Apple Beet Berry Spiralized Salad

Apple Beet Berry Spiralized Salad

Happy Monday, Meatless Monday! Thank you again for joining Deborah and me for what should be another great Meatless Monday link-up! Heads up I have a pretty sweet giveaway going on over on Instagram today!!

Everything is better spiralized right? Well if it can be it is, or at least it’s fun! Ok well maybe not fun when you’re trying to get beet juice stains off your white cupboard. I’m craving all the veggies, salads, and Buddha bowls lately and can’t get enough. This is one of the salads I’ve been whipping together for lunch lately. Between this and my fav apple, celery, peanut butter (or almond butter, like in the oldie but goodie original recipe) salad! This salad reminds me of a birds nest, and it’s so filling and delicious. If you’re not a fan of raw beets you can cook the spiralized beets. Either steam them or bake/roast them. IF you are going to do that it works best with one kind of beet. Topped with fresh blueberries and avocado it’s simply delicious!

This was a great option for me to add in with my juices last week and the days following, along with all the avocado pesto zoodles! It’s also the perfect salad for when you’re trying to enjoy more raw fruits and veggies.

I love juices, cold-pressed real juices as they are a great way to get nutrition if consumed as part of a well balanced healthy lifestyle. Just meaning that you can’t drink only juice for an extended period of time and yes drinking too many in a day with your regular meals or too many that are all fruit or processed ones aren’t a good idea either. Some can contain a lot of calories, and sugar even though they are natural sugars. I like to juice my own, although that is time consuming and takes a lot of produce, or pick ones that are made with mostly greens and veggies. It’s just being mindful.

I haven’t done a juice cleanse for over a year. I use to do them 1-2 times a year, NOT for dieting or weight loss. I would do them for a reset or to try to target food allergies or sensitivities. Adding things back in and seeing how I felt. I had my reasons for wanting to try it again, as I haven’t been feeling my best and foods I have been ok with my body hasn’t been loving lately. The last one I did was a combination of juices and meals. Meals made of fruits, veggies, seeds, ect that cut out common allergens, additives, processed foods, caffeine and alcohol. Always listening to my body, which is what I did last week. I did one full day of juices and nut milk, there were six total. The second day I had issues with not enough calories for my activity level ,even though I was trying to relax, and my blood sugars stabilizing because I really should have gone with just the less fruit green juices. I had wanted to try them all so I had planned to do a day of each group of juices.

Of course I listened to my body and added in some whole foods, healthy fats, and chia seeds. I decided at that point it would be best for my body to add in whole foods as well as the juices going forward. This just meant avoiding processed foods, dairy, soy, meat, sweeteners, salt, grains, legumes, and of course the big one for me… caffeine aka COFFEE! Oh and don’t forget the WINE! This wasn’t hard at all for me, other than the coffee. If you’re a regular reader you know I love my coffee, I think if there were every a post to prove that it would be my Coffee Roasted Carrots, yes and they’re delicious! Or the fact that I used a coffee in roasting the butternut squash in my Butternut Squash Taco Bowls. My husband and I love our coffee.

I felt and still feel amazing! The crazy thing is I told myself I would cut the coffee out for a week and see if it helped and then I would add it back in. I actually have gone over a week, my husband is shocked and thinks it’s crazy but I feel so good. I did add caffeine back in having Matcha lattes over the weekend. No I don’t plan on breaking up with coffee, I will listen to my body. It’s just my body hasn’t been loving coffee lately. I will probably go have coffee with my grandmother today and we’ll see how that goes.

So back to this salad. I was in a good, spit fire as my husband calls it, mood when I went to make the salad and decided to use different kinds of beets for fun. I just loved how it looked and decided I had to share it. I hadn’t planned on sharing this simple salad other than on Instagram but I decided I would share it for Meatless Monday to break up the taco and Buddha bowls, because that’s what I would have posted otherwise since I’m lacking with getting my soups and other meals up taking a break last week. I like to post meals on Monday for Meatless Monday, or at least I try to. Plus with soccer season being in full swing, my oldest having a cold, and my husband traveling for work I haven’t had my dinner recipe tasters all in one place too many nights. That should change here in the next couple weeks as soccer season winds down. The weather is also very cold here, except for yesterday and all these off days Mother Nature keeps throwing in to keep us on our toes, and I’m craving all the soups so I can’t wait to stew and stir up some of those this week! They are great for nights when we aren’t all eating at the same time so there will probably be a few pots of those on the stove this week. Are you ready for soup season, what are your favorites?

Apple Beet Berry Spiralized Salad
Makes 2-4 servings
1.5lbs, 3 beets (used 3 different beets)*
1 large tart apple
3 TBSP apple cider vinegar
1 TBSP lemon juice
1c blueberries
1 avocado
sprinkle of cinnamon and sea salt and pepper to taste

*If you don’t want raw beet “noodles” you can bake or steam them, I would just suggest picking one type of beet as the colors will bleed. Preheat oven to 400F, line 2 baking sheets with foil, spray with coconut oil, and lay beet zoodles out on the baking sheets. Spray with a little coconut oil on top and roast in the oven for 7-10 minutes or until desired tenderness. You can also steam the beets for a couple of minutes until desired tenderness.

Peel and sprialize apple and place in a bowl with water and lemon water to prevent browning. Peel beets, and than spiralize beets starting with the lightest beets if using multiple beets. Place each separate colored beet in a bowl with apple cider vinegar and water, tossing to coat. If you’re using only 1 color beet you can just place them in a large bowl. Let beets sit for 10 minutes as you wash blueberries and prepare avocado, cutting in half and cubing. Rinse and drain beets, this will remove some of the color and slightly soften then from the apple cider vinegar. Place beets in a bowl. Drain apples and add those to beets, top with blueberries and avocado. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and cinnamon to taste. Enjoy!

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Sharing the Meatless Monday love I’m also linking up with Running on Happy and The Fit Foodie Mama!