Carrot & Zucchini Salad with Lime, Peanut & Chilli Dressing

The joy of freshly harvested vegetables and herbs from your home garden is unmatched. I recently harvested beautiful red chillies and wanted to serve it in all its glory. What better than a salad to bring out the freshness of the ingredients?

So, I decided to make an Asian-inspired salad that is simple, nutritious and refreshing. This salad is loaded with nutrients and minerals. Carrot and zucchini salad with lime, peanut and chilli dressing is a celebration of each ingredient where the flavours complement each other.

This salad ticks a lot of boxes. It is zesty, healthy, spicy, crunchy, light and appetising. Does that not sounds like a perfect salad?

Low in calories yet incredibly delicious, this salad is a delightful addition to your main meals and is perfect to carry to work or school.

Serves: 4

Ingredients

For the dressing:

  • Peanuts – ¼ cup
  • Chillies – 3
  • Lime Juice – 2 tblspns
  • Extra virgin olive oil – 3 tblspns
  • Place your list items here

For the Salad:

  • Carrot – 2
  • Zucchini – 1
  • Salt and pepper – As required

Directions

For the dressing:

  1. In a mortar and pestle, crush the peanuts coarsely. Don’t make a fine powder. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Reserve some to top the salad.
  2. Chop the chillies. Deseeding is optional. Crush the chillies coarsely in the mortar and pestle. Add it to the mixing bowl along with the crushed peanuts.
  3. To the crushed peanuts and chillies, add the lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. Whisk them vigorously till the ingredients for the dressing are combined well.
  4. Keep the dressing aside.

Method:

  1. To prepare the salad, spiralise, cut or grate the carrots and zucchini.
  2. I chose to spiralise simply because I love those little vegetable noodles.
  3. In a large bowl, add the spiralised/chopped/grated vegetables. Drizzle the dressing. Add salt and pepper.
  4. Mix all the ingredients well.
  5. Serve immediately topping with some crushed peanuts.

Tips:

  1. You could add/omit vegetables of your choice.
  2. If you have peanut allergy, skip it.
  3. If you are not a huge fan of the spicy kick from the chillies, deseed them or skip the ingredient. Add more ground pepper instead.
  4. I used citrus salt for a citrusy burst in the salad. You could use plain salt or any other flavoured salt.
  5. Surprisingly, I enjoy raw zucchini. If you don’t, you could sauté it in a little oil/omit it/replace it with cucumber, which works quite well in the salad.
  6. You can make the salad crunchier by adding toasted sesame seeds.

Leave a Reply