Vibrant Raspberry Walnut Salad – Mediterranean Diet Recipe

Mediterranean Diet Meal Makeover – Raspberry Walnut Salad

Often the hardest part of The Mediterranean diet is understanding where to start. There are no black and white rules. No place to tell you “eat this, don’t eat that”. Just a set of Guidelines.

Our advice begins with simply trying to give a meal a Mediterranean Diet Makeover. By that, we mean taking a dish you’d ordinarily eat and switching or adding ingredients to make it fit a bit more within this lifestyle.

Read more about tips for how to accomplish this below, or jump right to the Raspberry Walnut Salad recipe if you prefer.

Ways to Make a Meal More Mediterranean

Since the focus of the Mediterranean diet is to include more plant based foods, that’s the best place to start. Take a look at your meal and see if there are any ways to add more –

• Whole Grains
• Fruits and Vegetables
• Beans and Legumes
• Nuts and Seeds

Let’s break it down even further and see suggestions for each category –

Whole Grains

Whole grains provide fiber, which can help with gut health, bowel movements, reducing cholesterol, and reduced risk of certain diseases like cancer and heart disease.

Some examples of whole grains that can be added into meals –

• Whole wheat bread
• Whole wheat pasta
• Quinoa
• Brown Rice
• Barley

Fruit and Vegetables

Aside from also providing fiber, fruits and vegetables come with lots of vitamins and nutrients that can lead to better immunity and antioxidants that can protect against harmful free radicals. Eating a wide variety of colors is a good way to help ensure you are getting all the individual nutrients each different fruit and veggie provide.

Some ways to add more fruits and veggies into meals –

• Including fruit like berries, apples, orange slices or pears to salads
• Adding fruit to breakfast in the form of smoothies or mixed with yogurt
• Creating a veggie packed stir fry with bell peppers, onions, carrots, broccoli, etc
• Adding veggies to sandwiches like cucumber slices, tomato, sprouts, roasted peppers, spinach
• Making veggies the star of the plate and treating meat/poultry like a side dish
• Adding fruit into your dessert like fruit sorbet, sliced fruit on top of ice cream

Beans and Legumes

Beans and legumes are a great source of fiber as well as protein. They also make a meal filling, which can help with fullness and satiety.

You can check out more about Why We Love Lentils to read more.

A few suggestions on how to add more beans and legumes to meals include –

• Making a big batch of bean based soup
• Adding black beans to tacos
• Including lentils into salads
• Trying a new lentil recipe as a side dish for dinner
• Making a bean salad full of different beans, veggies and herbs

Nuts and Seeds

Both nuts and seeds are a popular addition to many Mediterranean dishes. Aside from offering a nice crunch, they also contain heart healthy fats, fiber and protein.

They make a great ingredient in dishes like –

• Sprinkled on top of yogurt and fruit for a delicious parfait
• Sunflower seeds, sliced almonds, pistachios, walnuts, and pecans all taste great when added to salad
• Including minced walnuts and mushrooms as a meat free alternative to tacos or casseroles
• Dredging fish or chicken in chopped walnuts, almonds or pistachios before cooking
• Creating a satisfying snack of a handful of nuts with fruit and cheese

Vibrant Raspberry Walnut Salad Recipe

We took an ordinary salad and decided to give it a Mediterranean Diet Makeover. Using the advice from above, we took an ordinary recipe and added the following –

• Fresh Raspberries – which not only provide color and natural sweetness, but fiber and vitamins as well
• Chopped Walnuts – giving a hearty crunch, these walnuts also give a dose of heart healthy Omega 3 fatty acids, fiber and protein
• Sunflower Seeds – sprinkled over the top, these little seeds provide a bit of saltiness as well as fiber and texture
• Cucumber – a great texture to add to salads, if you leave the skin on it also gives a tiny bit of fiber but cucumber is also a great way to add more hydration to your day because they are made up almost entirely of water
• Chopped kale – using this hearty, leafy green is a good way to add a host of vitamin and minerals as well as fiber
• Olive oil based dressing – extra virgin olive oil is the healthy fat of choice on the Mediterranean diet so using it to create a simple vinaigrette is a good way to makeover a meal

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Vibrant Raspberry Walnut Salad

Giving salad a Mediterranena DIet Meal Makeover with this Vibrant Raspberry Walnut Salad and tips for creating mediterranean diet dishes.

Course Salad, side/salad

Cuisine Mediterranean

Keyword fall recipes, mediterranean diet, salad

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 0 minutes minutes

Servings 4 cups

Author Brynn McDowell, RDN at The Domestic Dietitian

Ingredients

• 3 cups kale
• 1 cucumber chopped
• 1 cup raspberries
• 1/2 cup walnuts chopped
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp crumbled feta

Instructions

• We like to finely chop the kale in a food processor for this salad, however this step is optional. If you prefer, you can simply just use torn/chopped or baby kale leaves as is. Place chopped kale in a large bowl
• Add chopped cucumber, raspberries, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and feta to salad. Mix to combine
• Drizzle an olive oil based dressing of your choice. We love this Simple Lemon Vinaigrette recipe – https://thedomesticdietitian.com/the-best-vinaigrette-recipe/

Fiber Check

This Raspberry Walnut Salad is also a great example of how to pack a dish with fiber.

This recipe has a total of 16 grams of fiber –

• 3 cups kale = 3 grams fiber
• 1/2 cup walnuts = 2 grams fiber
• 1 cup raspberries = 8 grams fiber
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds = 3 grams fiber