Learn to Make Keto Foods: Salads

The Wuhan coronavirus has taught us how many people are dependent on others to make their meals— they eat restaurant, including fast-food restaurant, meals not once or twice a month but once or twice a day. And for their other meals they have ready-to-eat or heat-and-eat stuff. 

Being this helpless is no way to do Keto * Low-Carb. It’s like being in a prison where you don’t get to eat what you think is healthy but what a prison dietician thinks is healthy, and what the prison budget can handle. If you want to be a free ketonian rather than a carb-diet prisoner, it’s time to learn to make some food on your own.

Low-Carb eating plans have had a place for salad veggies since the days of the Atkins diet, in which you are allowed 2 cups of salad veg plus 1 cup other low-carb veg even on strict Induction. 

You don’t have to get your salads by ordering them from a restaurant or a grocery with a salad bar. You can put together a salad on your own. You need to make a shopping trip to pick up some salad veg every so often. Or, if you do home-sprouting to get sprout salads, you may have to order your sprouting seeds online. I get mine from Amazon though I’m thinking of looking in to smaller companies that sell sprouting seed.

A salad usually consists of two parts: the base, often lettuce, cabbage or sprouts, and the extras, radish or carrot shreds, bell pepper bits, some green onion, and even bits of bacon or cheese shreds. My sprout salads are often from a salad sprout mix such as Broccoli & Friends, and so has broccoli sprouts and radish sprouts mixed in with the alfalfa and red clover sprouts that are the base.

To prepare a salad, first rinse and dry your base. Cut or tear it into bit-sized bits, or if it is sprouts separate the bits from one another if they are grown together into a clump. Put the base in a clean bowl.

Prepare any extras your salad will include. Rinse and dry veggies, and cut up your radish, bell pepper, green onion or red cabbage. If including, chop up your bacon or hardboiled egg, cooked meat, and shred your cheese. Put the extras in with the base and mix. Each person gets about 1 cup worth of salad for two daily meals, so measure your salad serving accordingly. 

Seasoning: You can use salt, seasoned salt, salt-free Spike, kelp powder and other similar things on your salad. You may also use low-carb salad dressings, especially the home-made kind with good oils like EVOO or avocado oil. Be sure and measure out your portions of salad dressings— just because 1 serving of dressing is OK doesn’t mean you can pour on 4 servings.

Keto * Low-Carb Salad Dressings

I was never a salad dressing person. I wasn’t even a salad person at all until I started Original-Atkins Induction for the first time. When I had little to eat but meat, cheese, eggs and the like, my two allotted daily salads were a treat rather than a chore.

Dana Carpender (author of many low-carb cookbooks) called store-bought dressings a ‘bad fat minefield.’ What’s a bad fat? For us Ketonians (people on Keto * Low-Carb), we follow the science. Heavily refined vegetable oils, though cheap and beloved of food manufactures, are not good fats. Bad fats cause inflammation which causes diseases that none of us want. Chapter 4 in the book Real Food Keto (link below) covers the skinny on fats. 

Some good fats are things like the fats in meat, particularly that in grass-fed meat. (I’ve made home-made mayonnaise with bacon fat instead of some other fat— it was great.) EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil) is a fat even your conventionally-oriented medical person will allow you to have. Coconut oil and MCT oil are good for getting you in ketosis. Since you will be refrigerating your salad dressing until you finish consuming it, you won’t want to use the coconut oil since it is solid at room temperature (except in a warm summer) but MCT oil, though pricy, is a good choice. I often use about a tablespoon of MCT oil and the rest EVOO when making dressings. Avocado oil and toasted sesame oil are also acceptable choices if they are COLD-PRESSED. (Not ‘cold-processed.’) Butter, when made into ghee, is a good fat which you might also use. (When I make ghee, which I plan to do soon, I may try adding some to a salad dressing recipe.)

I have found recipes for salad dressings in many of my LC cookbooks. Here are the results from some I have made:

RANCH DRESSING (500 Low-Carb Recipes) 

I used avocado mayonnaise for this one, and buttermilk powder and water for the buttermilk. It came out very thin and watery. Next time, I will add a Tablespoon of sour cream and use less water. This recipe gives a 1 Tablespoon serving but does not say so.

