Filing your salad with good proteins and fats is key, says nutritionist. Photo / Getty Images
Salads are, in most cases, a healthy way to reach your daily fruit and vegetable goals and keep your calorie intake low.
However these light meals often don't keep you full for very long, which can cause snackers to reach for the biscuit tin.
Now a nutritionist has revealed how you can build a salad that will keep you full until dinner - and still help you lose weight.
Dr Rachel Paul, who is known as the College Nutritionist and has 169,000 followers on Instagram, has shared photos of two salads side-by-side to show what a filling and not-filling meal looks like.
The salad on the left contains only some leaves and some shredded carrot, which are both classed as non-starchy vegetables.
Dr Paul, a registered dietician who was a doctoral fellow at Colombia University, New York, until May, says this simple meal will only keep you full "for minutes".
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However her salad on the right contains a mixture of the same non-starchy vegetables with some crucial additions.
By adding fats from half an avocado and a drizzle of low-calorie dressing, protein from a chicken breast, and extra asparagus, she says this salad will instead keep someone full for "hours".
In a post which has been liked by more than 9,300 people, she wrote: "It's no good to eat an unsatisfying lunch... only to get hungry soon after and not be able to concentrate on work or school.
"Fill your salad with good protein and fats - and use those non-starchy veggies to add a lot of VOLUME."
She adds that while salad dressing isn't filling by itself, she drizzles it onto her salad because she likes the taste but always opts for low-calorie options.
The salad of only non-starchy vegetables won't keep dieters full for very long because it is lacking in key macronutrients, namely protein and fat, which keep you fuller for longer, she revealed.
Dr Paul, whose brand Rachel Paul Nutrition focuses on helping college students to eat more healthily and lose weight, has also shared examples of how to make snacks fill you up for longer too.
She reveals that while two bunches of grapes will only keep you full for 45 minutes, adding protein in the form of two string cheeses will help keep hunger at bay for two hours.
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Similarly, eating a whole apple will only keep you full for an hour, she says, but adding protein and fat in the form of a string cheese, will keep you from feeling hungry for an extra hour.
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