Weight Watchers Recipe of the Day: Simple Tossed Green Salad
I made this cheap and easy tossed salad for lunch today. It's my first attempt in a long time at really tuning into my spending and what it costs to eat healthy.
Nothing fancy, yet incredibly cool, crunchy and satisfying, this cheap and easy tossed green salad is just chopped romaine, with sliced scallion, radish, cucumber, celery and bell pepper tossed in a little light balsamic vinaigrette dressing.
Cheap & Easy Tossed Green Salad
Here's a simple chart outlining what I spent on ingredients:
| Item | Store | Total Cost | $ Per Unit |
| Romaine Hearts (3 Heads) | 99 Cents Store | $1.00 | $0.34 |
| Cumbers, Persian (5) | 99 Cents Store | $1.00 | $0.20 |
| Celery Hearts (15 stalks) | 99 Cents Store | $1.00 | $0.07 |
| Peppers, mini (16 peppers) | 99 Cents Store | $1.00 | $0.06 |
| Scallions (6 large) | 99 Cents Store | $1.00 | $0.17 |
| Radishes (10) | Sprouts | $0.59 | $0.06 |
| Newman's Salad Dressing (16 oz /32 T) |
Bashas | $3.28 | $0.10 |
Which means that according to my calculations, it cost me about $1.33 to make two large servings of this cheap and easy tossed salad or $.67 cents per serving.
And only *1 Weight Watchers PointsPlus or *2 WW Freestyle SmartPoints!
Why this sudden interest in my food budget?
It all began with this post on Snack Girl where Lisa interviewed a 26 year old from Great Britain who had just completed an experiment living on $18 worth of healthy food for one week.
He got the idea from a BBC article which had suggested that "it's possible to live on as little as £12 (about $18) a week on food alone, but estimated the cost of doing so to be double that amount, due to a lack in our nation's culinary skills."
Somehow that led me to this Arizona SNAP Challenge website, where you can sign up to take part in a challenge the first week of September to live on the average food stamp allowance of $4/day for 5 days.
Which got me thinking about the 1940s Experiment blog, where Carolyn has put herself on a diet of 1940s UK wartime rations in an attempt to lose 100 pounds and led me to this interesting article that explores how a modern British family got healthier when they volunteered to go back in time and spend nine weeks surviving on austere rations for the series The 1940s House. All the adults lost weight and showed modest health improvements by the end of the experiment.
All this reading forced me to face the fact that I'm spending way too much money on food, all under the guise of doing it for my health and weight maintenance. It's time to get my budget under control. I'm spending more than I'm making, which is never a good thing.
My grandmother, who lived through the depression and World War II, stayed frugal forever in all aspects of her life, including what she spent for food. Was this part of the secret to her long life?
For quite some time I've had a strong sense that the key to lasting health and weight loss is inextricably linked to our past and it's simpler recipes and smaller portions. To what and how we cooked, ate and lived. And I'm not talking about the trendy, distant, caveman/paleo past, but the more recent, less trendy, past of our great-grandmothers and grandmothers.
So, I'm beginning today, by paying attention and limiting my spending to what I need instead of what I want. It's time to get real. Get frugal. Get thrifty. I think Nana would be proud!
Cheap & Easy Tossed Salad
How Many Calories & Weight Watchers Points in Simple Tossed Green Salad?
According to my calculations, half of this simple green salad has about 84 calories and:
2 *SmartPoints (Green plan)
2 *SmartPoints (Blue plan)
2 *SmartPoints (Purple plan)
1 *PointsPlus (Old plan)
To see your WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, Click here!
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Cheap & Easy Tossed Green Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 romaine heart, washed, dried and chopped
- 2 celery stalks, chopped
- 2 mini yellow bell peppers, seeded and chopped
- 1 Persian cucumber chopped
- 1 radish, sliced
- 1 scallion, sliced
- 2 to 4 tablespoons light dressing of your choice (I used Newman's Light Balsamic Vinaigrette)
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine the romaine, celery, pepper, cucumber, radish, and scallion.
- Drizzle with dressing. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
- Toss well to combine and coat lightly with the dressing.
Recipe Notes
*Points® calculated by WW. *PointsPlus® and SmartPoints® calculated by Simple Nourished Living; Not endorsed by Weight Watchers International, Inc. All recipe ingredients except optional items included in determining nutritional estimates. SmartPoints® values calculated WITHOUT each plan's ZeroPoint Foods (Green plan, Blue plan, Purple plan) using the WW Recipe Builder.
More Cheap & Easy Salads for Weight Watchers
- Italian Arugula Salad
- Simple Lentil Salad
- Tuna and White Bean Salad
- Brussels Sprouts Salad
- Apple Carrot Slaw
- Shredded Romaine and Dill Salad
Martha is the founder and main content writer for Simple-Nourished-Living.
A longtime lifetime WW at goal, she is committed to balancing her love of food and desire to stay slim while savoring life and helping others do the same.
She is the author of the Smart Start 28-Day Weight Loss Challenge.
A huge fan of the slow cooker and confessed cookbook addict, when she's not experimenting in the kitchen, you're likely to find Martha on her yoga mat.
This post contains affiliate links to products I like. When you buy something through one of my Amazon links or other (affiliate links), I receive a small commission that helps support this site. Thank you for your purchase!
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