FRENCH VINAIGRETTE DRESSING (500 Low-Carb Recipes)

I made this recipe not to put on my salads, but to use as a marinade, as in the recipe ‘Steak Vinaigrette’ in the same recipe book. The steak was great, and for my next trick, I drizzled some of this dressing on one of my daily sprout-based salads. I liked it! 

ITALIAN VINAIGRETTE DRESSING (500 Low-Carb Recipes)

Similar to the recipe above but with different seasonings, including crushed garlic and one drop of Tabasco sauce. I liked this one as well.

SMOKY PAPRIKA DRESSING (200 Low-Carb High-Fat Recipes)

I made this one with avocado mayonnaise (and now I need more avocado mayonnaise) and used regular paprika as I don’t have smoky paprika in the house at the moment. Good enough I’m making it again.

ANOTHER POPPY SEED DRESSING (200 Low-Carb High-Fat Recipes)

I made this one today— another winner! I used 8 drops of no-flavor Sweetleaf Sweet Drops instead of the amount of ‘liquid stevia’ mentioned. It was plenty sweet enough for me. You could use Sweetleaf in different flavors to vary the taste. 

HOW TO GET STARTED USING SALAD DRESSINGS

One thing to remember— a home-made salad dressing won’t last in your fridge forever! Maria Emmerich, in her cookbooks, tends to give such recipes a time limit of 5 days to 2 weeks in the fridge, depending on the recipe. So it is important to LABEL and DATE the canning jars you store (& make?) your salad dressings in. Also, if you don’t use that much (I tend to use one to one & 1/2 teaspoons per salad, even though most allow a one Tablespoon serving or more.) make a 1/2 to 1/4 batch.

To obey the use-it-up rule, you may need to add the dressing to each of your two daily salads, every day while the dressing lasts. If you actually prefer plain salads, or salads with just sea salt and Spike or Mrs. Dash, have that for a day or two after you finish a batch of dressing, before making more dressing.

I used to eat my sprout salads plain, right out of the Victorio sprouting tray, but having made a few dressings now and tried them, I’m getting used to non-naked salad. 

WHY SALAD DRESSINGS?

We use salad dressings because good fat is good for our health and helps us get into ketosis, and salad dressings are a way to get that good fat into our bodies— similar to the reason for making ‘bulletproof’ coffee and other hot beverages with butter or MCT oil in them. I can’t stand EVOO in my bulletproof coffee, but I love my salad dressings made with EVOO.

Salad dressings also add flavor to your salads, which may help you find them more edible if, like me, you’ve never been big on eating salads.

Also, just because they are called salad dressings doesn’t mean you can’t dip a bit of meat, celery sticks, or other food into it. 

BOOKS MENTIONED

(These are NOT affiliate links, because the kind folks at Amazon kicked me out of the affiliate program for not peddling enough books.)

500 Low-Carb Recipes - Dana Carpender -2002

200 Low-Carb High-Fat Recipes - Dana Carpender - 2015 

Real Food Keto - Jimmy Moore & Christina Moore, NTP - 2019

Salad Sprouting in Victorio Sprouters for Keto * Low-Carb

Victorio sprouter in use.

If you are low income you may find our Keto * Low-Carb way kind of expensive— all those meats and fresh salad greens to buy. But the sprouting habit helps you get healthy salad into your body every day at lower cost— even in winter and without trips to the grocery store.

There are many sprouting tools you can use, but I recommend the Victorio sprouter. It’s neat, and the trays stack. I have a stack of 7 salad sprout trays right now, and have 3 other sprouting trays that I have also stacked— yes, 10 high. And a Victorio set is not that expensive— under $20 for four sprouting trays, a green base and a green topper. If you want salad sprouts every day, though, you probably want at least 2 sets.

My sprouting area is in my kitchen on the top 2 levels of a plastic shelving unit. This is because I have cats, and so far they have left the top 2 levels alone. 

The Victorio comes with a tiny packet of alfalfa seed, and that’s a good seed to start with. Pre-soak 1 to 2 teaspoons (tsp., t.) or 5-10 ml of seed in a lidded canning jar. (I use 1 pint or 1/2 pint size.) You may put some seaweed based fertilizer in with the soak water in the amount recommended by your brand of fertilizer. 

