It's the new year, you are all excited to exercise and eat right, and then the next thing you know you are bored of eating salad everyday (and maybe still a little hungry too), can I get an amen? So, I thought: a new year needs a new salad. I created this salad to fill you up, excite your taste buds, pack in the nutrients, and help keep you on track. Also, my mom says I have been posting too many tacos (as if there is such a thing as too many tacos), so here is a salad instead.
Loaded up with rice, beans, and roasted carnival squash, this salad is hearty enough to call a meal.
The idea for this recipe came from the Oh, She Glows Cookbook by Angela Lidden. I "doctored" it up to make it my own, but she deserves a shout out for the inspiration. As you are learning to cook whole food plant based meals I really do recommend looking at recipes for inspiration, but changing them to suit your tastes or the ingredients that you have available to you.
Also, try to keep an open mind about what makes up a meal. If you are coming from a meat-eating mindset you are probably used to having a hunk of meat as the star of your plate, surrounded by side dishes of veges and grains. When you eat a WFPB diet your whole meal is veges and grains so there are a lot of one dish meals, soups, stews, bowls, tacos (obviously), etc. This is a new way of eating and a new way of thinking about food. Go with it, embrace the change. That said...
Here is what we are making:
The squash and rice take the longest, so let's get them started first.
Rice
Grab a bag of brown rice (or other rice of your choice) and cook as much as you want by following the instructions...yup. It will take about 40 mins or so, so start that now.FYI, you will need about 1 cup of cooked brown rice for the salad. Since it takes 40 minutes to cook I usually make extra to keep in the fridge or freezer for a quick meal later in the week. Also, if you have leftover rice from a prior meal this is a perfect way to use it up.
Squash
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F
You will need:
1 carnival squash (acorn squash will work too)
1 teaspoon olive oil
a pinch of salt
Cut the squash in half from top to bottom, remove the seeds, and slice into 1/2 inch half moons.
Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and then lay them flat in a single layer on a baking sheet. Go ahead and put those in the oven, they will take about 30-40 minutes to cook through and brown up a little. Flip them half way through cooking.
FYI this can be done days in a advance, just reheat them in the microwave prior to serving.
Salad
4 cups of salad greens (spring mix and baby spinach used here)
1 cup of quartered artichoke hearts
1 medium cucumber, halved and sliced
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 can of beans (red beans used here)
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/2 medium purple onion chopped
Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. Feel free to use whatever veges you like, it's your salad.
Lemon Tahini Dressing
In case you haven't noticed this yet, I like to make my own dressings, it is a totally unnecessary step. I do it because I like to know what is in my food and it takes like 2 seconds, so whatever. If you don't want to make your own dressing any vegan lemony dressing will do.
1.5 tablespoons tahini (or almond or cashew butter)
1 shallot
1 clove of garlic
juice of 2 lemons
handful of parsley
pinch of salt
Put everything into the blender and blend until smooth.
To assemble your salad simply arrange the squash pieces on top and dress.
Here it is. BEAUTIFUL!
If you are looking to make this a quick weeknight meal, no problem. The rice and squash can be prepared in advance and reheated on the day you are assembling the salad. Even better, if you prepare extra rice and freeze it (like I keep reminding you to do) you can skip that step on your meal prep day. BTW the dressing will keep in the fridge for 5-7 days as well.
Heart healthy, low calorie, and delicious!
Happy eating and best health,
Dr. G
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