Guilt Free: Hearty Sweet Salad

The most common mistake people make when dieting is reaching for the plain salad, or over dressing it to make it taste good. Neither of those things will benefit you in the long run. A plain salad of lettuce, cucumber, tomato, and croutons are mainly made up of water (after about 20 minutes you'll definitely be hungry again.) Plus those croutons may be a great textural component in your salad, but it's just unnecessary carbs!

Salads are meant to be fun, the leafy greens are a base! Just like a salad bar at a restaurant, you too can build a wonderful tasting salad, that is both healthy, fueling, and fulfilling at home.

The cook time may be lengthy for this salad, but the end result will not disappoint. Besides, once you're done you'll have enough for 3-4 serving throughout your week.

Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of organic baby arugula

• 3 cups of organic baby spinach

• 1/2 a cup of unsalted sunflower seeds

• 1/2 a cup of cranberries or crasins

• 1 cup of walnuts chopped

• 1 cup of goat cheese crumbles

• 2 medium sized sweet potatoes

• 1/4 cup quinoa

Directions:

Preheat your oven for 400 degrees, while that heats up clean your sweet potatoes properly and pierce the entire exterior with a fork. Place the sweet potatoes in a bake safe dish, once the oven is at 400 degrees, leave the sweet potatoes in the oven for 45 minutes. You want your sweet potatoes to still have a little firmness to them when they are done, this will replicate the crunch the croutons would give you.

In a small pot bring a cup of water to a boil, and boil the quinoa for 15 minutes.

After getting those two things out of the way, you can begin to construct your salad base. In a large bowl or container mix the spinach and arugula, then incorporate the sunflower seeds, cranberries, chopped walnuts, and goat cheese crumbles throughout the leaf mixture.

When the quinoa is done, strain it, run it under cold water, then incorporate throughout the salad.

Lastly, when your sweet potatoes are done cooking, place them in a bowl of ice water. After they have cooled a bit, peel the potatoes, then dice them into bite sized squares and place over the salad.

Enjoy with a drizzle of honey or low calorie balsamic vinaigrette!

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