Mediterranean salad recipes are healthy and gratifying sides with your lunch or dinner. Be it a quinoa salad, Greek Salad with Edamame, or Mediterranean tuna salad, with an assortment of refreshing veggies they are bold and flavorful. The advantage of salads is their ease of preparation, nutrition, and speed.
What is a Mediterranean diet?
A Mediterranean Diet meal plan is a delicious and traditional way to eat healthy. Packed with fresh and flavorful foods, including vegetables, lean proteins, and heart-healthy fats, it will satisfy your taste buds and provide plenty of nutrients to energize you. The Mediterranean diet incorporates dairy and poultry in moderate amounts with plant-based foods.
The traditional Mediterranean diet reflects the dietary habits of rural societies during the early 1960s in the Mediterranean basin, especially Crete, Greece, and Southern Italy. The meal has multiple beneficial health effects. The above countries are the healthiest in the world, with lower rates of cardiovascular diseases and cancer and greater longevity.
So, why not give it a try today?
Benefits of a Mediterranean Diet
- It contains a low amount of saturated lipids, reducing LDL cholesterol and thus promoting heart health.
- It is a low GI meal, which means the Mediterranean diet benefits diabetes.
- The diet includes healthy fats, fibers from whole grains, and unprocessed food, which are good for the skin.
- Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of muscle weakness in older adults by 70%.
- It also promotes rapid weight loss.
- It reduces the risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s.
- The high level of antioxidants in the Mediterranean diet protects against cell damage or stress, reducing the risk of Parkinson’s disease by 50%.
Tuna salad recipe
A classic tuna salad is perfect for sandwiches. Unlike the vegan sprouted lentil salad we had assembled earlier, tuna salad is a seafood Mediterranean salad.
Why Tuna?
Tuna is a bluewater game fish rich in protein, vitamins A, B6, and B12, minerals like iron, magnesium, zinc, and potassium. It is low in fat and calories and rich in essential omega-3 fatty acids. Tuna is a source of low-cost protein.B12 stabilizes iron levels in the blood by forming new red blood cells. Tuna helps with PCOS problems.
Over one million tons of tuna are consumed annually in the United States and Japan, the world’s two largest tuna markets. Tuna is the most popular fish in the American diet and is second only to shrimp as the most popular seafood.
Ingredients for Tuna Salad
- Sun-dried tomatoes
- Artichokes
- Capers
- Sliced Kalamata olives
- Chopped Celery
- Sliced red onion
- Chopped red bell pepper
- Chopped Avocado
- Chopped fresh basil
- Baby spinach
- Canned tuna shreds in water
Dressing:
- Salt
- Ground black pepper
- Lemon juice
- Olive oil
Assembling the salad
- Add the vegetables and tuna to a bowl. You can add or subtract the veggies or fruits mentioned above. Complement the salad with a hard-boiled egg if you like.
- Make a simple salad dressing by mixing salt, black pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil in a bowl. Or, you can also prepare a mayonnaise-based dressing with Dijon mustard to add the tang.
- Add this dressing to the bowl and toss the salad to coat every vegetable.
Serve the chilled salad on the bed of baby spinach with crispy potato chips.
