DDC week 14: Garden Salad with Peanut Dressing
A tangy peanut dressing add a nice bite to this winter salad.
This week’s Dark Days meal was a fun challenge for me: vegetarian. As a bona fide meat lover, I rarely eat purely veggie meals (although I do love most vegetarian and vegan food). (oh who am I kidding? I love all food! Except goat cheese.).
The timing was good for a vegetarian meal because all of our lettuces are coming in right now. I’ve been literally getting my fill of leafy greens. So a salad seemed perfect. My big question was what to do for a protein? I looked through my cupboard and saw the raw Virginia peanuts I found at Whole Foods a few weeks ago. Perfect. Peanut dressing, greens, celery root, carrot, radish, bacon (oops…not strictly vegetarian. But boy would it have added a nice touch to the salad!).
I love peanut dressing and wanted to make one that was at least mostly local. I scored local with the peanuts, apple, and hot sauce (which I got in the Bahamas last year). The rest of the ingredients for the dressing were organic.
Recipe: Apple Peanut Dressing
Summary: Tangy and nutty, with just a little kick. A nice winter dressing.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raw Virginia peanuts
- 1 tsp peanut oil
- 1 medium apple, juiced (about 3/4 cup)
- 1 tsp Bragg’s or low-sodium soy sauce
- 3 drops hot sauce
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Put the peanuts and peanut oil in a food processor and pulse until mostly smooth.
- Remove the core from the apple and juice.
- Add the apple juice, Bragg’s, hot sauce, and salt to the peanuts.
- Pulse until well blended.
- Taste and add more hot sauce or salt to taste.
Variations
If you don’t have a juicer, use local apple cider.
Preparation time: 5 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 1 cup
Copyright © Susan Rose.
A tangy peanut dressing add a nice bite to this winter salad.
Recipe: Peanut Salad
Summary: A glimpse of spring on a winter day.
Ingredients
- mixed lettuces
- 1/4 cup celery root, grated
- 1/4 cup carrot, grated
- 1 radish, sliced
- 1/4 peanuts, chopped
- Cilantro
Instructions
- Place the lettuce on a plate and top with the celery root, carrot, radish, and peanuts. Drizzle with peanut dressing. Top with fresh cilantro (dried if you don’t have fresh.)
Preparation time: 5 minute(s)
Diet type: Vegetarian
Number of servings (yield): 1
Copyright © Susan Rose.
4 Responses to DDC week 14: Garden Salad with Peanut Dressing
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Can’t wait to try this salad. To me, it speaks of summer and an evening outdoors. thanks
It will be nice in the summer. A made a follow up version with chicken on it (I am a meat eater, after all) and it was really good! It had a very Thai quality to it.
That looks wonderful. I have a ton of lettuce growing right now and it is fun to experiment with dressings. Your dressing sounds wonderful. I can also see how you wanted to add bacon! And you version where you added chicken sounds good also. Very versatile!
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