
Asian Style Chopped Salad
PREP TIME: 20mins
COOKING TIME: mins
Gut loving chopped salad! Our guts love variety of fresh vegetables every day. I am doing a bit of a gut reset at the moment and trying to think of ways to fill my plate with a rainbow of colours, different textures and tastes. Most of the veggies in the salad is full of anti-oxidants, helping reduce any inflammation which your body will love.
Pick n Mix with what you have in your fridge, you can swap any veggies that you love here.
If you are not great with raw veggies, you can always gives the veg (not the watercress & herbs) Â a quick stir fry.
Make the salad your own by chop and changing what you have in the fridge or reduce or double on ingredients you do or don’t like.
The dressing is really ‘zippy’ so a little goes a long way. Only drizzle when you are ready to serve. If you are like me and love a really well dressed salad (think more dressing than salad) you might need to make double dressing.
The salad serves 4 generously, you can easily halve or the salad will keep in the fridge for a day or so undressed, the dressing will keep for up to a week, feel free to make double and drizzle over anything that needs an Asian kick.
Serving Suggestion:
Pretty filling on its own but would be good with some shredded poached chicken if you eat meat or some grilled chilli prawns.
Ingredients:
- 1 bok choy, leaves finely chopped and stems cut in half moons
- 1/4 cup finely shredded, red or green cabbage
- 80g / about 4 handful watercress, leaves picked off large thick stems
- 1 carrot, top and tailed, peeled, cut into matchsticks or thin rounds
- 1/2 cucumber, peeled, halved, deseeded and cut into matchsticks or in half moons
- 1/2 red pepper, white membrane & seeds removed, cut into matchsticks
- 1 cup fine green beans, cooked for 3min, drained and cooled, cut in pieces or halved
- handful mange tout (opt), topped & finely cut into matchsticks
- herbs: generous 1/2 cup of shredded mint, basil and chopped coriander
- small Thai chilli, finely chopped (opt)
- 1/4 cup toasted & salted peanuts (or any nut)
- zest of limes (use the juice for the dressing)
Dressing
- 4 tablespoons lime juice / about 4 limes (keep the halves)
- 2 teaspoons tamari or soy sauce (see note)
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon finely grated/minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon finely grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon coconut nektar/honey/maple syrup (or more to taste)
Method:
- To make the dressing mix all the ingredients together and taste for balance. You want a good balance of sweet, sour and salty. You are likely to want to add a bit sweetness as I kept it low. The dressing should be strong and powerful, a little goes a long way.
- In a large bowl, add your salad ingredients together and toss with your hands. Add half the peanuts.
- Dress your salad with a few tablespoons of salad dressing and mix with serving spoons, add more liquid, a tablespoon at a time until the salad is lightly coated.
- When ready to serve, sprinkle the remaining peanuts and serve with extra dressing on the side and the lime halves for those, like me, who LOVES limes.
Kitchen Notes:
Most soy sauce varieties are not gluten-free. If you are trying to avoid gluten, tamari soy sauce is generally made without wheat and, therefore, gluten-free.