Salads in India are a summer solution to extreme heat. The fruits and vegetables are the juiciest during summer. The reason being that there is ample sunshine to hasten the growth and along with enough water- they reach a full growth potential.

Salads when added to the plate take on the burden of providing roughage as well as the cooling quality to the spicy food. We see a lot of salads have curds and buttermilk added to add to the cooling element. This salad is a standard one of chopped variety that uses firm vegetables most of the time. Using chopped tomatoes and onions is also a standard in many cuisines and the additional choices are cucumbers, chickpeas for protein, soaked mung beans and a variety of soaked dals that are used to make it a wholesome dish in itself.

This salad has one cucumber, two tomatoes, one onion, one can of non-GMO chickpeas, fresh coriander and capsicum.

Malini Waghray is the founder, editor, immersive researcher and developer at Choosing Wellness.