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Chatelaine’s 30 Days of Delicious, Dinner-in-a-Bowl Salads

Retirement Reflections

So, I ran into the store to get tomatoes, and I came out with this magazine.

It’s been quite a while since I bought a magazine on impulse. But dang, those salads looked amazing! And there were 30 of them, each with their own glossy, food porn, full-page photo. It was difficult deciding where to begin, so I started with the recipe that boasted two of my favourite ingredients in the title.

Seared Salmon Salad with Lentils

Ingredients: Cherry tomatoes, arugula, mint, parsley, lentils, lemon juice, olive oil, Dijon mustard, garlic, sumac, and fresh salmon (I replaced the sumac with lemon peel and added cucumbers, green peppers, radishes and feta simply because I had them already chopped together and wanted to use them up.)
With minimal fuss or muss, the above-mentioned ingredients (minus the fish) quickly looked like this.
After just 8-minutes of pan-frying the salmon (olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper), the completed salad looked like this. It truly was as simple as that.
It was a good thing that I took an extra ‘just in case’ photo of the happy diners. The first photo turned out to be a video. Trust me, you do not want to see it! 😀

Inspired by the above dinner salad’s deliciousness, healthiness, and ease of preparation, I went on to make other dishes from this collection.

Salad #2: My Version (dinner for two with ample leftovers).
My Niece’s Version (one portion).

Smoked Salmon Niçoise Salad was made during a weekly Zoom Cooking Catchup with my niece. My niece modified the recipe, used tofu instead of salmon, and left out the radishes, olives and eggs. Either way, we both gave this base recipe a thumbs up!

Salad #3

Colourburst Citrus Chicken Salad Okay, so this recipe did not actually call for cucumbers, nor did it suggest shredding the heck out of the candy cane radish. But both modifications worked beautifully for this salad, as did the subbing of pine nuts for sunflower seeds. Like most of the salads in this series, there is much room for creative licence.

Salad #4

Shrimp and Orange Salad with Roasted Broccoli was also made during a Zoom-Cooking session with my niece. We both liked the salad but the dressing was rather disappointing (understatement).

So that’s the 4/30 salads that I’ve tried so far. It feels like I’ve made many, many more. Although we enjoyed them all, Richard and I are looking for a small break from ‘Salad for Dinner’ during the next little while. I do, however, recommend all of the ones that we tried (okay, except for that one dressing). To narrow it down further, the Seared Salmon with Lentils was my taste-favourite, and the Shrimp and Orange was absolutely the prettiest.

That’s a sample of what’s been on my plate this month. What’s been on yours?

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Published by Retirement Reflections

Prior to retirement, I lived and worked in Beijing China for fourteen years (Middle School Principal/Deputy Director at The Western Academy of Beijing). Leaving international life behind, my husband and I retired to Vancouver Island in June 2015. To document both this transition and our new adventures, ‘Retirement Reflections’ was born. I hope that you enjoy reading these reflections, and will be willing to share your own.

86 thoughts on “Chatelaine’s 30 Days of Delicious, Dinner-in-a-Bowl Salads”

  1. Pingback: What’s On Your Plate Blog Challenge – Late To The Party Edition – THE WIDOW BADASS BLOG
  2. Pingback: The pressure is building for what’s on my plate this month! – Deb's World

    1. Thanks, Leanne – I greatly appreciate your kind words. These salads were very easy to photograph – bright, contrasting colours and fresh ingredients. Trying to photograph Richard and I enjoying them was much more difficult! 😀

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  4. This is great post Donna! I love your enthusiasm, honesty and of course your creative licence! The salads look super easy and tasty, and your smiling faces beaming out made me smile 🙂

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  5. I can see why you couldn’t pass up that magazine, Donna. These salads look delicious. With warmer temperatures on the way you can’t go wrong with a fresh salad. Your photos are gorgeous!

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    1. Hi, Laurie – I used to not be much of a salad eater at all (especially salads that were predominantly green leaves). 😀 But step by step they have one me over for year round eating. You are right about summer though – they will especially shine then!

