STRAWBERRY SALAD

Strawberry Salad side dish or Dessert

Strawberries, cucumber and lemon are just the beginning of the flavors delivered in this strawberry salad. Not only is it delicious, but it is a powerhouse of nutrition. It’s low in calories and high in vitamins and minerals. How can you beat that?

Strawberry salad can be served as a unique side dish for lunch or a light dinner, but it’s a mindblower how good it is as a no guilt dessert and/or night time snack, especially when you add our yogurt topping.

Speaking of Dessert

Is it dessert or desert?

Do you have trouble remembering how many “s‘es” to use to spell the words meaning a sand landscape vs an after dinner sweet treat? I had a teacher who gave us an analogy to help us remember and it works for me. She was a very large woman, which made it particularly memorable.

Just think which one you want 2 of, deserts or desserts? I know my answer is 2 sweet treats. Hence your clue is dessert has 2 “s’s” in the middle, assuming you also want 2 sweet treats instead of walking across 2 deserts. Desert, the landscape, only has one s. Maybe Miss Clark’s tip will help you remember too. 🙂

Strawberries are not for shortcake alone

When I see strawberries, I think strawberry short cake. And my kind of strawberry shortcake has a biscuit submerged in a pool of sweet strawberry syrup topped with lots of homemade whipped cream. Strawberry syrup magically starts to appear when sugar is mixed with cut strawberries. The longer you let the strawberries rest in the sugar, the more syrup you get. The more syrup you get the less firm the strawberries are. The process of using sugar to draw the juice out of the strawberries is called macerating. Once the sugar has done it’s job and the cut strawberries are swimming in sweet sugar syrup, you can do oh so many things with it! You can make shortcake, put it over ice cream and I have been known to just eat it right out of the bowl. This is not health conscious eating. 😋

Seeing strawberries swimming in sugar syrup as the only way to eat them really makes a mockery of this beautiful red berry which left alone has a lot of nutritional value. I came to the conclusion that if I was going to buy strawberries, I had to find a healthier way to use them or stop buying them, because having them in the refrigerator always led to a dessert of a thousand empty calories!

Vindicating the strawberry

One day, having bought some fresh strawberries I decided now was the time to figure out what to do with them that wouldn’t result in me avoiding the scale for a week. I went on the hunt in my refrigerator to see what else was in there for me to work with to make something new and interesting. Something that would give the nutritional value of the strawberry a fighting chance. I had a cucumber. Well, they are crispy and fresh and don’t have a strong flavor of their own that would overpower the strawberry, so I decided to try them together. Cucumbers are not my favorite vegetable, but I like them enough and I was surprised to learn that they also have a pretty healthy nutritional profile also. Now what?

Dressing up strawberry salad

Just because I am aiming for a healthier way to use strawberries doesn’t mean I am going to give up on their coveted syrup. It made sense to extract some of the juice to dress this newly concocted salad. I macerated the cut up strawberries and cucumber in some lemon fresh juice and just a couple of tablespoons of honey. Then I added some fresh basil and mint that I picked from my potted herb garden. If you want to read more about growing and using fresh herbs check out Back Porch Herb Garden, Cooking with Herb. I find it very rewarding and it’s great to have fresh herbs on hand when experimenting with recipes like this one.

I put my bowl full of goodness in the fridge for about an hour and sure enough, the cucumbers and strawberries rendered some juice and made a syrup. And just like that I had a strawberry salad. The lemon is subtle but helps keep it fresh and light. There’s only a couple of tablespoons of honey so it doesn’t sweeten it much, but it does help the consistency of the juice. It all comes together to make a really delicious, beautiful and unique light salad side dish for dinner or a pot luck offering. It was as good as I hoped it would be as a dinner salad.

But the best was yet to come

I had some leftover strawberry after dinner one night that I put back in the refrigerator. Later when my late night hungry horrors set in, I remembered it was in there. I was surprised to see how much juice had rendered. The salad now closely resembled cut strawberries I make for shortcake with all that syrup. I decided to make a mock whipped cream with some plain yogurt, mixed a little honey, vanilla and lemon zest and spooned it over the strawberry salad. I was amazed how decadent is was! YUM!

