Pretty much, the one thing that everyone agrees on, when it comes to healthy eating, is that we should eat more vegetables.

5 serves a day even.

Last month I decided to have an experiment. I called it ‘The Month of Extreme Veg’ and my goal was to eat 6 serves of vegetables a day for the whole month.

On average I made it. Some days were less and some days were more. I even had a personal best of 8 serves one day.

Safe to say, I had a lot of practice preparing vegetables and I noticed something really interesting.

When I was short on time, I’d just chop up the vegetables and toss them in a salad dressing or sometimes just a little olive oil and a squeeze of lemon.

So that’s how you save time.

Just skip the cooking part.

Yep. That simple.

We’re conditioned to think of vegetables as mostly cooked. And lets face it, cooking takes time. It also destroys heat sensitive nutrients and enzymes.

So there are even more benefits than just saving time.

Today I’m sharing one of my favourite discoveries, a raw broccoli salad. But feel free to experiment with other veg. Apart from eggplant (aubergine) and potatoes, pretty much most vegetables can be eaten raw (am I forgetting something?)

Mostly, the finer you slice or the smaller you chop, the easier they’ll be to eat.

Raw Broccoli Salad

takes 5 mins

serves 2



I just adore the way the avocado and broccoli combine in this salad to give crunch and creamy richness. I think I’ve discovered a new food marriage made in heaven.

Feel free to take this idea wherever your imagination takes you. While I find it fairly substantial for lunch with the nuts and avocado, I’d add in a few more almonds or serve with some shredded poached chicken or some proscuitto for a larger meal. Canned tuna or salmon would also be lovely.

Those with nut allergies could easily just skip the almonds or replace them with a little finely diced red onion for the colour and crunch.

1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

1 head broccoli

1 avocado

handful roasted almonds

1. Combine mustard, vinegar and 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil in a salad bowl. Season.

3. Chop broccoli into tiny trees and toss in the dressing.

4. Chop avocado in half and scoop bight sized chunks into the dressing using a spoon.

5. Toss salad to distribute the dressing and serve with almonds on top.

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video version of the recipe