Saved by the bell pepper?
It can be really difficult to get kids to eat vegetables, much less salad. But Tiffani Thiessen has a juicy secret to inspire plant pessimists to gulp down greens — put a chef or Caesar salad topped with ranch on their pizza.
“I think the first time it kind of clicked [was when] I actually put salad on my pizza,” Thiessen, 52, told The Post about getting her 10-year-old son, Holt, on board.
“And he was like, ‘Wait, you could do that?’ And I was like, ‘Of course, you can,’” she added. “He liked that sort of concept, with a lot of ranch on it. And so he’s been eating salads ever since, and that was a couple of years ago.”
Thiessen, a mother of two, loves salad, like really loves salad — and not just because she has a partnership with the packaged salad company Fresh Express.
You may remember her as a diner denizen in the ’90s, first at The Max as popular cheerleader Kelly Kapowski on “Saved by the Bell” and then at The Peach Pit as the deliciously vengeful nightclub owner Valerie Malone on “Beverly Hills, 90210.”
Gone are the hot fudge sundaes and mega burgers — now her Instagram page is bursting with salad recipes. Think Italian chopped salad with shrimp, Caesar supreme salad with herby meatballs and Mediterranean charred vegetable salad with tzatziki vinaigrette, to name a few.
She’s even maintained her salad steadfastness while shooting the upcoming supernatural Disney+ series “Coven Academy” in Vancouver.
“During the week, when I can’t go out and I’m shooting really long hours, I definitely eat more salads,” said Thiessen, who penned the cookbooks “Here We Go Again” and “Pull Up a Chair.”
“But then on the weekends, that’s where I give myself a little bit of grace, and I go out and have a restaurant meal with some friends who are in town or my castmates.”
Thiessen likes to follow an 80/20 balance — salads for the 80% and Chinese food, oysters, wine and other indulgences for the rest.
Thiessen has two more recipes for maintaining a healthy balance: good sleep and water, water, water!
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“I know a lot of people who are not water drinkers, and I have to say there were moments where I was not a water drinker. I would have to put lemon in it,” Thiessen said.
“Then I just kind of forced myself into the habit of drinking water constantly,” she continued. “Now it’s like my body needs it, and so it’s not a chore anymore.”
Thiessen wouldn’t say exactly how much water she consumes from her Yeti water bottle — “I was told a long time ago that you should drink half your weight in ounces at least, not that I’m going to give away my weight” — but it’s “a lot of water.”
Still, she limits her intake to 12 to 15 hours and cuts herself off at 7 p.m., so she’s “not up all night.”
Saved by the alarm bells
And sleep is very important to Thiessen, who tries to log seven hours a night.
“Now that I’m 52 years of age, I definitely know that I need more sleep,” she shared. “My happy place is eight, but I don’t always get it.”
It’s especially difficult to get while filming in Vancouver — where she’s been since December — because of night shoots that keep her working until 3 or 4 a.m.
That’s why she depends on her sound machine to lull her to sleep. She said she’s relied on one since the birth of her daughter, Harper, 15.
“I even travel with it,” Thiessen said.
“Nothing against my husband — I love sleeping next to my husband, but he does snore,” she added, referring to her husband, Brady Smith, whom she married in 2005.
“So when I’m home, I actually do wear these really amazing earplugs that actually are like wax-based, and you can mold them to your ears, and they stay in all night, and they’re amazing.”
