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Opportunity abounds to incorporate honey into your salads

Let’s talk about honey... and how its natural sweetness and smooth creamy texture complements the fresh bitterness and crunchy character of salad ingredients to produce a delectable combination of flavours that have you coming back for a seconds.

I’ve been out several times to collect honey with beekeepers around Australia. My most memorable experience was when a swarm of 5,000 bees landed beside us on an old plough left in the paddock next to the canola crop.

My Dad would not like me telling you that he used to sprinkle sugar on his lettuce leaves to give them, what he said “more flavour”. He then started drizzling dollops of honey on his leafy greens and has since switched to making his own salad dressings using honey as the staple component of the concoction. Yes, he’s always had a bit of a “sweet tooth”.

While sugar is sugar, honey does have a list of health benefits. Not only is honey a sound cough remedy because of its anti-inflammatory agent, it has also shown to be effective in aiding some allergies. It’s a powerful immune system booster and its antioxidant and anti-bacterial properties can help improve digestion and help you stay healthy and fight disease. Yes honey can help alleviate some health problems – in fact it is recognised worldwide as a healing ingredient in medicinal treatment. While I prefer my salads without dressing, don’t feel too bad about dappling in a tasting of the sweet stuff.

Whether it’s ‘Honey-roasted pumpkin, spinach and pine nut salad’ or ‘Roasted pumpkin, feta and spinach salad with honey and pine nut dressing’ there are so many ways to incorporate honey into your salads even if it’s following in my Dad’s footsteps… one at a time.

And if you wake up to find those pesky ants making a bee line for your honey jar, place it in a bowl of water to stop them in their tracks.

Happy foraging and enjoy your salads! Louise.

Join Louise on a journey through the seasons with salad ingredients, old traditions and popular, exotic or unusual vegetables. From Paddock to Plate founder, author, food writer, radio journalist & yoga teacher.

Opportunity abounds to incorporate honey into your salads

Salad story by

Louise FitzRoy

Louise FitzRoy

Food blogger / food writer

I love everything there is to love about cooking. The fresh ingredients, the tantalising smells and the creativeness of concocting a dish using food you’ve never heard of before. Besides yoga,... Read more

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