Soak your seed for hours, a day, or even 2 days in stubborn cases (I have some broccoli seed that’s a little old, and so I’m soaking it for 2 days hoping for better sprouting.) Pour it off into your sprouting tray. Be sure and LABEL your sprouting tray with the kind of seed, amount, and date. I used to use freezer tape for labels, but when I had my stroke and was away from home for a few months, the labels left behind residue that doesn’t wash off well. I used canning jar sticky labels which I had on hand, and now am using labels from my Dymo label maker, which I like best of all. (Because I hate my own handwriting even though I used to be a calligrapher and got PAID to do it once.)

Most sprouting seeds take about 7 days to reach eating stage. Some take longer— such as onion or garlic sprouts which take 14 days. Either you can sprout your garlic/onion seeds for 1 week and then add your 7 day salad sprouts. Or you can sprout your garlic/onion separately, or grow it as shoots, and add to your daily salads.

My sprouting shelves. Lower shelf has mung bean
sprouts, protected from light.

SUN FOR SPROUTS: Most salad-type sprouts really need some sunlight in the last few sprouting days. Put them in a sunny window, or in your indoor garden with artificial lights. 

KINDS OF SPROUTS: most commonly we use alfalfa, red clover, radish, broccoli, mustard, arugula or even lentil in our salad sprouts. I like a mix from Todd’s Seeds called Broccoli & Friends which has broccoli, alfalfa, red clover and radish. Very tasty! Though my seed supply is now old and I’m wondering if the broccoli in the mix is sprouting well. I am adding small amounts of black lentil seeds to my daily salad sprout mix. Black lentils are smaller and cuter than standard lentils. Both black and green lentils sprout like the dickens even if you get lentils from the grocery store. I bought ‘365 Everyday Value’ organic black and green lentils online and the black, at least, sprout great for me (I haven’t used the green yet since I still have other green lentils to use up.)

PLANT SAUCERS FOR YOUR VICTORIO SPROUTER: The diameter of a Victorio sprouter tray is 6 inches. Since there is only one base for every 4 trays, I bought some Dbell brand 6 in. plant saucers. Unfortunately they are less than 6 inches and so didn’t work, but they were so nice that I plan to shop for some 6.5 inch or 7 inch plant saucers of the same brand. In that way, I can set out sprout trays to green up without using up all the Victorio bases or leaking water all over the house.  

EATING YOUR SALAD SPROUTS. On our Keto * Low-Carb lifestyle we are entitled to 2 cups of salad daily even on Induction. Be sure and eat your daily salads! You may use low-carb salad dressings if that is what you are used to. I’ve always just added salt to my salads, or sometimes Spike or Mrs Dash seasonings (with or without adding salt.) Sometimes I add a bit of kelp powder or seaweed flakes (I like seaweed.)

SPROUTS THE SUPERFOOD. Sprouts are considered a superfood because they have more nutrients than in the full-grown plant. Often they are lower in carbs than the full-grown plant. Both alfalfa sprouts and mung bean sprouts are specifically mentioned in Atkins books as allowed vegetables.

ARE SPROUTS MICROGREENS? Microgreens are a new term. It seems to mostly mean sprouts that are grown in soil to the sprouting stage. Or some are grown to a larger size, more like shoots. Personally, I call both sprouts and shoots ‘microgreens’ whether they are grown in soil or using a sprout tray or jar and water.

TO LEARN MORE: Be warned: many sprouting advocates are also advocates for an unhealthy vegetarian high-carb diet. They have little science to back it up, so they use emotional appeals or mockery to promote their diet. DON’T GET TAKEN IN! I have a number of books on sprouting. The one I use most is ‘Sprouts: The Miracle Food: The Complete Guide to Sprouting’ by Steve Meyerowitz. I also have ‘Growing and Using Sprouts’ by Richard Helweg and ‘How to Survive with Sprouting’ by Bruford Scott Reynolds.

Have you ever done sprouting? What did you use? How did it work out for you? Are you still sprouting, or planning to try it again? Let us know in a comment!

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Home Sprouting to create your Daily Low-Carb Salads

On low-carb/keto diets, you are generally allowed your 2 salads a day, as in original Atkins. But that can be difficult! I live alone, and I’m in a rural area. And I was brought up to hate wasting food. When I buy lettuce as a salad base, I usually end up with some spoiled lettuce, whether I buy head lettuce or bagged salads. Especially when I’m doing full-day fasting from time to time during the week!

I finally wised up a bit and bought cabbage as a salad base. I bought bagged coleslaw mix, and since I again skipped some days of salad eating due to fasting and to just not wanting to eat those salads, I again had some not-so-fresh shredded cabbage at the bottom of the bag. I suppose I could have fed it to my chickens and ducks, but I put extra Spike (seasoning) on it and ate it. It was OK.

