How to make vegetarian protein salad
By: Jophy Deol Jose
Tags: Food, Diet, Vegetarian, Health, Médium

There's nothing more monotonous than a boring salad.

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You could either start or end your day with a salad or easily, you could just do both. The possibilities are endless when it comes to a salad. Salads are commonly used as appetizers before starting a proper meal. Indeed, a well-balanced salad consisting of herbs, green leaves, legumes, veggies, some nuts, and grains can revitalize your body and mind in ways no one could imagine.

Anyone can make a salad. It's that easy a task. Now imagine what adding some protein into it could contribute to your diet.

Before adding the protein, let's get to know how much protein is actually too much protein?

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According to the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI), the average protein intake is 0.36 grams of protein per pound (0.8 grams per kg) of body weight.

This aggregates to 56 grams per day for the average sedentary man and 46 grams per day for the average sedentary woman.

In this feature, we’ll focus on a salad that provides the appropriate amount of proteins from everyday vegetables, one could easily afford at home.

courtesy of pinterest.com

Step 1

Take a bowl that is big enough to easily accommodate two servings of the salad you're about to make.

Take two small cucumbers or a single big cucumber and slice it into fine circular pieces or in any shape of your choice.

Transfer the contents into the bowl.

1g of protein is present per 100g of cucumber.

Step 2

Take a big red onion.

Cut it into two equal halves.

Dice half of the onion and transfer the contents into the bowl.

1g of protein is present per 100g of onion.

Step 3

Chop 10 cherry tomatoes or 4 normal-sized tomatoes.

Transfer the contents into the bowl.

0.9g of protein is present per 100g of tomatoes.

Step 4

Add 5g of finely sliced ginger into the bowl.

Adding ginger elevates the freshness of the salad.

Step 5

In a pan of your choice, pour 1tbsp of cooking oil and spread it all over the cooking surface.

Add 1 cup of pre-cooked chickpeas into the pan.

Add a pinch of salt to taste.

Add a pinch of red chili powder.

Saute the contents in the pan for about 2–3 min in a medium or high flame.

After heating the chickpeas, transfer them into a container and keep them aside for warming down.

19g of protein is present per 100g of chickpeas.

Step 6

Now, into the bowl add 3 tbsp of finely chopped coriander and two small green chilies diced into fine pieces.

3g of protein is provided per 100g of coriander.

Step 7

Transfer the cooled chickpeas into the bowl and mix all the contents thoroughly.

Into this mixture, add one-fourth of a teaspoon of roasted cumin powder, black salt, and 2 tbsp of freshly squeezed lime juice.

Combine all the ingredients by mixing them thoroughly for a minimum time of 15 seconds.

Add your required amount of salt and pepper for seasoning and taste.

Upon completing all these steps, you should obtain a fun mixture in a bowl that would look something like this⬇⬇⬇

Photo via Pinterest.com

That's it, folks. You've prepared yourself a very nutritious protein salad in 7 simple steps. This salad can easily provide up to 30g of proteins for an individual in one sitting and the value amounts to more than half of the required dietary protein intake for a day. Besides being cheap, the easy availability of herbs makes this salad all the more worthwhile.

So if you're someone looking to up your diet with some extra proteins which can be prepared quickly and with seven simple steps-this is the method you're looking for!

Stay healthy and see you soon in another feature :)