[Foodie Friday Recipe] Pink & Purple Detox Salad

Cleanse, nourish, and detoxify your body with this beautiful and delicious rainbow detox salad!

As we discussed earlier this week, eating a colorful diet doesn’t just make dinner time more fun and interesting – it’s also really good for you! In fact, if you want a really simple way to eat healthy, forget all the carbs this, sugars that, good fats, bad fats, etc., and just eat as many different colored foods as possible every day! (Of course, we’re talking about real, whole foods here, not artificially colored.) 🙂

The beautiful and delicious detox salad recipe below is a great example of how food that looks lovely on your plate can also be lovely for your health.

This salad is packed with nutrients and fiber to help cleanse and detoxify your body – a welcome treat after the heavy foods typically eaten during the holiday season. It contains kale and hemp seeds for healthy proteins, Omega-3 fatty acids, and antioxidants, pomegranate seeds, which are known for reducing inflammation and lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, and pumpkin seeds – a great source of zinc to support a strong immune system. Radishes are very low in calories, and they contain flavonoids, plant chemicals believed to play a role in maintaining a healthy weight.

The recipe below calls for watermelon radishes (a truly beautiful gem in your salads – I grew some this year and they were so fun and interesting!) and purple radishes, but if you can’t find them, regular radishes will be just fine as well.

If you prefer your radishes raw, you’ll get a crisper crunch. This recipe suggests baking them for 5 minutes for a warmer, mellower flavor – but do whatever works best for you.

This salad can be eaten as a side salad, but it does contain hemp seeds for protein, and avocado for healthy fats, so you can also enjoy it as a main dish for lunch.

Pink & Purple Detox Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 head organic curly kale, stems removed, torn into bite-size pieces
• 1 avocado
• 2 small watermelon radishes, sliced thin or into sticks*
• 2 small purple radishes, sliced thin or into sticks
• 2 Tbsp. chopped parsley or cilantro
• 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
• 2 Tbsp. pumpkin seeds
• 3 Tbsp. hemp seeds
• Juice of half a lime
• Pink salt to taste

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Lay the radish slices on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes, just until soft.**
2. Meanwhile, put kale and chopped avocado in a large bowl. Wash your hands. Use your hands to massage and squeeze the avocado into the kale for 2-3 minutes, until kale is dark green and wilted a little.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and the cooked radishes to the bowl. Mix well. Season with salt and lime juice to taste.

Recipe Source: MariaMarlowe.com

Image Credit: MariaMarlowe.com