Dandelion and Arugula Salad

Dandelion leaves and arugula both have astounding health benefits. That’s why the Dandelion and Arugula Salad featured below is so wonderful.

Enjoy!

This salad is a colorful combination of greens that include dandelion and arugula. Both are nutrition powerhouses.

Author: Rebecca Forstadt Olkowski

Recipe type: salad

Ingredients

Salad

1 cup Dandelion Leaves torn into pieces
1 cup wild arugula leaves torn into pieces
1 cup of mixed lettuce (I used red radicchio and butter lettuce)
6 grape tomatoes (I found a mix of multi-colored baby heirlooms) cut in half
8-10 Kalamata olives
2 Tbsp of dry toasted sunflower seeds

Dressing

3 parts extra virgin olive oil
1 part lemon juice
½ tsp stone ground Dijon mustard
crushed garlic 1-2 cloves
1 Tbsp plain yogurt
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Salad

On a salad plate, arrange the lettuce, dandelion and arugula leaves.
Add tomatoes, olives, and sunflower seeds

Dressing

Whisk together the oil, lemon juice, mustard, garlic, yogurt, salt and pepper
Drizzle over the salad and serve

Since dandelion and arugula have strong flavors, I mixed in radicchio and butter lettuces to mellow out the taste. I also toasted a handful of sunflower seeds to sprinkle on top, Did you know one of the benefits of sunflower seeds is to keep you calm? That’s because they contain magnesium that soothes the nerves and eases stress. If you suffer from migraines, they may help you ease the pain.

I threw in multi-colored baby heirloom tomatoes for color and a few Kalamata olives because they’re sooooo good.

It’s fun to experiment with salad greens instead of always depending on pre-packaged salad greens.

About eating dandelion

I was reading an article on how, in the last 100 years, we’ve been breeding the nutrition out of our foods.

2500 years ago Hippocrates said . . .

“Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food”

That would be true if the food at the grocery store was as good as it was back then.

The article goes on to say that wild dandelions, eaten by Native Americans, have 7 times more phytonutrients than spinach. Dandelion leaves are often used in detox teas because they reduce inflammation of the liver, purify the blood and act as a gentle diuretic, among other health benefits.

This gives new meaning to “partaking of the weed.”

Forget the Roundup and start munching on the dandelions (weeds) on your lawn instead (That is if your dog hasn’t been there first)

Wild arugula is equally rich in nutrients and has cancer-fighting compounds called glucosinolates that are extremely high in anti-oxidants.

What “weeds” do you like to eat? Please leave a comment and let us know.