Fertile Salad

Next week is Labor Day in the United States. It’s a holiday that falls on the first Monday in September, honoring the working people and their contributions to the wellbeing of the country by giving them a day off. It’s also the unofficial end of summer so there are lots of cookouts, picnics and outdoor parties.

My dad is coming to spend the long weekend with us, and I’ve also invited some friends to come over to go to the pool and cook out on the grill.

I was feeling like lately I’ve been serving the same old tired foods at summer parties so I went looking online for some new recipes and inspiration. Boy, oh boy, did I find a terrific sounding one that I can’t wait to try!

Normally I don’t share recipes on my blog that I haven’t personally eaten or tried to make yet myself – but I’m so excited about this one I’m making an exception. I just KNOW that it is going to be so good!
It’s for a yummy side salad that is going to be a great part of any cookout or picnic. Not only yummy, but also healthy. So much healthier than those potato or macaroni salads that are swimming in mayonnaise, that are usually so prevalent at those events.

Not only yummy and healthy, but also full of fertility boosting foods. An awesome trifecta!

My mouth was watering just from reading through this recipe. I seriously CANNOT WAIT to make this!

Lemony Kale Chickpea Avocado Salad

Ingredients:

Dressing:

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

1 clove of garlic, pressed

sea salt and pepper to taste

Salad:

2 cups finely chopped kale

1 15-oz can garbanzo beans

1 avocado, chopped

Directions:

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Whisk to combine.

Fold in the kale. Combine. It’s easiest to do this with your hands to make sure the kale is adequately mixed with the dressing.

Gently fold in garbanzo beans and avocado. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Where, oh where do I begin on all the things I love about this recipe, and I haven’t even eaten it yet!

Let’s start with the ingredients.

Kale, olive oil, garbanzo beans, and avocado are all FERTILITY POWERHOUSE foods.   That’s basically the entire salad! It might as well be called Fertility Powerhouse Salad. (I think I will rename it.)

Kale is a leafy green, and leafy greens are known for their fertility benefits, due to their richness in folate and other B vitamins, Vitamins A, C and K, potassium, all vital for hormone regulation which helps with ovulation. Read more here!

Garbanzo beans (actually beans in general) are another awesome fertility-boosting food. They’re a great source of protein, and studies have shown that women who get most of their protein from plant-based sources rather than from animals had less ovulatory-related infertility. Beans have also been known to help improve the quality of your follicles, where your eggs grow before ovulation. You can read more about the benefits of beans for fertility here.

I can’t say enough about the benefits of avocados for fertility. They’ve been called a fertility superfood, because they’re also rich in folate, which is so important both for women trying to conceive and in early pregnancy. Avocados are also a great source of monounsaturated fats (aka, the “good fats”).   Learn more about avocados as a fertility superfood!

Like avocados, olive oil is a great source of the kind of fat we want to have in our diet, so it’s another great component of this salad.

Moving on from the ingredients, I love the preparation of this salad.   It’s only a few ingredients and it’s super easy to make – it truly looks like it’ll be less than 15 minutes from the time I get all the ingredients out of my refrigerator until I have a completed salad, ready to serve.

That’s my kind of dish! My favorite things to make have less than 5 ingredients and have fewer than 5 steps in preparation. Because chances are, I’ll make that one again over another dish that’s more complicated and takes a lot more time and effort.

Because eating healthy shouldn’t be a lot of work, right?

I’ll report back on how much I loved this salad after I make it for my Labor Day cookout.   If you make it before I do, I’d love to hear what you think!!

Lots of love,

Stephanie xoxo