Modern women are often forced to combine housekeeping with work. In the evening, they have very little time left for cooking, but you want to feed the household deliciously. The idea to cook a tasty and light snack for an evening meal on the way home comes to many hostesses. Dinner salads can be made from vegetables, fish and canned vegetables, boiled chicken fillet, fish, shrimp, mussels and other products that are cooked quickly or even do not require preliminary heat treatment. Choosing a recipe for a cold snack for dinner, you should evaluate how fast it can be done, if it is too heavy for the stomach, whether it can be satiated. If the salad meets all the above requirements, it is ideal for dinner, you can replace the evening meal or add a main course to it.
Cooking Features
Salads that are prepared for dinner should not require a lot of time and effort - this is a prerequisite. Even an inexperienced hostess will be able to cope with cutting and gathering them. Knowing a few moments will help you choose the most suitable recipe and prepare a tasty and healthy snack according to it.
- Not all instant foods are equally useful. Sausages, smoked meats, pickled vegetables and mushrooms, fruits preserved in syrup are not among the dietary products. You can use them for making salad for dinner, but it should be understood that such a snack will not be light enough. After its use in the stomach may remain an unpleasant feeling. In order to not gain extra kilograms after such dinner, there should be at least two or three hours before bedtime. Preference is better to give boiled meat, which can be prepared in advance, fresh vegetables and fruits, chicken eggs, fresh or frozen mushrooms. In extreme cases, you can use fish and vegetable canned foods made without using vinegar (in own juice), crab sticks, boiled sausage. Boiled vegetables and rice will make the salad more satisfying.
- Salads seasoned with mayonnaise are not the best choice for dinner. If you definitely want to fill the ingredients with mayonnaise, use it in a minimum quantity. Mayonnaise can almost always be replaced with lighter sour cream, yogurt, adding mustard and lemon juice to them for piquancy. There are salads that are seasoned with a sauce based on lemon juice, olive oil. For the evening, they fit perfectly.
- Puff salads are tasty only when they have time to soak in the sauce. For dinner, they are rarely suitable.
- Do not chop the salad in reserve: it can deteriorate. If you do not have time to prepare a salad in the evening, you can boil it beforehand and even cut the ingredients it contains and put it in the refrigerator, but you need to mix and fill them just before serving.
Knowing the general principles of cooking salads for dinner, you can significantly diversify the daily menu, pleasing yourself and loved ones with light and tasty snacks.
Canned tuna salad with avocado, tomatoes and cheese
Composition:
- tuna, canned in its own juice - 180 g;
- cherry tomatoes - 100 g;
- avocados - 0, 25 kg;
- Feta cheese or equivalent - 100 g;
- lemon juice - 20 ml;
- olive oil - 40 ml;
- ground black pepper - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Wash the tomatoes, dry them with napkins, cut each into 4 pieces.
- Open a can of tuna, put the fish in a bowl. Cut into large chunks.
- Wash the avocado, cut, remove the bone. Cut the flesh 2 x 2 cm into the flesh, a little before reaching the skin. Turn out, separating the pieces from the skin.
- Put the avocado and tomatoes in a tuna bowl. Pepper to taste.
- Mix olive oil with lemon juice, season the salad, put it on a plate.
- Cut the cheese into large cubes, place it on the salad.
Tuna salad will look even more appetizing if you put it on lettuce leaves. Calorie refills can be reduced by replacing part of the oil with juice from a tin can. The snack is so tasty and beautiful that it can be served not only for a family dinner, but also for receiving guests.
Breeze Salad
Composition:
- Chinese cabbage - 0, 4 kg;
- canned corn - 0, 24 kg;
- apples - 0, 3 kg;
- apple cider vinegar (6%) - 20 ml;
- vegetable oil - 40 ml;
- salt, sugar - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Rinse the Beijing cabbage in running water, dividing into leaves. Blot with napkins. Fold the leaves into a pile, cut it into several pieces lengthwise and chop finely.
- Open the corn, fold it in a colander, let dry.
- Remove the peel from apples, cut the cores out of them. Coarse grate the pulp.
- Fold the ingredients in a bowl. Fill with a mixture of vinegar and oil, if desired, add salt and sweeten to taste. Stir, transfer to a salad bowl and serve.
For fresh taste and aroma, the salad got its name “Breeze”. Such a dinner does not exactly threaten you with extra pounds.
Celery and Pear Salad
Composition:
- pear - 0, 2 kg;
- stem celery - 100 g;
- lemon juice - 5 ml;
- balsamic vinegar - 5 ml;
- leaf salad - 100 g;
- sesame seeds - 5 g .; m
- olive oil - 20 ml;
- salt - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Wash and dry the pear. Cut in half, cut the seed patches, remove the twig. If the skin of the fruit is dense, cut it. Cut the pear into thin slices.
- Dip the pear slices with lemon juice so that they do not darken.
- Wash the salad, shake off the water, let it dry. Tear your hands into small fragments, put on a dish.
- Spread pear slices on a salad.
