With the weather getting warmer, it is a great time to start thinking of healthy, fresh salads that will go great with all those barbeques.   I love to incorporate as many liver foods (foods that will protect and improve the function of your liver) to a nice green salad. Our liver is the most important organ of detoxification.  Detoxing helps to strengthen our immune system and helps to decrease inflammation in our body.

Beets, onions, lemon and fennel are fantastic “liver foods” and therefore help to protect our liver from damage and increases its ability to digest and absorb nutrients properly.

Here is tasty recipe that you can try.   

Roasted Beets and Spinach Salad

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

• 6 small beets, boiled and quartered
• 1 fennel bulb, tops cut off and bulb quartered
• 2 tbsp plus ¼ cup olive oil
• 4 cups loosely packed baby spinach leaves
• 1 small avocado, peeled and diced
• 1 small shallot, minced
• Juice of half a lemon
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp freshly ground pepper
• ½ cup walnut halves, toasted

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 450 F.  Place the beets and fennel on a baking sheet, drizzle with 2 tbsp of olive oil, and roast in the oven for 15 minutes.  
• Meanwhile, combine the spinach and avocado in a mixing bowl.  
• To make the dressing, put the shallot, lemon juice, salt, pepper and the ¼ cup of olive oil in a small food processor and pulse for 1 minute.  
• Toss the dressing with the spinach and avocado and place on two serving plates.  Place half the roasted beets and fennel on each plate and sprinkle the walnuts over each serving.