Everyday Detox Salad

Name: Everyday Detox Salad
Prep time: 10 min
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Healthy
Ingredients: 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil; juice of 2 lemons; 1 heaping teaspoon lemon zest; Fistful fresh cilantro; Fistful fresh parsley; 1 garlic clove, peeled and minced; 2 teaspoons pure clover honey; 1-1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard; freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste; 8 cups baby spinach and kale leaves; 1 cup carrot, grated; 1 cup cauliflower, chopped; 2 small yellow squash, grated or spiralized into noodles; 1 cucumber, chopped or spiralized into noodles; 1 cup purple cabbage, shredded; 1 large red beet, peeled and grated

by Deborah // March 8, 2019 (updated August 8, 2022)

This post may contain affiliate links.

Jump to Recipe

If you’re looking for a great salad for weight loss, this vibrant Everyday Detox Salad should be on your go-to list! This weight loss salad is made with baby spinach and kale, grated raw beets and carrots, shredded purple cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber and yellow squash noodles, all tossed in a delicious heart healthy salad dressing. This is one of my favorite healthy salad recipes for weight loss!

This Everyday Detox Salad is satisfying enough to serve as a main, but also makes a great starter salad.

Healthy Salad Recipe for Weight Loss

This delicious weight loss salad is packed with raw wholesome low calorie ingredients that are rich in fiber, antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties.

Greens

Spinach is a rich source of protein, fiber, folate, iron, magnesium, and potassium. Spinach is also rich with flavonoids (antioxidants). The folate in spinach is good for your healthy heart and magnesium helps lower blood pressure. Like blueberries, spinach also helps to keep our memories sharp.

Kale is rich with Quercetin and Kaempferol, which are powerful antioxidants. It’s a great source of Vitamin K which is important for blood clotting. Kale is rich with lutein and zeaxanthin which are powerful nutrients that protect eyes from cataracts and macular degeneration, and it’s low calorie and high water content may help with weight loss

Carrot

Carrots are a rich source of vitamins (vitamin A, B6, Biotin and vitamin K), minerals (potassium) and antioxidants beta carotene and lutein which promotes good eye health, and lycopene which is a powerful antioxidant (found in many red fruits and vegetables) and may help decrease risk of certain types of cancer and heart disease.

Purple Cabbage

Like other cruciferous vegetables (including broccoli and cauliflower) red cabbage is also an excellent detox food. It’s a rich source of antioxidants that have been shown to reduce chronic inflammation. It’s also a good source of fiber and contains sulfur compounds which help the body fight against toxins. Red cabbage also contains powerful compounds called anthocyanins which is what gives cabbage its rich purple color. These anthocyanins are rich with powerful flavonoids and there are a number of studies that link a diet rich with foods containing anthocyanins and a reduced rick of heart disease.

Cauliflower

Cauliflower is a member of the cruciferous vegetable family, along with broccoli, cabbage, kale, and brussels sprouts, It’s considered one of the healthiest foods on the planet. It’s rich with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. It’s rich with certain compounds (sulforaphane, glucobrassicin, glucoraphanin, and gluconasturtiian) which supports liver health and is beneficial for digestion and triggers the liver to produce detoxifying enzymes that block free-radical damage. Cauliflower may also aid weight loss because it’s a rich source of fiber, slowing digestion and making us feel full longer, which may help us eat fewer calories during the day.

Yellow Squash

Yellow squash is rich with antioxidants (carotenoids, beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin).It’s an excellent food for weight loss programs because it’s low-calorie, low in sugar and rich with fiber and it has a high water content, helping us to feel full without consuming many calories.

Cucumber

Cucumber is made up of about 90 percent water, which helps keep the body hydrated. They’re low in calories, carbs, and fat and high in fiber, they make a smart addition to any weight loss plan. Cucumber is also rich with fiber and the seeds act as diuretic that help pass urine and flush out excess waste and toxins. A diet rich in cucumber may help promote a clean gut, a healthy digestive system and weight loss.

Raw Beets

Adding raw beets to salads is a great way to add more antioxidants to the mix. Beets contain an antioxidant called Betalains. Betalains work to decrease oxidative stress and aid in detoxification in our bodies by breaking down toxins so they can be excreted from our bodies. Traditionally, beets are valued for their support in detoxification and helping to purify our blood and our liver. The Red Betalain pigments in beets are not very heat stable, so it’s best to eat beets raw or to juice them.

How to Make It

Make dressing.
Prepare ingredients. Rinse the vegetables under cold water. Pat dry on paper towels. Peel the carrots and beets and grate then, chop the cabbage, cauliflower and cucumber and make spiralized noodles out of the yellow squash (or you can just grate it as well).
Toss salad. Toss the carrot, yellow squash, cabbage, cauliflower and cucumber in a large bowl Toss with Lemon Herb Vinaigrette
Garnish. Top the salad with spoonfuls of grated beet. You can toss salad again if you’d like.
Season. Add freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to taste

We’ve all heard about eating the rainbow…which is nothing more than eating colorful, antioxidant-rich foods to nourish our bodies so we feel healthier and have more energy. This Everyday Detox Salad is also a great healthy salad recipe for weight loss. It’s big and filling and loaded with nutrient-dense vegetables to fuel the body and satisfy the taste buds and support your daily wellness and weight-loss goals.

Cleansing Lemon Herb Vinaigrette

I love everything about this vinaigrette. It has such an amazing flavor, plus it’s so nutritious!

Extra-virgin olive oil
Fresh lemon juice and zest
Fistful fresh cilantro and parsley
Garlic
Honey
Dijon mustard
Salt and black pepper to taste

How to Make Cleansing Lemon Herb Vinaigrette

Chop the fresh herbs
Add all ingredients to a blender and blend
Refrigerate before serving

Note: If you don’t have a blender, then chop the herbs and add the ingredients to a mason jar and seal the lid. Shake well. Refrigerate before serving.

Adding Raw Beets to Salads

Whenever I’ve added beets to my salads in the past, they’ve usually been steamed and cut into cute little bite-size cubes. But this is a great salad with raw beets. I’m pretty hooked on grating beets to add to my salads now. Just peel and rinse the raw beets and grate them to add to your green salads. It’s so simple!

What is a Detox Salad

Detox diet plans tend to promote toxin elimination, boost immune system with healthy foods and improve circulation. Rather than going on a rigid detox diet, you can incorporate healthy meals into your daily wellness program, like detox salad. A detox salad is typically a gorgeous salad made with raw fresh colorful produce rich with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. The ingredients in this Daily Detox Salad help to stimulate enzymes in the liver to help our bodies naturally eliminate toxins. Regularly eating cleansing foods helps to strengthen our immune system functioning and to restore balance to our body’s systems. Eating a salad like this with its rainbow of colors is a good way to help keep our bodies in optimum health. This salad is tossed in this delicious Cleansing Lemon Herb Vinaigrette, which has its own list of nutritional reasons for making it!

Looking for More Salad Recipes for Weight Loss?

Want more healthy salad ideas? Check out all my healthy salad recipes.

Yield: 6 servings