- Wash a couple of celery stalks, blot them with a napkin, chop finely, pour on a pear.
- Mix olive oil with balsamic vinegar, pour the salad.
- Sesame seeds slightly fry in a dry frying pan to reveal their pleasant aroma with nutty notes.
- Sprinkle the salad with sesame seeds.
This gourmet dish will certainly appeal to those who want to lose weight. It is light, healthy, looks attractive, is able to saturate you or replace dessert with itself, without spoiling your figure.
Ham Salad
Composition:
- ham or boiled sausage - 0, 2 kg;
- pineapple, fresh or canned - 0, 2 kg;
- iceberg lettuce - 0, 4 kg;
- hard cheese - 100 g;
- lemon - 0, 5 pcs .;
- olive oil - 80 ml;
- red pepper - a pinch;
- salt - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Cut ham or sausage into short sticks.
- Pineapple cut into small cubes.
- Wash the salad, cut into several pieces and chop finely, as usual, chop cabbage.
- Chop cheese on a coarse grater.
- In a bowl, mix lettuce, ham and pineapple, season with a mixture of olive oil, juice, squeezed from half a lemon, salt and pepper.
- Put in a salad bowl, sprinkle with grated cheese.
By the volume of the salad from the specified number of ingredients get a lot. They can eat the whole family. In this case, the caloric content of each serving will be low.
Chicken Breast Salad with Orange and Cheese
Composition:
- chicken breast fillet - 0, 2 kg;
- orange - 150 g;
- hard cheese - 0, 2 kg;
- lettuce leaves - 50 g;
- lemon - 0, 5 pcs .;
- olive oil - 40 ml.
Method of preparation:
- Wash the chicken fillet, cover with water, bring to a boil, add salt and cook for 20 minutes. Cool, cut into small cubes.
- Wash, shake off lettuce from water, tear it into pieces, put in a large plate.
- Put the chicken pieces on the salad.
- Cut the cheese in the same slices as chicken fillet, sprinkle on the chicken.
- Peel the orange. Divide into slices. Remove the skin from the orange slices. Beautifully spread the orange slices on top of the other ingredients.
- Squeeze juice out of lemon, mix with oil, pour the salad with the resulting dressing and serve.
A hearty and at the same time light chicken breast salad can replace a full meal. The dish can be prepared for the festive table.
Bean and Tomatoes Salad
Composition:
- white beans, canned in its own juice - 0, 42 kg;
- tomatoes - 0, 3 kg;
- capers or gherkins - 10 g;
- garlic - 2 cloves;
- fresh parsley - 50 g;
- vegetable oil - 20 ml;
- lemon juice - 20 ml;
- salt, black pepper, dried rosemary - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Gherkin cut into small circles, put in a blender bowl. Send out thin slices of garlic, salt, pepper, rosemary, lemon juice and vegetable oil. Beat to make a sauce with a uniform consistency.
- Open the beans, drain the juice from the jar. Put the beans in a bowl.
- Wash the tomatoes. Cut the seal around the stem. Cut the tomatoes into small cubes, send them to the beans.
- Mix beans and tomatoes with the prepared sauce. Transfer to a salad bowl.
- Finely chop the parsley, sprinkle it with the finished snack.
Salad cooked according to this recipe turns out to be nourishing and juicy. It will take very little time to prepare it, since none of the ingredients require heat treatment. It looks simple in appearance, but is actually capable of surprising with its unusual, savory taste.
Salad of crab sticks, vegetables and crackers
Composition:
- crab sticks - 100 g;
- Chinese cabbage - 0, 2 kg;
- fresh cucumber - 150 g;
- fresh tomato - 150 g;
- chicken egg - 2 pcs .;
- wheat crackers - 100 g;
- garlic - 1 clove;
- mayonnaise or unsweetened yogurt - to taste.
Method of preparation:
- Boil the eggs, cool.
- Wash vegetables, blot with a napkin.
- Lightly salted white bread and pepper, cut into cubes, dry in the oven. You can use the store crackers. Choose with a neutral taste or with the aroma of tomatoes and greens.
- Cut the tips of the cucumber, cut the vegetable into cubes.
- Cut the tomato in the same pieces.
- Dice crab sticks.
- Chop the cabbage finely.
- Peel the eggs, cut them in half, remove the yolks. Squirrels finely chop.
- Yolks mash with a fork. Add to them salt, pepper, garlic passed through a press. Fill with mayonnaise or yogurt, mix. When using yogurt for piquancy, you can add a little mustard to the sauce.
- Fold the vegetables, chopped squirrels and crab sticks into a bowl, season with the resulting sauce.
Before serving the dish, add croutons to the table, mix the salad and put it in a salad bowl or on a beautiful roomy dish.
Dinner salads can be prepared from the available ingredients that are in the fridge or sold at almost any grocery store. To create an appetizing snack, suitable for an evening meal, do not need great culinary skills. Having found a suitable recipe, you will be able to feed your family and friends with a light and tasty dinner, without spending a lot of time and effort on cooking.