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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Keep the dressing aside.
Method:
- To prepare the salad, spiralise, cut or grate the carrots and zucchini.
- I chose to spiralise simply because I love those little vegetable noodles.
- In a large bowl, add the spiralised/chopped/grated vegetables. Drizzle the dressing. Add salt and pepper.
- Mix all the ingredients well.
- Serve immediately topping with some crushed peanuts.
Tips:
- You could add/omit vegetables of your choice.
- If you have peanut allergy, skip it.
- 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.
- I used citrus salt for a citrusy burst in the salad. You could use plain salt or any other flavoured salt.
- 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.
- You can make the salad crunchier by adding toasted sesame seeds.
