Category: Salad

Marketplace Salad

I had a great harvest of beets at the end of the summer and needed to use up the last cucumber of the season. I found this salad recipe on page 40 of The Vegetarian Bistro. The salad uses lots of veggies, including beets, cucumber, carrot, green beans, and endive. The beets and green beans are cooked, while the rest of the veggies are raw. I enjoyed the mix of veggies, but didn’t like the creme mustard dressing. I also found the salad was missing some heft. I ended up adding pumpkin seeds, which improved it a bit.

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Tomato Salad with Cucumber and Ginger

Since my garden is overflowing with cucumbers and tomatoes right now, I’ve been looking for salad recipes to keep up with the onslaught. This very simple Asian salad recipe seemed promising since it would use both veggies as well as my end-of-season basil.

Indeed, this was a real winner. After the mushy cucumber disaster of the cucumber avocado salad, I just made the dressing ahead of time and chopped the cucumber and tomato I needed for a single meal. This strategy worked well. I used Thai basil, which was quite yummy as well. I added Marinated Asian Tofu from Veganomicon to make this a meal. And voila! A very simple tasty fresh lunch was born. I’ll definitely make this again next summer.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020398-tomato-salad-with-cucumber-and-ginger?action=click&module=Local%20Search%20Recipe%20Card&pgType=search&rank=2

Cucumber-Avocado Salad

I bought several avocados for another recipe, since I was going to make dinner for Ian and he eats a lot. But he didn’t end up coming over and I found myself with a bunch of avocado I needed to use up. The cucumbers in my garden have been very prolific this year, so I thought I’d try this New York times salad recipe.

Alas, I really messed this up. So I can’t report on how the salad should be. My score is for my terrible version. But I can report on my mistakes so that you don’t repeat them. I put the lemon juice in first and then added the salt. Then I left the salted lemony cucumbers to sit for hours instead of minutes. The result was somewhat slimy salty cucumbers. If you make this be sure not to leave the cucumbers for more than the maximum 15 minutes allotted and wait to add the lemon juice! I’ve been forcing myself to eat this but it hasn’t been good. I don’t know if I’ll be able to bring myself to try making it again.

I ate this with Asian marinated tofu from Veganomicon. The two really didn’t go together. Again, just not a win all around.

Corn and Green Bean Salad with Tomatillo Dressing

I didn’t plant tomatillos this year. But two volunteer plants sprouted up and they have been super prolific. So I found myself with more tomatillos than knew what to do with and looking for something other than enchiladas to do with them. I found this recipe for a summer salad with tomatillo dressing on the New York times.

This was super easy to make, and really yummy. Since it uses the broiler, it doesn’t heat up the house too much. I left out the cheese and found I didn’t miss it. Since I’m eating low FODMAP right now, I used half a deseeded jalepeno, which added flavor but not spice. Again, I didn’t find that the lack of spice messed up the recipe at all. This is definitely something I’ll make again. I was eating it as a main course and found their serving sizes were off. I doubled the recipe and I think I got 3 or 4 meals out of it. So next time if I want to eat this all week I’ll make it as a side or triple the recipe. I found adding avocado made it more of a meal and was extra tasty.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014218-corn-and-green-bean-salad-with-tomatillo-dressing?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=all&rank=13
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014218-corn-and-green-bean-salad-with-tomatillo-dressing?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page&region=tomatillo&rank=0

Sesame Cucumber Salad

It’s the time of year when my garden is overflowing with cucumbers. I made this impromptu salad and brought it to a communal dinner. It was quite a hit and I enjoyed the leftovers the next day as a snack.

1/2 inch piece of ginger, graded

3 cloves garlic, pressed or grated

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tsp sea salt

3 large shallots

4 medium cucumbers

2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

  1. Combine the ginger, garlic, oil, salt, and vinegar.
  2. Cut the cucumbers into quarters lengthwise, thinly slice
  3. Thinly slice the shallots
  4. Combine and vegetables
  5. Add the sesame seeds.
  6. Let sit for at least an hour before serving.

Sesame Slaw with Warm Garlicky Seitan

It’s official: seitan is my favorite vegetarian protein. I’m such a sucker for any recipe that includes seitan. With the weather warming up, I was looking for a cold salad recipe that looked filling. And this slaw recipe from page 58 of Isa Does It fit the bill. This was fairly quick and easy to make. True to the weeknight billing of Isa Does It. Isa has you pan fry the seitan, which makes the seitan a bit tough and pretty crisp. Overall, this was tasty, but not amazing. The edamame were a nice addition. I ate it all week happily, so it couldn’t be too bad. I’d make it again if I found myself wanting to make a quick filling Asian-inspired slaw or I had the ingredients.

Vegan Quinoa Caesar

This recipe was next up on my list of salads to try from my new cookbook Isa Does It. I was really intrigued by the idea of a vegan caesar salad made heartier by some extra ingredients. In addition to lettuce and dressing, Isa adds tempeh croutons, avocado, and quinoa to make this salad not just a full meal, but truly indulgent. She also adds some arugula to make the salad a bit healthier.

I really really liked this salad. Once I made it, it was all I wanted to eat all week. I actually had it for lunch and dinner on the same day! The dressing was delicious and the smoky flavor of the tempeh was complex and satisfying.

I will definitely make this again. The only change I will make is to increase the romaine a bit. I thought the quinoa, romaine, arugula recipe was just a bit too heavy on the arugula and quinoa. I think I’d use 10 ounces of romaine instead of the 8 called for by the recipe and 5 cups of quinoa instead of 6.

This link is the same as far as the salad ingredients and dressing from the cookbook. But it exchanges the marinated tempeh for breaded tofu.

Quinoa Caesar Salad

Roasted Yellow Beet Salad with Warm Maple-Mustard Dressing

I very rarely make salad recipes from my cookbooks, but I’m trying to add more raw vegetables to my diet. My new cookbook Isa Does It includes a number of intriguing salad recipes. Since I love beets, I picked out this recipe for arugula salad with walnuts and beets as the first one to try.

I used red beets instead of golden beets since they’re easier to find and I think they taste better anyways. The dressing is literally just maple syrup and whole grain mustard, which seemed really strange to me. This is not the type of dressing I ever make. But I actually really enjoyed the dressing. My main issue with the salad was that there were so many red onions in it and the dressing alone wasn’t enough to break their sharpness. I added a 1/4 cup of halved green grapes, which successfully cut the sharpness of the onions and rounded out the flavor of the salad overall.

I ran out of dressing before I ran out of salad. Next time I’d make 1.5x the recipe. Also online she adds 1 tbsp of water to the dressing, which I’d try next time to thin it out a bit.