Basic Pasta & Veggie Salad

Salads can be healthy and they can be filling provided you go for low calorie(or sans) dressing. Most of the calorie content of a plateful of 'healthy' salad is present in the dressing. Making informed choices never hurt, so here's a cheat-sheet for the next time you decide to order a salad:

Add, remove or go light on any of the ingredients as per your requirement. But just remember, you're trying to be healthy, not starve yourself!
And for those of you opting to have homemade healthy salads, here's a recipe for Pasta & Veggie salad I made for dinner, and it was surprisingly tasty!

Pasta & Veggie Salad

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup pasta,any type will do (preferably wheat) of your liking (I used penne pasta)
• Diced vegetables : 1/2 a cup of tomato
                               1/2 a cup of bell peppers (red, yellow, green)
                               1/4 cup onions
• Sprig of coriander for garnishing
• 1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
• salt and pepper
                              

Directions:

1. Boil water for pasta, add salt, add the pasta and cook till it's al dente.
2. Dry the pasta. A good tip to prevent the pasta from going mushy is to wash it with cold water while you're draining the hot water (using a colander).
3. Toss in the vegetables after washing them. You can sautee the veggies if you're opposed to eating raw veggies.
4. In a separate bowl, mix extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and shake thoroughly until mixed. Pour into the pasta-veggie mix.
5. Give it a toss to mix them together. Serve immediately.

This salad can be had hot as well as cold. You can freeze it for upto 2 days, but it's recommended you have fresh salads. Like Duh! Or you can turn it into a non-veg meal by adding shreds of boiled or leftover chicken.

So there you go, I personally love the look and smell of fresh salad and this one's definitely a favourite of mine.

Till next time,
Tina :)

P.S. Don't forget to enjoy your meal :)