Have you ever heard the phrase "eat the rainbow"? It refers to eating a great variety of colors of fruits and vegetables for a variety of nutrients. Well, now you can eat the entire rainbow at once with this gorgeous Rainbow Salad paired with the most delightful Blueberry Vinaigrette! Serves 2 as an entree salad, or 4-6 as a side salad.
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Great for St. Patrick's Day or every single summer day! High in protein, fiber, and lots of vitamins and minerals, it's almost like its own pot of gold!
Pair this Rainbow Salad with some crusty bread or my whole wheat drop biscuits, and drizzle on that delicious Blueberry Vinaigrette that's really easy to pull together. No cooking makes this perfect for scorching summer days.
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Heart Health Benefits of Rainbow Salad
We packed a ton of produce into our Rainbow Salad to capitalize on all the benefits of summer!
The red in our rainbow is a combination of tomatoes and red raspberries. Tomatoes are high in lycopene (an antioxidant), which is well known for its role in prostate health. But did you know it also protects your heart? Lycopene seems to not only lower your risk of stroke, but also lower your risk of having additional cardiac events. Raspberries have many of the same antioxidant powers as blueberries, below, and deserve a spot on your plate, too!
We chose carrots for orange! Besides being low in calories, and high in fiber, carrots are also an excellent source of vitamin A, with a bit of Vitamin K and potassium, to boot.
Yellow Bell peppers for yellow, of course! Bell peppers come in a variety of colors: red, yellow, green, purple. Peppers are an excellent source of vitamin C, and very low in calories, since they are high in water content.
Our base is spinach, and our green representative! It's is a great source of vitamin A and vitamin K, in addition to its high fiber content. It’s important to eat leafy greens daily, whether fresh, cooked, or blended into other dishes.
Blueberries for blue! Blueberries are like little heart protecting powerhouses. They have been shown to improve markers of cardiovascular function when eaten daily in a 6 month trial, and another study found berries may be able to play an important role in cardiovascular disease prevention. Blueberries and other dark blue, purple, and red fruits and vegetables are high in anthocyanins, a type of flavanoid that seems to have a strong heart protective effect.
Purple cabbage is next, and it contains anthocyanins, like blueberries. They're also cruciferous vegetables, so provide many of the same health benefits of broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. This group of food is known to have anti-cancer properties, as well as overall strong antioxidant activity.
Lastly, black beans are incredibly nutritious, and most people don’t eat enough. Beans are high in phytochemicals and magnesium, among other nutrients. I recommend eating them at least once every day – more if you can!
Ingredients
A few ingredients besides those listed above complete this simple Rainbow Salad.
- Spinach
- Tomatoes
- Red raspberries
- Carrot
- Yellow Bell pepper
- Blueberries
- Purple cabbage
- Black beans
- Olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
- Walnuts
- Water for thinning (not pictured)
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
You have the option of tossing everything together in a minute or spending a bit more time to arrange the produce. Either is perfectly fine! You're going to eat it all mixed up anyway, right?
- Step 1: Divide the spinach between 2 large plates.
- Step 2: prepare the vegetables. Chop the tomatoes.
- Step 3: Shred the carrots.
- Step 4: Chop the peppers.
- Step 5: Shred the cabbage.
- Step 6: Add the chopped tomatoes and red raspberries to the plate, in a column along the left side of the plate.
- Step 7: Place the shredded carrots on the plates in the same way, beside the red column.
- Step 8: Place the yellow bell peppers beside the carrots. And add the black beans along the right hand side of the plate.
- Step 9: Place the purple cabbage beside the black beans.
- Step 10: Add the blueberries beside the cabbage, leaving the green spinach to have its own column between the blueberries and yellow peppers.
Step 11: Now make the dressing. Add all the ingredients to a bowl (or small food processor or blender).
Step 12: Use an immersion blender to blend until smooth. Add a little water at a time to thin, if needed. Taste and add some honey if needed. Drizzle over salads.
Hint: If you have them, frozen blueberries actually work better for the dressing! Just thaw them before you use them.
Substitutions
Salads are super customizable! Here are some alternates - or additions! - to consider for each color of the rainbow!
- Red - try strawberries, cherries, red bell peppers, radishes, or red beets
- Orange - use orange bell peppers, roasted sweet potatoes or butternut squash
- Yellow - try corn, yellow tomatoes, or yellow summer squash
- Green - green peppers, any leafy green, cucumbers, broccoli, or peas
- Blue - blackberries, black raspberries, or roasted blue potatoes
- Purple - eggplant, purple carrots, beets, or purple cauliflower
Equipment
There are a few pieces of equipment I do recommend for this recipe, although they certainly aren't required.
The first thing I recommend is a multifunction vegetable chopper/slicer/shredder. This tool makes it easy to fly through prepping all the veggies for this salad, so you can get to eating it faster! But a cutting board and knife will also be just fine if you're not into purchasing another tool.
You will also need something to blend the blueberry balsamic dressing. I like my immersion blender for this, because it's small and makes for less dishes to do. A small blender or food processor will work, too.
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Storage
You can store the assembled salads, without dressing on them, in an airtight container for about 2-3 days.
The dressing will last about a week in the refrigerator.
Pro tip
Don't wash the raspberries until just before adding them to the salad. And drain them very well. Otherwise, they may end up waterlogged and mushy.
FAQ
Absolutely! Simply leave the walnuts out of the dressing.
Related
Looking for other salad recipes? Try one of these:
Pairing
These are my favorite dishes to serve with Rainbow Salad:
📖 Recipe
Rainbow Salad with Blueberry Balsamic Vinaigrette
Equipment
- Immersion blender or small food processor
Ingredients
For the Rainbow Salad
- 4 cups Baby Spinach
- ½ cup chopped Tomatoes (or whole grape tomatoes)
- ¼ cup Red Raspberries
- 1 Carrot julienne or shredded
- ½ Yellow Pepper chopped
- ½ cup Blueberries
- ½ cup Purple Cabbage shredded
- 1 cup Black Beans (canned without salt if possible)
For the Blueberry Balsamic Vinaigrette (makes ~10 servings)
- ½ cup Blueberries
- ½ cup Olive Oil
- 3 tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
- 2 tablespoon Walnuts
- Water to thin
- optional 2 tsp Honey if needed to reduce tartness
Instructions
- Prep the vegetables by shredding the carrot and cabbage, and chopping the tomato and pepper.
- Arrange the salad ingredients on two plates, in any way you like.
- Note: to arrange in a rainbow pattern, make columns of the following, in this order - tomatoes and raspberries, carrots, yellow pepper, space for green spinach, blueberries, cabbage, and black beans.To save on time, simply toss all the ingredients together!
- Make the dressing by adding all the dressing ingredients to a small food processor, and process on high until blueberries are completely pureed into the dressing. If the dressing is thick, add a tablespoon or so of water to thin it out.An immersion blender will work for this as well.
- Taste, and add some honey if needed to tame the tartness. This will depend on the sweetness of your blueberries.
- Drizzle about 2 tablespoons of the dressing on each salad.
Nutrition
*Nutrition information is an estimate, and will change based on the brand and individual ingredients and amounts you use. This is provided for your convenience only.
Food safety
Safety is our top priority in the kitchen! Always keep these tips in mind.
- Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat
- Wash hands before touching food, and after touching raw meat, your hair, face, pets, etc.
- Don't leave food that should be either hot or cold sitting out at room temperature for longer than 2 hours (or 1 hour if the weather is hot)
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