Chopped Green Salad with White Beans

Yesterday we spent all day running around. One trip I forgot to mention was our stop at the health food store. I must admit I have hippy tendencies, as you may have imagined, and spend far too much time and money at the health food store. Some of my favorite finds from this trip were brown jasmine rice, red quinoa and Christmas lima beans. However, the concentrated organic pomegranate juice was my favorite item this time. We started using it last night by the teaspoon in our ginger green tea. It comes in a little bottle and doesn’t take up much room in the refrigerator, which I think is a major bonus given the amount of produce I have to store each week. My husband likes the pomegranate concentrate since it is an intense flavor rush. If you haven’t purchased this before I think it is worth looking for to see if it is available near you. It really works well added to our hot green tea.

We eat salad most days of the week, sometimes twice a day. I don’t post most of the salads because I wasn’t certain they were very interesting. For those that are new to veganism or considering more vegan meals I think it helps to get a more full picture of what we eat on a daily basis and for that reason I am posting today’s salad.

Lunch today was a simple chopped green salad. Arugula is a member of the cruciferous vegetable family and a green I like to add to all our salads to fight cancer. The remaining vegetables were those I had in the refrigerator that would go together. Beans were added for additional fiber and protein. This salad is light in calories but high in nutrition. Here is what we had for lunch.

Chopped Green Salad with White Beans
Serves 2

Ingredients:

½ tablespoon canola oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 pinch kosher salt
1 pinch oregano, dried
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup cooked white beans, drained (no salt added)
1 cup fresh diced tomato
1 cucumber, cut in half-length wise then into thin half moons
8 cups arugula, rinsed, spun dry and torn into bite-size pieces
2 tablespoons red onion, finely sliced

Directions:

Combine the dressing ingredients (oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, oregano) and whisk. Add the beans, tomato, cucumber, arugula and onion and toss to combine. Serve cold.

Nutritional information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 218.15
Calories From Fat (20%) - 44.1

Total Fat - 5.06g
Saturated Fat - 0.53g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 176.99mg
Potassium - 1141.12mg
Total Carbohydrates - 33.81g
Fiber - 12.96g
Sugar - 6.18g
Protein - 11.91g

Comment:

This salad was very filling for the calories it provided. I considering making us a second dish but neither my husband nor I had room for more food.

One of the things I find most interesting about eating a high vegetable and fruit vegan diet is how low in calories it is given the volume of food. I also love knowing that we are getting high levels of nutrients from this meal. This salad was high in Vitamin A (2750+ IU’s), calcium (225+ mg), folate (235+ mcg), vitamin K (105+ mcg) and phosphorus (245+ mg) in addition to tasting good.