I’ve been trying to eat healthy for the past few years which means I cook most of my meals. This can often lead to boredom and laziness. There are days I can’t even convince myself to just sauté a bunch of vegetables for lunch. For such days, I have two lazy salad recipes that I modify according to my mood and laziness levels. These two salads are healthy, vegetarian and have a prep time of 15 minutes.

Apple, Pear & Feta Salad

I’m sure you’re going to laugh once you read how easy it is to put together this salad but definitely give it a try!

INGREDIENTS (Serves 1):

• 1 apple (if I am only prepping for myself then I use 1 apple)
• 1 pear (if I am only prepping for myself then I use 1 apple)
• 30-40 gms – Feta Cheese (vary quantity according to how much you like Feta)
• 2 Tablespoons – Pumpkin Seeds
• 1/4 cup – Chopped almonds
• 1/2 lemon
• Optional – honey, raisins, sunflower seeds, flax seeds.

ASSEMBLING THE SALAD:

• Chop the apple and pear into bite sized pieces. Put these in a bowl and toss them in lemon juice to keep them from oxidizing.
• Add the pumpkin seeds & chopped almonds to the fruit mix. The almonds add a nice crunch to the salad. You can replace it with another nut of your liking. You can also add in sunflower and flax seeds. I leave them out because I don’t like them too much.
• Crumble the feta cheese on top of the salad and the salad is ready. It is literally that EASY.
• If you’d like the salad to have hints of sweetness – throw in a splash of honey or add some raisins to the mix.

This has to be one of the quickest salads to put together. I try to add a bunch of nuts and seeds to give it a power punch. This salad takes exactly 15 minutes to make and tastes extremely good. This is a really easy way to incorporate fruits into your meals.

Roasted Chickpeas Salad

I love chickpeas and roasted chickpeas are an easy way to get your protein intake for the day. It’s filling and extremely tasty. If you’re vegan, you can tweak this recipe to make it vegan.

INGREDIENTS:

• Boiled/Canned chickpeas – 2-3 cups depending on how many people are going to be eating (1.5 cups is good for me for lunch)
• Olive oil -2-3 teaspoons
• Red onions – 1 large
• Red Bell Pepper – 1
• Garlic – 3-4 cloves
• Salt
• Paprika/Peri-peri seasoning (or as per your taste)
• There are a few optional variations that you can pick from as per your taste, I usually vary the below options to make different salads every week –
• Optional – Lettuce/rocket/kale (whatever greens you prefer) and whatever vegetables you prefer (Tomatoes/cucumber)
• Optional – Lemon juice (variation 1)
• Optional – Avocado (variation 2)
• Optional – Feta cheese (variation 3)
• Optional – Tahini (variation 4)

ASSEMBLING THE SALAD:

• If you aren’t using canned chickpeas, make sure to soak the chickpeas overnight in water and cook them in a cooker before using them in this recipe.
• Dry your chickpeas on a kitchen towel/paper. They don’t have to be perfectly dried just make sure any excess water is wiped off them.
• Pre-heat your oven to 200C
• Next, finely chop the garlic. You can vary how much you want to use depending upon how much you like garlic. ( I LOVE GARLIC!)
• Roughly chop the onions, bell pepper and the other salad vegetables that you’d like to add.
• Assemble the chickpeas, garlic on an oven proof tray/dish. I even throw in the vegetables like bell peppers to have them roasted as well. Top them with a dash of olive oil, salt, peri-peri seasoning and roughly mix them to evenly distribute the seasoning.
• Put the dish in the oven and let the chickpeas and vegetables roast for 18-20mins.
• Assemble all the vegetables (that you haven’t roasted) in a bowl, add the roasted chickpeas and roasted vegetables on them.
• The days when I’m super lazy, I just eat the salad as is. But I do change the dressing/seasoning to keep varying the flavour. If you want to add even more flavour, add in some crushed avocado or sprinkle some crumbled feta cheese on top or season the salad with tahini or keep it simple with a drizzle of lemon juice.

This is such an easy salad to make – I usually put the chickpeas to roast and finish getting ready while they are cooking. This is salad is healthy and high on protein. Definitely give it a try!

These are my two lazy day hack salads to make sure I eat healthy and I don’t end up ordering or eating junk! I love these two and end up eating them 3-4 times in the week. If you give them a try, let me know how you liked them. 🙂

Stay safe & Stay Healthy!

PS: All photos are sourced from google.

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