When the sun is shining it is natural to want to be outdoors. And on days when it is over 85 degrees, standing over a hot stove and cooking several meals a day doesn't seem very appealing. Yet we do need to eat regular nourishing meals. It is particularly important to keep cool and eat cooling foods in the summertime when Pitta dosha is accumulating.
Our Mexican menu features easy and delicious recipes and suggestions that can help to keep Pitta in balance during the summer while supplying all the six ayurvedic tastes.
On days you don't feel like cooking extensively, try to at least include one cooked item that has a short cooking time such as couscous or pasta in each meal. Planning meals ahead can save precious time and help capitalize on seasonal produce.
To help keep Pitta in balance, favor bitter, astringent, and sweet tastes and reduce salty, sour, and pungent foods such as corn chips with salsa, chili peppers, and vinegar dressings.
Menu for an Ayurvedic Mexican lunch
- Pinto bean roll-ups in whole wheat tortillas (sweet, sour, salty, astringent, bitter and pungent due to spices added. beans are astringent.)
- Guacamole with toasted whole wheat tortillas (sweet)
- Cucumber salad (sweet, bitter)
- Shredded lettuce and cilantro (bitter)
- Sour cream (sweet and sour)
- Steamed spinach drizzled with ghee (sweet and bitter)
- Pitta tea lassi or fresh coconut juice (sweet)
- Melon salad for dessert — watermelon, honeydew melon, and cantaloupe (sweet)
Easy steps to assemble lunch
- The night before, soak the pinto beans.
- The next morning boil the beans and let simmer until lunch time or make them in a slow cooker.
- Assemble beans, sour cream, shredded lettuce, shredded carrot and cilantro in a wheat tortilla.
- Steam spinach.
- Cut up cucumbers.
- Mash avocado up and sprinkle with lime juice and salt.
- Roast tortillas in a toaster.
- Blend fresh yogurt, mint leaves and sugar in blender.
- Cut up melons for dessert but serve an hour after the meal. Melon should be eaten separately from other food.
Additional summer foods
Some other foods that are perfect for summer include:
- Coconut Chutney
- Fresh coconut juice
- Coconut rice
- Pomegranate juice and Pomegranate Chutney
- Organic Pitta Tea with apple juice
- Tapioca
- Date Milk Shake
- Couscous Salad
- Baked Fennel Seeds
- Watermelon juice
- Fenugreek
- Lauki (type of green gourd with white flesh available in Indian grocery stores)
- Rose Petal Lassi
- Pasta Salad with fresh dill, cilantro
- Fresh sweet juicy fruit
Discover more Ayurvedic recipes.
