Soups and Salads
Eat your soups and salads for a vibrant body and a long, happy life.
Summer Salad with Cucumbers, Tomatoes, and Radishes
You will love the crunchiness, freshness, and cooling effect this salad provides on a hot summer day. This salad is creamy, but also light and refreshing. Perfect for a light lunch with a slice of sourdough bread or dinner with grilled salmon or roasted chicken and a great option for a summer potluck.
Cooling Summer Salad with Napa Cabbage
There is no better time to eat fresh, organic, and raw vegetables than during summer. Cucumbers, tomatoes, leafy greens, and fresh herbs can make summer meals refreshing, hydrating, very nutritious, and delicious.
Spring Quinoa Salad with Asparagus
I found this recipe a few years ago and have made this salad many times since for gatherings, including retreats, potluck parties, and family celebrations. The salad is super easy to make, very flavorful, and full of essential nutrients. It can be served any time of year but tastes especially delicious in the spring.
Creamy Tomato Basil Soup
The best time to make this soup is the end of the summer when tomatoes are ripe, sweet, and juicy, and fresh basil is aromatic and flavorful. The recipe looks simple, but the end result is dazzling. This creamy soup served with croutons, garlic bread, or just a sprinkle of olive oil and parmesan cheese is a fabulous choice for parties and celebrations.
Green Soup
If you are feeling depleted, fighting an infection, healing your gut, trying to get lighter, or gently detoxifying your body, this super-nutritious soup with only five ingredients might be the answer. This healthy and easy-to-make recipe is based on a popular green tonic recipe called Bieler Broth.
“Express” Sweet Potato Soup
This soup is a great comfort food on cold fall and winter days. Sweet potatoes are more nutritious compared to white potatoes and lower on the glycemic index. They taste great combined with warming spices that help with digestion and circulation.
Quick and Easy Miso Soup
Miso soup is very nutritious, hydrating, and detoxifying. This version is quick and easy to make. It doesn’t require cooking, but only soaking some ingredients in hot water. Miso should never be cooked so it preserves the probiotics that are essential for gut health.
Kitchari - Ayurvedic Healing Stew
I discovered kitchari many years ago when I decided to try an Ayurvedic detox program called Panchakarma. The main, and often, only food allowed during Panchakarma is the kitchari. Surprisingly, I found this healthy food delicious, which made my detox experience pretty painless. Since then, I have been making kitchari quite often.
Hearty White Beans and Vegetable Soup
This soup tastes great any time of the year, but especially on cold winter days. It can be stored in the refrigerator for a few days without losing the taste and texture of the veggies and beans. My family doesn’t like soups as much as I do, but they approve of this soup especially when I sprinkle bacon on top.
Bone Broth
The recipe to make bone broth is very simple and the ingredients can vary. The main ingredients are animal bones and connective tissues, vinegar, different types of vegetables, herbs, spices, and filtered water. Below is an example to follow and experiment with, but make it your own depending on your tastes!
Plant-based Broth
Plant-based (vegan) broths are very healthy. They are full of vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes. They don’t have the same content as animal-based broths (bone broths) but they are still powerhouses of nutrients. They can be used for the same reasons as bone broths: sipping them warm, as a base for soups, graves, and other cooked dishes.
My Mom’s Dill Pickles
This is my mother’s recipe, who has been making pickles forever. The fermentation process produces billions of probiotics essential for our gut health and our immune system, just in time before cold and flu season hits.
Quinoa Salad with Chives, Radishes, Tomatoes, and Lemon-Basil Dressing
This salad is “my go-to dish” in the spring when I want to eat light and healthy foods and spend less time in the kitchen. Quinoa makes this dish very satisfying as is, but it goes very well with meat or chicken as a side dish.
Polish Cucumber Salad (Mizeria)
This salad is very popular during the summertime in Poland. The cooling and refreshing qualities of cucumbers help to make summer dinners lighter and more digestible. It takes only about 10 minutes and a few ingredients to make this salad, and most people love it.
Beet and Greens Soup (Botwinka)
This soup is delicious and full of heart, brain, and liver healthy nutrients. It tastes great hot or cold, and it’s very refreshing and energizing during the summer months.
Ratatouille
The key to this delicious and super affordable recipe is using fresh ingredients from your garden, from the farmer's market, or organic ones from the grocery store. Ripe and juicy tomatoes, flavorful garlic, and fresh herbs make this dish rich in taste without spending a fortune.
Hearty Autumn Bean and Sausage Soup
This soup is perfect when the cold fall days arrive and we start craving comfort foods. It is easy to make and the leftovers taste as good or even better.
Polish Root Vegetable Salad
This salad is a fall and winter comfort food. It’s perfect for a holiday party, lunch, or dinner side dish. It makes a first-class potluck dish that everyone loves.
Spinach Salad
While most salads are best served cold and quickly after mixing the greens with dressing, spinach salad tastes better at room temperature and after marinating with the dressing for several minutes or longer.
Spring Butterhead, Radish, and Avocado Salad
This super-easy-to-prepare and very nutritious salad is also full of spring flavors. It can be served for a casual lunch and dinner, or a festive time such as Easter brunch.
