Summer Salads with THM Tips

It's getting hot here and we're in the mood for some lighter meals!  Some of our favorite things to eat during the summer are salads.  Here are a few of our favorites!

Fruit Salad

Dice fruits that will brown first (bananas, apples) and pour 2-4 Tbsp of orange juice concentrate over them and mix to coat the fruit.  Dice the rest of the fruits.  Our favorites are grapes, cherries, strawberries, peaches, mandarin oranges, blueberries, raspberries, and cantaloupe.  Mix everything together.  Scoop a bunch into a cereal bowl and top with table cream (from a can) or heavy cream and cornflakes.  THM E tip: Be careful with this one!  The OJ concentrate, all the fruits, and the cornflakes are a lot of carbs.  I haven't calculated them for this recipe because it would be different every time!  The cream is a fat.  You'd need to add some protein on the side, like an egg white scramble.  Recipe card

Pea Salad

I found this recipe on All Recipes long ago and wanted to link to it but I can't find it there now!  So I'll link you to my recipe card.  This is delicious with fresh peas from the garden but you can use frozen peas too.  We like it with the full amount of lemon juice and zest but it tastes good with those cut in half if you don't like the tang.  We prefer to use less pasta and more peas!  THM S tip: leave out the pasta.  Put the salad on spring greens or romaine.  1 C peas has 14 g carbs, so try to keep your serving under 3/4 C of peas.   Recipe card

BLT Pasta Salad

This recipe is SO SO good!  Take the time to warm the tomatoes, thyme, and garlic.  We prefer to use salad pasta (the short round ones that look like an elbow pasta cut in three pieces).  THM S tip: leave the pasta out and enjoy everything else on more romaine, spring greens, or fresh spinach.   Recipe at A Bird and a Bean

Broccoli Crunch Salad

We changed this recipe a little.  We don't put chicken in it, but sometimes we'll grill chicken on the side.  We use mayo because it tastes much better than Miracle Whip!  You can use greek yogurt instead and it tastes great.  THM E tip: make your own ranch dressing or watch the carb count on purchased ranch.   Recipe at Kraft