Apple Arugula Salad with Carrots and Cabbage

This is a beautiful and bright salad that you can put together very quickly. It’s tangy, crisp, and colourful, and is a great accompaniment to almost any meal. Serve it alongside comforting chili in the Winter, or bring it to a picnic BBQ in the Summer.

It features many vegetables that are good “keepers” (cabbage, carrots, apples . . . even argugula keeps pretty well) so it’s easy to have the ingredients on hand. One of the best things about this salad is that it remains crisp and flavorful for a few days. Leftovers are excellent in wraps or on sandwiches.

Ingredients

Salad

1 cup coarsely shredded (or thinly sliced) carrots*
1 cup thinly sliced green cabbage*
1 cup thinly sliced red cabbage
1 medium apple (unpeeled), diced into matchstick-size strips or small cubes
2 cups baby arugula

Dressing

1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
Juice of 1 orange, mandarin, or other sweet citrus
1 tsp. maple syrup (or 1/2 tsp. sugar if you don’t have maple syrup on hand)
1/4 tsp. salt

* if you’re in a hurry, you can usually find pre grated/cut carrots and cabbage

Directions

Combine salad ingredients in a medium-sized bowl.
In a small meausuring cup or jar, combine dressing ingredients.
Pour dressing over salad and mix to combine.

Variations

Garnish with toasted almonds or pecans
Add dried cranberries
Like most salads, you don’t really have the measure vegetable quantities, and feel free to vary the amounts

Nutrition Notes

This salad is tremendously nutritious! Almost every ingredient has potential health benefits, but here all some of the all stars . . .

Red cabbage, green cabbage and arugula are part of the cruciferous family of vegetables. Cruciferous vegetables contain several compounds that researchers are investigating for their cancer-fighting potential: these include glucosinolates, crambene, indole-3-carbinol and isothiocyanates. Arugula is also a good source of dietary nitrates, which have been shown to benefit athletic performance.
Apples are a good source of soluble fiber, that can help lower cholesterol levels. They also contain quercetin, an antioxidant that might increase exercise endurance (although the effect is likely small!). Always eat the apple peels, which contain most of the beneficial nutrients in apples. Read more about the benefits of apples here.