Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Broccoli Salad...Good for your health!


I actually made this several weeks ago for my girls' prayer group, but have made other things that I wanted to post. I just decided to save this for a week such as this when I'm not able to cook much that is postable! If you're like me, you love those yummy broccoli salads. Some have mayonnaise dressings while others have a sweet vinegar marinade. Either way, they contain lots of fat and/or sugar, which, to me, takes away from the benefit of eating broccoli. ANYWAY, I found this recipe at www.allrecipes.com and changed it just a tad (it's not bad to start with!).

The salad turned out to be both good to eat and good to see. The green of the broccoli and red from the cranberries made an eye popping salad! You know they say you eat with your eyes first. This makes me want to eat it! Because of the great healthfulness of broccoli AND cranberries, this is my entry to Sweetnicks ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays. Stop over at her site and check out the other delicous entries. I already know of one that is wonderful looking and is on my to try list!!

Broccoli Salad (serves 6)

4 cups broccoli florets or broccolini (I used three heads)
1/4 cup red onion, minced
2 tablespoons SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener, Granular
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons light mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds, roasted and salted (optional, I used almonds)
3 tablespoons seedless raisins (I used craisins!!!!)

DIRECTIONS:
Discard broccoli stems and finely chop florets or broccolini. Set aside. (I then put in boiling water, about 1/2 inch, for 2 minutes to crisp the broccoli and bring out the green color)
Place remaining ingredients in a medium mixing bowl. Mix well. Add broccoli florets or broccolini. Toss until coated. Chill until ready to serve. THis salad is GREAT served cold.
Exchanges per serving: 1 vegetable, 1 fat
Calories (according to allrecipes) 60 per serving

5 comments:

The Cookbook Junkie said...

I have a broccoli salad recipe bookmarked in my Splenda Cookbook. I'm going to look and see if it's similar to this. I love broccoli salad but, like you said, the traditional version is loaded with fat and sugar.

Anonymous said...

Yum, this looks so good! I love broccoli and can eat it all the time. I used to fix it a lot, then my husband informed me after about 8 years of having it regularly that he doesn't like broccoli! :)

I would love to try this version though, love that it uses Splenda. I'd just have to cut it WAY down :)

Have a great day :)

Annie said...

Claire, That broccoli salad looks amazing. The only thing I'm wondering about, is why does the recipe say to finely chop the florets? I can see in the photo you left yours whole.
I might try it this weekend.

Unknown said...

Paula - I hope you try it. I really enjoyed this one because it combined the two salads together.

Stacy - my dad did the SAME thing to my mom. Of course, I don't think it's just broccoli. I think it's just about anything green!

Annie - I'm wondering if maybe they just wanted you to get the florettes really small. I actually cut the pieces in half (more than I would normally do) just so it wouldn't be too big. Sometimes, if the individual pieces are smaller, I feel like I'm getting more on my plate because there are more individual bites!

Anonymous said...

I have a broccoli/cauliflower salad that looks very similar to this but yours is lightened! So looks like a good one to try, thanks for sharing.