Chopped Thai Salad with Sesame Garlic Dressing

Chopped Thai Salad with Sesame Garlic Dressing

This Chopped Thai Salad. You guys. I could just cry.

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Today is The Day of New Things for me, and an overwhelmingly yummy Chopped Thai Salad with Sesame Garlic Dressing is only appropriate to match the occasion. Remember when we talked about how I was going to leave my teaching job so that I could cook, photograph, and blog about food full time? Today is that first day. *happy screams*

In addition to today being the first day that I can wake up early for self-initiated work and enjoy a lunch date with a friend plus incorporate at least four built-in mango pineapple smoothie breaks into my day, today is also the first day that I’m using a computer with a retina display for my blogeristic work. Umm hello extreme lifelike chopped Thai salad two inches from my face. This is mostly awesome and also a little confusing, because now my mouth is craving some sesame garlic covered power veggies and spicy Thai lime and chili cashews before I’ve even finished my morning coffee. So what meal should I be on again?

INGREDIENTS

   for the dressing:

• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons white distilled vinegar
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon lemongrass paste (ginger would also work)
• a squeeze of lime juice

for the salad:

• 16 ounces frozen shelled edamame
• 5–6 cups baby kale
• 3 large carrots
• 2 bell peppers (1 red, 1 yellow)
• 1 cup cilantro leaves
• 3 green onions
• 3/4 cup cashews (if you can find them, Trader Joe’s Thai Lime and Chili Cashews are the bomb)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Puree all the dressing ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Taste and adjust to fit your preferences. Transfer to a dressing jar and rinse the food processor out for use later.
2. Cook the edamame by boiling it for 3-5 minutes in a pot of boiling water. Drain and allow it to cool. Meanwhile, slice up the kale, carrots, peppers, cilantro leaves, and green onions into thin strips or shreds.
3. Place the cooked edamame in the food processor and pulse 5 times to get a minced texture. Transfer to a bowl and repeat the same process for the cashews. Toss the kale, carrots, peppers, cilantro, green onions, edamame, and cashews together until well combined. Drizzle with the dressing, toss gently a few times, and serve immediately.

In the end, I pinkie promise that you will be rewarded for your time spent chopping and slicing and shredding and peeling in the best possible food way. The flavors in the salad are like a little friendly fresh-summer-explosion in your mouth. Just phenomally delicious. It gives me happy food chills just thinking about it. And I have this core salad belief that texture is ev-er-y-thing. Even the most awkward and intimidating vegetables can become craveabley yummy when sliced or crushed or grated the right way.

You + knife + veggies. I see good things acomin.

I have lots of favorite salads, which maybe dilutes the label of “favorite”, but this is an easy addition to my personal Favorite Salad Hall of Fame.

A quick recap of things I love about the Chopped Thai Salad:

• no chicken or meat (sometimes I just get annoyed of cooking it, ya know? I think I’m one of those half-way vegetarians)
• lots of veggies (kale carrots peppers cilantro edmame scallions cashews yummm)
• lots of nutrition and filling food power (see veggie list and feel amazing)
• the most zingy Thai sesame garlic dressing (soy honey lime garlic sesame oil lemongrass)