salad Archives - Goosey Kitchen

Halloumi Watermelon Salad with Mint

Suns out, halloumis out. Here’s a really different and easy way to eat everyone’s favourite squeaky cheese!

This salad is made ~super fresh~ with chunks of watermelon and is a winner at barbecues. The melon cuts through any grease and fat perfectly and really contrasts well with the salty halloumi.

Save yourself a job cutting up an entire melon and look out for preprepared chunks in your local supermarket, I found mine in Sainsbury’s.

Dressing wise I just went with some handfuls of mint in the salad but you could crush up some mint with a little olive oil and lemon if you wanted to give this salad extra ZING. I also used cos lettuce because I like the crunch but some spinach or rocket mixed in could be quite nice here too. There’s no rules!

Black Bean Avocado Salad Bowl

You know how it is. You go on holiday for a week. You come back and you’re out of the swing of posting. And then you start to feel reeeeaaally guilty. And then it’s three weeks later and you STILL haven’t posted. That’s me right now. Sorry, people.

Is anyone else so thirsty for Autumn? I just want roll neck jumpers, suede skirts and tights now please. And Bonfire Night. Oooh yes.

We still have a bit more warm weather though, so let’s enjoy it while we can. Here’s a nice summery black bean salad before we get the huge influx of slow cooker EVERYTHING.

I sometimes add bacon to this to make it a bit more meaty but that’s optional. You could also substitute red kidney beans for the black beans if you can’t find them, or even chickpeas.

Asparagus, Pepper and Feta Cauliflower Rice

As you may know, I’m always looking for new things to eat for lunch at work and I thought it might be worth exploring this cauliflower rice trend, to see if it lived up to the hype. As you can eat it hot or cold, it’s really versatile and does actually make a really easy desk lunch.

My main struggle was to get much flavour into it, and ended up reaching for the harrissa and garlic in the end to bring it to life. I think some of the more Asian inspired flavours might be more flavourful especially fi you’re using sesame oil or soy, they’d really perk it up.

My other ingredients were just leftovers from the fridge – peppers, feta cheese, basil and some asparagus that needed eating up. You could easily add meats to this if you wanted (some pancetta might be nice) but I went veggie. It’s easy to make if you don’t have a food processor, I simply grated my whole head of cauliflower to make two decent portions.

Rainbow Vegtable Chorizo Orzo

I know there’s a whole trend around rainbow food at the minute, rainbow pizza, rainbow donuts, rainbow sushi etc etc. I’m not convinced by it, anything that looks so artificially coloured is a bit off putting to me. This recipe is all natural colours though, just using vegetables from your fridge! I went for leek, pepper and spinach but lots of different things would work here, just make sure they’re brightly coloured.

Vegetables and pasta may sound a bit dull, but the harissa, smoked paprika and chorizo really bring this to life and make it more Mediterranean fun times, less sad desk lunch.

Roasted cauliflower with Parmesan, pesto and butter beans

I’m having a real cauliflower moment lately. It’s delicious, and everyone should be eating it, especially for lunch. There’s a whole trend of mincing it up, having it instead of rice, or using it as a pizza crust. Call me old fashioned, I just like roasting it.

This is a good way of using up half a leftover cauliflower and makes a really nice filling lunch or could be a great side with some fish or chicken.

Roasted Vegetables with Chickpeas, Spinach and Feta

One of my New Years resolutions was to get better at bringing lunches to work. It’s about half way through the year and I’d say I was only managing to bring lunch in around half of the time! I mean it’s an improvement on nothing so it’s kind of good, right?

This is a perfect make-ahead salad you can throw together easily on a week night or Sunday afternoon. Chances are you already have most of the ingredients too. It’s great on its own as a lunch or might make a nice side for a BBQ or with meat.

Honey Salmon, Asparagus and Avocado Salad

Summer has been teasing us a bit hasn’t it? Hot one day, cold and rainy the next. Standard British weather.

Even though it was chilly the other evening I decided to take a bit of a ‘bugger it’ approach and start enjoying summer foods anyway. Note I did sit outside and eat half of this, then got too cold and came back in.

Anyway a whole post on the weather would be boring, so let’s talk food. This simple salad is really quick to make, especially if you buy the salmon pre cooked. If you can’t get it, all you need to do is grill your own salmon in a little honey and soy sauce marinade to replicate the flavour.

Easy Greek Bean Salad

Beans! Beans are great. They’re protein-y (so I’m told) and really cheap. And they keep in your cupboard for ages if you buy them tinned and forget about them like I did.

Until today. Hello, mixed bean salad tin. You are going to be something wonderful.

Don’t be misled here – this is an easy Greek bean salad in the sense that it is a Greek salad with beans in. Recipe after the jump!