Blended Salads and Soups - A fabulous alternative to green smoothies!

When I first heard about blended salads a few years ago, I thought it was a disgusting idea. Who would want to eat liquefied lettuce?

Then I was introduced to the concept of a green smoothie - fruit blended with green leaves - and rapidly came to enjoy these very much.

So after green smoothies it didn't seem like such a stretch anymore. Now blended soups and salads are a dinner staple for us.

Blended salads don't always make the most appealing LOOKING dishes, but they are extremely flavorful and appealing to the tastebuds, so I highly recommend you give it a try.

They are packed full of vitamins and minerals, with loads of fiber, are extremely filling and satisfying and are extremely low in calories.

The dish in the picture above was made as follows:

Ingredients:

2x tomatoes
1x stalk celery
1/2 x cucumber (peeled)
2-3 medjool dates (you can either use 2-3 large dates or about 6-7 small ones)
1x medium head of romaine lettuce

Blend it all up in the Vitamix or whatever blender you have, using the stick attachment to push the lettuce down onto the blade. Do NOT ADD ANY WATER!

These vegetables already have such a high water content that if you add any extra water it will ruin the flavor.

You can add some herbs and spices for taste if you like. I generally have it plain, but if I happened to have some basil or coriander I might add that too.

Chop up some celery, tomato and the remaining half of the peeled cucumber and add it to your green soup as croutons!

The dates are really a vital ingredient. I know that there are those who may say that dates as a sweet fruit, do not mix well with tomatoes which are more of an acid fruit. That may be true for some, you won't know until you try. However, it doesn't cause any digestive discomfort for us at all. It is just perfect.

If you really don't want to use dates you could use agave nectar as well. Adding the sweetness is ESSENTIAL to a delicious blended salad. It really is. Romaine lettuce leaves and other green leaves blended up can be bitter tasting and the dates just cut that bitterness JUST right. You DON'T end up with a sweet dish, it is still VERY MUCH a savory dish, but much more enjoyable with the addition of the dates.

Blended Raw Soups!

Another dinner favorite is to make raw soups. The only difference between this and what I call a blended salad, is that these don't include green leaves. The resulting flavor is quite different from that of blended salads.

There are many different recipes and variations of raw soups that we regularly make and I'm just going to list a few of them here. The wonderful thing about doing a low fat raw diet is that you can actually STOP looking at recipes altogether, you just take a few ideas and then run with them. You just become very creative, you try different things, and almost every night you eat something different, as if you change one ingredient you completely change the flavor! It is an exciting way to eat!

In the soup above the ingredients are as follows:

Ingredients:

5x tomatoes
2x stalks celery
1x cucumber
6-10x sundried tomatoes
1x red bell pepper (capsicum)
2x medjool dates or 4 small dates (optional)

Blend it all up in the blender.

By changing a few ingredients you get a completely different flavor. If you make the soup without dates it has more of a tangy flavor. If you add the dates in it gives it almost a creaminess and has a hint of sweet/sour which is really tasty.

By adding some herbs to the above recipe you could make it pack even more of a savory punch. Any vegetable added or taken away will provide a totally different soup! We have made this soup with added slices of pineapple for a totally different taste.

We have also made it with a couple of oranges thrown in to add a different and zesty flavor. Pretty much every time we make this soup we change up one or two ingredients and it comes out tasting completely different.

If you're ever craving saltiness then just use more celery and tomatoes. These have a delicious natural saltiness and this is the sodium that the body needs and can fully utilize. This is the good stuff!

In the soup above the ingredients are as follows:

Ingredients:

2x Mangoes
5x Tomatoes
6x Sundried Tomatoes

The quantities do depend on taste, you may want to add some more sundried tomatoes if you want a more concentrated tomato flavor, or a few more fresh tomatoes if you want it to be a little less thick. You can also add red bell pepper (capsicum) if you want, though in the soup pictured we didn't use any.

We have made the above soup using papaya instead of mango. Delicious!

So, just get creative! You'll soon know which ingredients really work together and which don't.

The above soup also works really well as a salad dressing! Just adjust the quantities according to how much you need. Mango and sundried tomato alone make a great dipping sauce for raw vegan sushi rolls!

Orange juice blended with red bell pepper is another great dressing.

Pineapple blended with red bell pepper and/or tomato is another great salad dressing!

Hope this has given you some ideas of blended salads and soups to try!

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