Colourful Salad
Just like most people, I’ve been on the ‘holiday diet’ these past couple of weeks. Large meals, sweets, snacks, you name it. So what’s better than a nice big bowl of colourful salad to kick off the New Year? I stress the word ‘colourful’ because different coloured foods provide different kinds of nutrition. Colourful meals are a great way to bring nutrient variety and balance to your diet!
Super easy to make, high in nutrition, this colourful salad consists of protein rich chickpea, crunchy vegetables and leaves, minimum dressing and topped with roasted sesame seeds for added crunch and health benefits. This can be a meal by itself too. Start your New Year on a healthy note!
Ingredients
Chickpeas – 1 cup (soak overnight)
Sesame seeds – 1 tablespoon
Sweet corn (boiled) – 3 tbsp
Cucumber (chopped) – 3 tbsp
Baby carrot (chopped) – 3 tbsp
Broccoli florets (blanched) – a handful
Green capsicum (chopped) – 2 tbsp
Mix of yellow, red and orange capsicum (chopped) – 3 tbsp
Purple cabbage (chopped) – 3 tbsp
Crumbled Feta/cottage cheese – 2 tbsp (optional)
Fresh cauliflower leaves (chopped) – 3 tbsp
Fresh coriander leaves (chopped) – 3 tbsp
Green chillies (chopped) – 1 tbsp (optional)
SALAD DRESSING:
Pink salt – 1/4 tsp (to taste)
Honey – 1 tbsp
Crushed black pepper – 1 tsp
Lemon juice – 1 tbsp
Olive oil – 2 tbsp
Yield
Serves 2
Prep time
Overnight soaking of chickpeas
30 mins on the day
Method
1) Boil the soaked chickpeas until soft but not mushy and set aside to cool completely.
2) Blanch the sweet corn and broccoli florets (see Cauliflower Bites recipe for blanching tips) and set aside.
3) Take all the ingredients for the salad dressing in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Refrigerate for half an hour.
4) In a pan, take the sesame seeds and dry roast on low heat until it turns golden. Set aside.
5) In a wide bowl take the boiled chickpeas, chopped/blanched vegetables, crumbled cheese (see how to make paneer recipe for tips to make soft cottage cheese) and chopped leaves. Mix. Refrigerate for 15 mins.
6) Just before serving, drizzle salad dressing and the roasted sesame seeds to the colourful salad and mix thoroughly.
7) Serve this colourful salad cold, as a wholesome meal by itself.
Notes
- Instead of chickpeas you can use kidney beans (rajma), black eyed beans or peanuts to make this colourful salad.
- Feel free to use tinned chickpeas and/or corn for convenience or to cut down on prep time.
- I’ve kept the salad dressing very simple to avoid unnecessary extra calories.
- Refrigerating the salad dressing and the chickpea-vegetable mixture until you are going to serve the salad, helps retain the crunchiness of the salad for a longer time.
- Keep the chopped cauliflower and coriander leaves in ice cold water to retain freshness and keep them crunchy.
- Cubed, boiled potato/sweet potato and halved cherry tomatoes are good additions to this already wholesome salad.
- You can avoid feta/cottage cheese completely to make it vegan friendly.
One Comment
arlef
I will try this salad, been searching for some recipes lately.