The sleeping in, the late breakfasts, appetizers and many desserts. But now it’s time to start feeling better and more energetic despite the early dark evenings and dark dreary mornings. 

To get more energy load up on veggies and fruits to keep your body going. I wanted to create some more interesting salads for lunches, including making my own dressings. I experimented last week with a few salad dressings and they were all delicious. The first was this avocado dressings – easy, garlicky and delicious. 

I love a cool green salad topped with warm winter squash. I cooked some butternut squash for soup, and saved some to mix it into my salad. Don’t let the pretty photos fool you – as soon as I was done photographing this dish I threw the plateful of salad into a larger bowl, added more squash and dressing and mixed it into a big delicious amazing mess. Salads are best messy drenched in creamy avocado dressing. 

Salad dressings are so easy to make, and taste better than the bottled stuff. Here I grabbed avocado, oil, lemon and garlic. I piped it overtop using a plastic piping bag, but you can go ahead and spoon it overtop.

Green Goodness Salad

Ingredients

• Kale, washed, dried, chopped and stem removed
• Cabbage, chopped
• Shredded brussel sprouts
• Zucchini, sliced
• Butternut squash, roasted

For the Dressing:

• 1 ripe avocado
• 1-2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2-3 Tbs. Lemon Juice

Directions:

1. To roast the butternut squash, peel and cut it into ‘steaks’ – semi-circles, and season with olive oil and pepper. Roast at about 375* for 45 minutes turning over halfway through. Set aside. 

2. To make the dressing place all ingredients into a food processor and mix until completely combined. 

3. Chop, slice, and mix together greens. Top with roasted butternut squash. Drizzle with salad dressing.