Salad In a Cup - Dehydrated Salad

I was extremely blessed this week to get a case of salad from the food bank. We haven't gotten a walk in fridge yet but it is scheduled soon for which we are grateful. However, they got a shipment of salad which had no place to call home and would go bad over the weekend. So, I tried something I have never tried before. I dehydrated lettuce.

I have dehydrated spinch and kale before so I figured "Why not dry lettuce?" First off I shared with friends and neighbors but still had plenty so I washed it and put it on the dehydrator. By morning, the lower trays were dry. It is such a thin vegetable that they dehydrated quickly. I moved it around and let the rest dry. I put spinach on the tray as well as they had a few containers of that as well.

After 24 hours, the lot was dry and I put it in Tupperware for safe keeping. Then today, I put some of the lettuce in my coffee grinder and blended it into a powder. I then poured it into a glass and added water and drank it down. It was a bit like drinking hay. It was fairly gross. Then my daughter suggested I put some of my dehydrated veggies in it and make it like an actual salad. So, I put in dehydrated tomato, mild peppers, onions and a few pieces of dehydrated pineapple to give it a sweet flavor. It wasn't half bad.

I think next time I am going to add more tomatoes and make it like a spicy V8 by putting hot peppers in rather than the mild and I will omit the pineapple as I thought it was weird having it sweet.

What I like about this idea is that sometimes I am running when I am out of town and am hungry but don't have time to go somewhere or don't want to spend the money on the gross fast food salads and I can make these ahead of time in the snack baggies and just dump the powder into my water bottle, shake and feel like I am being healthy. By no means is this "wonderful" to taste or a meal substitute for those who need to eat every meal but for me, it is a healthy alternative I can always have on me that isn't heavy to carry and won't go bad if I don't eat it that day as fruit or salads will.

It was good to know that I can dehydrate lettuce and was surprised by how quickly it dried and how well it chopped in the coffee grinder. It made it very easy.

Here is to healthy eating!