When I checked the nutritional stats, even with the yogurt topping they remained very impressive. Can you imagine that? A night time snack that you don’t need to feel guilty about eating. And better than that, is actually good for you! I make this recipe often to have in the fridge as a healthy anytime snack with or without the yogurt topping, night or day. It will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days. I always have it devoured before then.

Here’s what YOU WILL NEED:

About the ingredients

Lemon

We are going to use the lemon for juice and zest. You can substitute the lemon with 100% lemon juice, available at the grocery store. The bottle will tell you what amount of bottled lemon juice equals one large lemon. There is no substitute for zest but it’s not a necessary component for the salad. It just adds a stronger burst of lemon flavor. When I refer to 100% lemon juice I am not talking about lemonade. It is completely different. You will find the juice I am referring to in the baking goods section of your grocery store. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated until it is opened. It’s not very expensive and great to have on hand.

Yogurt

Our mock whipped cream for this salad is made with plain low-fat yogurt. You can use whole milk, low-fat or non-fat plain or vanilla yogurt. It makes no difference. You can also use Greek yogurt for a thicker mock whipped cream, if you like.

Cucumber

I used a regular cucumber, peeled. You can use an English cucumber unpeeled if you prefer.

Herbs

Basil and mint are a great combination and work really well in this recipe. You need fresh herbs, not dried. Assuming you don’t grow either of these herbs, or you don’t want to buy both, pick your favorite. I have had one or the other alone and it is great. If you have left over fresh herbs after making this or any other recipe, take the leaves off the stem and put them in a basket to dry and then bottle them. You will have your own dried herbs. I have more on that in It’s Drying Time Again.

This is WHAT TO DO:

Hull the strawberries

First we are going to hull the strawberries and chop them into bite sized pieces. Do you know the term “hull”? Strawberries, especially those big ones found in grocery stores, have a core. The core is called the hull. It is hard, almost tasteless but bitter. Cutting the hull out is referred to as hulling the strawberry. In the picture below you can see what we are talking about.

To hull the strawberry, first you cut off the top with the stem and leaves. Then take a small sharp knife or the end of a vegetable peeler and cut the hull out. It does not go all the way through to the bottom and it is wider at the top so the hull is cut out as a pointed piece.

Zest and juice the lemon

Zesting

Now we are going to juice and zest the lemon. Do you know the term “zest”? The colorful outside skin of citrus fruits is what we zest and it has a blast of fresh flavor. To use that flavor in foods, you get that thin outside layer off by grating it or cutting it off in very thin strips. Under the bright colorful outside skin is a white skin like layer called the pith. It is dry and bitter and has a rubbery texture. So you have to zest carefully so you stop short of grating or cutting into the pith.

Juicing

We are going to juice the lemon also. I used two lemons for the pictures, but you could use one lemon by zesting it first, cutting it in half and then juicing it. In either case, before cutting the lemon in half to juice it, roll it on the counter with the palm of your hand. You can get more juice by doing that. The picture shows an inexpensive juicer. It’s perfect for the job, but you can squeeze the lemon into a fine strainer placed over a cup. Or you can cup your hand and squeeze the lemon into your hand. Let the juice go through your fingers and “catch” the seeds.

Clean and cut the cucumber

Peel the cucumber, take the seeds out and chop into bite sized pieces.

Chop up 3 or 4 basil leaves and 5 or 6 mint leaves into small pieces.

Mix up the salad

Let it rest

Put the strawberry salad in the refrigerator to rest. Let it rest for at least 1/2 hour so the strawberries and cucumber have time to render some juice, and the herbs have had a chance to flavor the syrup.

More time means more syrup

The longer you let the salad sit in the refrigerator, the more syrup you will have. As the strawberries rest in the syrup, they get more tender and sweet. So, if you are making a bowl of strawberry salad to have as a snack, let it rest overnight.

Yogurt topping

Make the yogurt topping and add it just before serving.

The yogurt dessert topping is as simple as it gets. In a small bowl or cup mix together 1/4 cup plain or vanilla yogurt with 1 tablespoon honey, the zest of a half lemon and vanilla. If you don’t have zest, use a teaspoon of lemon juice or leave lemon out all together. You can use whole milk yogurt, low-fat or non-fat yogurt. You can use regular yogurt or Greek yogurt depending on how thick you want the topping. I like the regular yogurt and have used that in the picture below.

Serve