The best way I have found, however, is to base my salads on salad sprouts such as alfalfa and clover sprouts. I have been sprouting for years, even back when I was a vegetarian. I used to use just those canning jar based sprouters with plastic sprouting lids that fit wide-mouth canning jars, but now I have found a better way— the Vittorio sprouters. 

A Vittorio sprouter is made up of stacking round sprouting trays. You can start up a new one each day and stack them to save space. I put my sprouters at the top of a set of plastic shelves in the middle of my kitchen. It is a warm-enough spot in winter, and being away from the windows doesn’t dry out sprouts in summer. And on the top shelf, my cats don’t feel the need to knock it on the floor in their redecorating efforts.

I learned a lot about sprouting seeds from the ‘Sproutman’ Steve Meyerowitz’s books ‘Sprouts, the Miracle Food’ and ‘Sproutman’s Kitchen Garden Cookbook.’ He has a business called The Sprout House which sells sprouting seeds and the kind of sprouters he recommends. (I have tried his recommended basket sprouters and prefer the neatness of the stackable Vittorio sprouters.)

How to sprout salad sprouts

First, get a good sprouter, and put it in a good location. Many sprouting failures happen because people put their sprouters in a forgotten corner of the house which leads them to forget the twice-daily rinsings. 

Second, buy some sprouting seeds. Alfalfa seeds are a good place to start. I prefer a mix of seeds called ‘Broccoli and Friends’ from Todd’s Seeds, which I purchase from Amazon.com. It contains broccoli, clover, red radish and alfalfa seed. I’ve also sprouted just plain clover seed, but I don’t like that very much. Clover sprouts seem to me better in a mix.

‘Sproutman’ says that larger legume sprouts, like mung bean sprouts, pea sprouts, and lentil sprouts should be steamed before eating. There are salad mixes that contain some larger legume sprouts, mostly lentil sprouts. I wouldn’t use those unless I planned to make a lightly steamed salad!

I use about 1 teaspoon of seed for one tray of the Vittorio sprouter. I have used a bit more or a bit less. Pre-soak the seed for a few hours or overnight. One sprouting book author, Jim Beerstecher, recommends soaking as long as 24 hours. Soak it too long, however, like two or three days, and you will drown some of the sprouting seeds.

After soaking, pour the water and seeds into your sprouter. The Vittorio sprouter has a solid, green bottom tray to catch the water and a top non-solid green tray for the top to prevent your seeds drying out. Make sure you use these trays if you have a Vittorio!

Sprouts are usually watered twice daily. If you are in a hot, dry climate, you may need to do it more often. Be sure and drain the sprouts after rinsing. And before you water sprouts in a Vittorio sprouter, check the bottom, water-catching tray to make sure it is empty. You don’t want the water to overflow!

Alfalfa and related salad sprouts need 7 days of sprouting. They should be exposed to some degree of light so they turn green. When ready to eat, take the amount of sprouts desired and put in a filled bowl of cool water. Swish the sprouts around so that any seed hulls or unsprouted seeds are eliminated.

I often eat these salad sprouts as a finger food, without anything. But you can do anything you do with a lettuce salad with a sprout salad. You can add other salad veggies, you can salt it, you can also add Spike or Mrs. Dash as a seasoning along with the salt, and you can use any low carbohydrate salad dressing. If you like salad dressing. 

If you take out half a tray’s worth of sprouts for a salad, you can keep the rest in the tray and keep watering it. If you develop a backlog of sprouts, you can put them, tray and all, into the refrigerator. Continue to rinse it once daily. It will keep longer in the cool environment. You can also feed extra sprouts to greens-eating pets and livestock. My poultry loves sprouts, especially in winter.

Sprout salads for the mostly-carnivore eater

While human beings can live on a 100% meat diet, few historical hunter-gatherer tribes have done so. If you are mostly carnivore, especially if you eat salads only some of the time, sprouting is great because you can sprout only as much as you want, and only when you are in a sometimes-salad-eating phase of your life. Your sprouting seeds will keep for quite a while— mine have still sprouted after a year or two.  Sprouts are quite nutritious— certainly more so than iceberg lettuce. 

Yes, the links in my blog posts are often Amazon affiliate links. If someone buys using these links, I may eventually get a little money for it. Someday.