The Spicy Spatula

I know what you’re thinking, beans and salad? Yuck? If it’s not a Mexican or Tex-Mex style burrito bowl or salad, I ain’t interesting. Did I get that right?

Ha!

I used to be like you, so naive and rigid in my salad thinking, and then I started eating salads. A lot of salads. In fact, some would say I eat too many salads. They would be wrong, of course, but we’re all entitled to our opinions. I guess.

My point here is that I do eat a lot of salad which means that in order to keep eating healthy and enjoying the benefits of eating that way, I need to keep it fresh. And depending on the season and the region, it can be difficult to do that so we have to be creative. I mean, you didn’t think I saved all my creativity for my romance novels did you? 😉

Keep your salad game fresh means being creative and mixing it up in terms of what you put into your vegan salad recipes but also in terms of variety. If you love Romaine lettuce, as I do, don’t be afraid to use kale or spinach or even Butter lettuce. That’s an easy fix that can give you tastebuds something else to enjoy a few days each week.

More tips for mixing up your vegan salads:

*Use apple sticks instead of radishes
*Replace scallions with pickled shallots or thinly sliced onions
*Swap Roma tomatoes for cherry or grape, or heirloom if you can find them
*Use olives
*Sprouts are your friend

I kept it simple for this vegan salad because it’s etching above 30 Celsius in Romania, but if you see something you like, take it and run with it however you like!

Kitchen Tools:

*Salad spinner
*Cutting board
*Food processor
*Mixing bowl
*Salad tongs

Ingredients:

Instructions:

*Be sure to chop and weigh your vegetables (if you do that)*

*Start with your salad greens. Chop’em and rinse’em so that you can get them nice and dry from spinning. This recipe does better with dry lettuce.

*Slice the scallions. Chop tomatoes and olives and toss into a mixing bowl.

*Weigh sprouts and add to mixing bowl.

*In a food processor add: butter beans, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, parsley and sun-dried tomatoes. Run until smooth, adding water or waste free broth as needed. You’ll want it to be thick since this is the base of your vegan salad.

*Meanwhile, grab a small mixing bowl and add cocogurt and your favorite mix of herbs and spices. It doesn’t need to be over the top flavorful, just creamy and tasty.

*When the lettuce is dry, add it to the mixing bowl. Pour the vegan salad dressing over the vegetables and mix.

*Spread the pureed butter beans on the bottom of a plate and serve the salad on top. With every delicious bite of fresh, crunchy salad, you get creamy, bean-y, protein goodness.

And that’s how you spice up your boring ol’ vegan salad recipes, if you think they are boring, which I don’t. But the thing is, sometimes you just need something a little different to tickle the tastebuds. Right?

Top with fried onions, but that part is totally optional.

What’s your favorite way to enjoy a vegan salad?

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