Celery Detox Salad with Cucumber and Zucchini

Easy, flavorful, and nutritious Celery Detox Salad! This plant powered salad is loaded with raw summer veggies, healthy fats, antioxidants, and topped with homemade cilantro lime dressing. This salad will fill you up, nourish you, and help in natural detox all at once. Paleo, Vegan, Gluten Free, Carb free, and Whole 30 diet friendly.

This salad is following trail of my earlier Detox Salads - Cauliflower Broccoli Detox Salad, and Quinoa Blueberry Powder Detox Salad.

I have three reasons why I started thinking about this recipe.

One, because I wanted to make your detox diet not boring. Honestly, I can't eat same thing in every meal and I'm sure you can't either. A variation or change of flavor always push me to stick to any kind of diet regime. So, I'm gonna keep pushing and give you a complete one month diet plan. This recipe is 6th in the list. You can find complete list at the end of the post.

Second, with this recipe I want you to think beyond gut. In addition to other health benefits, this celery detox salad is for liver cleanse. 

Third, you know me, I always want healthy salad with lots of flavor. No boring salads, please! So much so that, with spiralized zucchini, carrots, cucumber and garlicky cilantro dressing... it tastes like a real summer dinner! (Just add a side of protein.)

So, let's dig little deep! Shall we?

What is Celery Detox?

Celery or celery juice is known for healthy liver detox. Celery is a natural diuretic which helps eliminate wastes there by cleansing naturally.

The list of nutrients in celery start with vitamin k, potassium, folate, and dietary fiber. It is also source of antioxidants, vitamin A and C. Now, I'm not going to go all nerd-y and sound like reading a nutrient label of a Multi-Vitamin bottle... but you get the idea?

Have you heard about celery juice cleanse? Like, if you go to Whole Food's Juice section, they will add a liver detox celery juice shot to any juice you like. I'm giving you a salad instead of juice because why not to eat the dietary fiber that comes with raw veggies? It going to keep full longer and keep gut healthy too. 

As I always recommend, for detox diet, always use organic celery and other ingredients as mush as possible. Organic ingredients don't have harmful chemicals and are good for you.

Not just celery, every component of this salad benefits in body detox. To list a few benefits:

1) Carrots have beta carotene and high fiber content for eyes and gut health
2) Cilantro, Olive oil have anti-oxidants that help fight infections and are great for immune system support.
3) Lime juice is good source of Vitamin-C, cleanse body. Garlic and cilantro both help reduce inflammation
4) Along with nutrients, water content in cucumber, radish and celery are good for cooling body in summer heat.
5) There are no processed carbs or processed sugars in this salad which makes it even suitable for sugar detox, carb free diet or raw detox.

Oh, did I share, this salad is also vegan? No dairy or animal products used. 

The dressing for this salad, cilantro-lime dressing is little different from regular and is blend of selective ingredients to empower the detox salad. It is quick to make. Just needs some extra virgin olive oil (you can use coconut oil too), fresh cilantro, lime juice, garlic, orange juice, and cayenne. It stays good in refrigerator for a week. 

To prepare the salad, I combine four tablespoons of dressing with spiralized raw zucchini noodles. While I spiralize/chop rest of the veggies, zucchini noodles marinate in the dressing soaking in lots of flavor. I add remaining dressing while serving.

You guys!! Check out flavor, crunch, vitamin C, anti-oxidants, and immune boosters! Loving it! Clearly, this is so much more than a Detox Salad! 

What do you say? 

Due to high fiber in celery, zucchini, carrot, it is a very filling salad too. Eat 1-2 cups for lunch without feeling hungry anytime sooner. Spiralized carrots, cucumber, raw zucchini, with garlicky cilantro-lime dressing makes me feels like eating a hearty Pasta. So so better than eating supplements or sipping juices. Even if not for detox, I would happily eat this salad with side protein for summer dinner. Now, that's what I call - "Magic of summers!"

As promised, here is the list of previous Detox Recipes on the blog:

1) Vegetarian Cabbage Soup
2) Quinoa Power Detox Salad
3) Cauliflower Broccoli Detox Salad
4) Spicy Green Detox Smoothie
5) Kiwi and Grapes Detox Smoothie 

I hope you will enjoy some delicious detox with this salad. 

Enjoy! -Savita x