The #1 Nutritionist-Recommended Salad for Brain, Heart, and Gut Health

A salad can be as simple as a handful of your favorite greens with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And sure, it’s a healthy start, but some of the salad’s other ingredients are definitely more filling and nutrient-dense.

To see how healthy you could make it, we asked a clinical nutritionist to create the perfect salad for brain, heart, and gut health. From greens and grains to proteins, produce and finishing touches, here’s how to put it all together and why each ingredient is so important for your health.

What makes this superfood salad good for you?

The best salad for whole-body health is any simple combination of leafy greens, plant-based proteins, whole grains, healthy fats and colorful produce. What this looks like may vary from day to day, but the following combination is quite powerful:

“Start with a base of baby spinach and arugula, then add edamame beans for protein, quinoa as a whole grain, nuts and extra virgin olive oil for healthy fats, and lots of color from blueberries, red pepper and cherry tomatoes,” says Vanessa Hitch, clinical nutritionist and learning facilitator for nutrition and health sciences at Australia’s Torrens University. “Then finish it with a simple extra virgin olive oil and lemon vinaigrette.”

In this salad, no single ingredient is responsible for all the benefits. “You easily get a diverse combination of plant proteins, fiber, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, as well as polyphenols and other beneficial plant compounds,” says Hitch. “It’s also a great main meal, providing about 25 to 30 grams of protein and about 18 grams of fiber.”

While all the components work together, there is one ingredient that helps turn this combination into a full-fledged dinner option: that’s edamame. “This makes the salad hearty enough to serve as a meal and gives it a much higher protein boost,” says Hitch. “It also provides fiber, unsaturated fats, folate, potassium, magnesium and soy isoflavones.”

For a more precise breakdown of how much of each ingredient to use, here is Hitch’s go-to recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cups baby spinach and arugula
• 1 cup cooked and shelled edamame beans
• ½ cup cooked quinoa, cooled
• ½ cup blueberries
• ½ red pepper, sliced
• ½ cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• ¼ cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Miso-Lemon Dressing

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon white miso paste
• 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• Black pepper, to taste

Measures

Mix the spinach and arugula with the quinoa, edamame, blueberries, bell pepper, tomatoes and walnuts. Whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, miso paste, Dijon mustard and black pepper. Water the salad and mix gently.

How This Salad Supports Your Health, According to Research

Once all the ingredients are combined, this salad supports multiple body systems at once, including in these key ways.

Brain health

According to Hitch, blueberries are the most promising ingredient for improving brain health. “They are particularly rich in anthocyanins, the blue-violet polyphenols that have been studied for their potential role in vascular and cognitive health,” she says. “They are also an easy way to add more fiber, antioxidants and plant diversity to the diet.”

Heart health

For the heart, nuts and extra virgin olive oil provide a particularly useful blend of unsaturated fats and polyphenols. “Nuts provide polyunsaturated fats, including plant-based omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), as well as fiber and polyphenols,” says Hitch. “Extra virgin olive oil provides mainly monounsaturated fats and its own polyphenols.”

Why is this fat content important? Hitch points to clinical trials showing that regular nut consumption can help lower LDL cholesterol. This is likely due in part to the fact that polyunsaturated fat content, including ALA, may help remove LDL from the bloodstream more effectively.

Gut health

Edamame is an excellent source of plant-based protein and fiber, the latter of which can help balance your gut. “If you combine it with different fibers and plant compounds from quinoa, berries, nuts, leafy greens and vegetables, you get a really nice diversity of plant foods for the gut microbiome,” says Hitch. “If you add miso (a fermented food) to the mix, it will pair wonderfully with the edamame, giving the salad a slightly Asian twist and a nice umami flavor.”

With regular consumption, the most notable benefit may be an improvement in digestive regularity, especially if your usual diet is low in fiber. Don’t overdo it with the fiber in one go; It’s best to increase your intake gradually to give your gut time to adapt.