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  8. Do you deliver to the next province over? Magazines provide inspiration for menu planning. Chatelaine was a favorite monthly magazine until it stopped publishing monthly. Now, Canadian Living arrives monthly. I’ve been on a mission to use up pureed pumpkin from the freezer. First, a carrot/ginger/rice soup with the pumpkin. I can’t get enough ginger. Next, tortellini in cheese sauce with the pureed pumpkin. The pumpkin lends a slightly metallic taste; still, can’t beat mac ‘n’ cheese. A favorite salad consists of pasta with cooked vegetables (carrots, peas, beans, corn) & tuna with a sundried tomato oil dressing.

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    1. Hi, Mona – It is amazing what I continue to learn from blogging — even on my own site! I honestly had no idea that Chatelaine switched from publishing 12x per year to 6x per year….in 2017!! This confirms the part about me living under a rock.
      The pumpkin using recipes sound delicious – especially the carrot-ginger-rice soup. Is it something like this (with rice added) https://www.avogel.ca/en/food/recipes/pumpkin-carrot-ginger-soup/ ? I’d love to give it a try!

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  10. I like salads and these look especially delicious. They’re healthy, of course, but they also take a great photo. I’m getting hungry looking at them, in fact.

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  11. I had a subscription to Chatelaine for years. The magazine always had great recipes, many of which I use to this day. Some fabulous salads here. I plan to try some of them. Thanks!!

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    1. Hi, Darlene – My mom sent me a subscription to Chatelaine for years and years. I actually saved all of those copies. They are lined up the bottom two shelves of my very large bookshelf. You are right about their great recipes – and I believe most of them can be found online as well!

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  12. 🤣 The first line of your post made me laugh…only because that sort of thing happens to me so often! However unlike my random purchases, yours looks not only delicious but useful. Looking forward to perhaps being treated to one of those 30 salads in the future – nudge, nudge, wink, wink!

    Deb

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    1. It’s your lucky day. I can gift you a copy because I received a twin copy in the mail yesterday. I would be delighted to make one of these salads for you. It sounds like a fair exchange for the Tofu Puffs and Szechuan Green Beans that I look forward to enjoying at Chez Badass! 😀

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  13. Had a steak salad for dinner last night. Not from a recipe, just sirloin strips and lettuce with some leftover cauliflower and some ranch dressing. Yours definitely look yummy.

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  15. Ahhh, beautiful salads. Food porn, indeed. After being on vacation with lots of eating out (and just eating and drinking in general), I’m ready for something healthy. You have inspired me.

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  16. Chatelaine – gosh – for some reason my mum used to get the occasional copy sent to her in Scotland from Canada. I loved it as it was so different – ads for ‘Miracle Whip’ and other foreign sounding things.

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    1. My mom sent me a monthly subscription to Chatelaine for the 14 years that I lived in Beijing. It was always such a wonderful piece of home.
      And your comment about ‘Miracle Whip’ completely made me smile! 😀

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  18. Hi Donna – what fun … and now you and Deb have another excuse to get together and guzzle! Sounds like an excellent home for your twin copy has been found. I have a salad everyday at lunch time … rather a simple one – but love to make a peasant salad – salad with fried bread/croutons and pieces of bacon to give a tang to it. Salad Nicoise is a favourite too – I’ll make that on occasions – the anchovies make that one! Cheers Hilary

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    1. Your salads sound great, Hilary (except for perhaps the anchovy part)!
      As you may have guessed, Deb and I need no excuse to get together and guzzle.
      We just finished planning our downtown Victoria adventure. It is exciting to have overnight getaways on my calendar again! 😀

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  19. My husband has a fast metabolism and just doesn’t fill up on salads for supper even with proteins in them. I eat them a lot for lunch and it’s often an “oh HM I should add that because it needs to be used up” so some are good and some are so so. Fresh from the garden are my favourite. Bernie

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  20. Well, it turns out that your “impulse buy” of that magazine was a great success! Each salad looks so good. I like salads, but particularly if there’s enough in them to keep me full for four hours. Your salads fit that bill. I’m at the end of a great “time out” in which we ate at too many restaurants, but the good news is that the majority of the time I ordered salads. The best ones included (besides the lettuce/cucumbers/tomatoes, etc.) watermelon, goat cheese, strawberries, salmon, mahi mahi, pineapples and more (not all at the same time, of course) 🙂 One thing they didn’t include was black olives, and I’ll tell you, I love black olives in my salads…! Cheers!

