The Perfect Post-Holiday Detox Salad

Forget the idea of salad as a side dish — today, a big, juicy, nutrient-packed salad takes center stage. You just need plenty of cruciferous greens, colorful veggies, heart-healthy nuts, savory beans, spicy onions, tofu, avocado, berries — and a delicious dressing, of course. Here are five doctor-approved tips for making the best salad ever.

This forms the base of your salad, so make it a nutritious one. Five cups of leafy greens, including cruciferous veggies, adds a powerful nutritional punch to your meal. Green vegetables are the healthiest foods on the planet. One of my favorite sayings is "The more you eat green, the more you get lean."

Green, red, and yellow peppers, as well as tomatoes, berries, and other colorful foods owe their brilliant hues to flavonoids and carotenoids, which are phytochemicals that help defend the body’s tissues against oxidative damage.

Onions, and other members of the allium family, make everything taste better with their unique flavor profiles. But their most important benefit lies in the anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties of their sulfide compounds – yes, the same ones that make your eyes water.

There’s something magical about beans. Not only do they add a satisfying note of starchy creaminess to a salad — beans contain soluble and insoluble fiber and lots of resistant starch. They have anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory properties.

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