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  21. Hi Donna, Everything looks so good, healthy, fresh and colourful. You’re doing so well with maintaining a healthy diet. Thank you for sharing your salad ideas with us. Have a wonderful weekend!

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  25. mmmmm- your food photos are wonderful – letting us feel the beauty of the compiled salads in an artsy way – and also these seem healthy (like no canola or soybean oil, which is very bad for the human body)
    and like that photo of the happy diners – also a bit artsy with one class being raised and the angle – it still brings a smile

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  26. Also, speaking of salad – little story for ya.
    My husband is a part-time health coach and he got certified through Marks’ Daily Apple and so he has the “Primal Health Coach” title.
    well, a couple of years ago, when my husband made his daily salad (he often makes one meal as a salad with lots of stuff and meat) anyhow, he got the idea from Mark and for years I thought he was calling it a “Big S salad”
    then I realized it was called a Big-Ass salad – lol – and I guess Mark started him off on the idea. And so seriously – I would have bought that magazine too – the four that you have shown seem yummy

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      1. hahaha – and side note – I used to not be that into salads until I tired his – and the four you shared here are in that same kind of category – where even the dressings are fresh and made from scratch – this is good stuff

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  27. Hi Donna, Salads have certainly evolved from when I was growing up and a salad consisted of lettuce, tomato and cucumber – maybe some onions. I love the rainbow of colours that salads can provide as well as the health benefits. I recently made a Mexican bowl which looked too good to eat! Even though we are heading into Autumn we still enjoy the freshness of a side salad. Thanks for hosting #Whatsonyourplateblogchallenge and you have inspired met to be more creative, yet again. xx

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  28. Hi Donna, these salads look delicious and I especially love salmon. I’ve never been confident about cooking it, so your brief description of how makes me think I can do it. There’s more to a salad than iceberg lettuce!

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    1. Hi, Barb – I LOVE making salmon. It is honestly one of the easiest dishes to make. For this salad, you simply grill it in a pan on the stove top. A wee bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and grill 4 minutes per side on the stovetop. Easy peasy. Chatelaine also has a simple recipe for sheet pan salmon roasted in the oven. 10 minutes of prep time and less than 25 min total time. I make this recipe all of the time. https://www.chatelaine.com/recipe/dinner/sheet-pan-salmon-and-asparagus/

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  29. I love your happy “just in case” photo – you had a great deal of foresight! Too often I only remember to take a photo after all the food has been eaten and we are just pushing ourselves away from the table!

    Recently heard a podcast with Hetty McKinnon who is a big salad advocate – I am so amazed at how this food has evolved: no longer just leaves tossed with a dressing, but big beautiful rainbow coloured bowls of protein & complex carbs!

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    1. Thanks, Ju Lyn – If you told me 10 years ago that I would become a BIG fan of salads, I would have strongly disagreed with your prediction. People change — and thank goodness salads change too! 😀 I hope that all is well with you.

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  32. Those salads look beautiful and delicious, Donna. I’ve been jotting down things I want to try or do more of when I retire, and cooking is one of those things. I want to try more new recipes. I’ve taken much of my inspiration from your What’s on Your Plate posts. Thank you for that!

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  33. Hi, Christie – Getting ready to retire is an exciting time. I loved that time period. It’s a wonderful time to think about the many things that you may wish to explore. Cooking can be an awesome adventure. Thank you for your kind words about WOYP. 😀

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  34. Oh my goodness Donna, this is so inspiring! I’ve been struggling with ideas for veg lately and haven’t bothered to open my recipe book either. In this house, my husband cooks the meat and I prepare the vegetables and if I have no ideas, there’ll often be no veg! The salmon salad here looks absolutely amazing! I must try that soon.

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    1. Hi, Susanne – Thanks so much for dropping by. These ‘dinner-in-a-bowl’ salads have been perfect for me. They include vegan, vegetarian, poultry, seafood and red meat — so there’s something for everyone. And, for vegetarians living with meat eaters, it is easy to add the meat to individual portions. Win-win!

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  37. Pingback: Chatelaine’s 30 Days of Delicious, Dinner-in-a-Bowl Salads – Judul Situs pemula

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