Or, good habits and zucchini noodles.
This recipe came to me as I was trying to keep last week’s promise to develop (and practice!) good food habits. So far, I like this promise. I also like what happens when I put limits or boundaries on my creativity. Come up with any kind of dish for the blog? That is hard, and the mind sort of boggles. (Cake? But… healthy. Cake? No, Laura. Soup? Too many on the blog already… and so forth.) But if you give me a category, like foods from the spiralizer, I get right to work.
This recipe is part brain-child of my spiralizer initiative, and part result of a library book I am enjoying at the moment. Our local public library has a really great cookbook section, and I have been spending time looking at Modern Sauces, by Martha Holmberg. I want to up my sauce game this summer, and Holmberg’s easy recipes and flavor ideas are lighting up my brain. I love a good herby green sauce – preferably with a nice acidic bite and some heat in there as well. This one, thrown together in minutes with my beloved immersion blender, fits the bill nicely.
I wanted to add some staying power to the zucchini noodles without meat or dairy, so I decided to incorporate some soba. The barely cooked zucchini and the chewy soba pair perfectly. All that remains are some colorful veggies and a good toss in the green herby dressing. You could add nuts to this, or edamame, if you want some protein. Or you could crumble some sharp cheese like feta, or add some shredded chicken. This salad would work well with all of those things. I think I have time to try them all, now that I’m practicing good habits and all.
- 3 medium zucchini, spiralized or shaved into noodles with a veggie peeler
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 bundle of soba noodles
- about a cup or so of finely shredded red cabbage
- 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 2 scallions, finely chopped
- a small bundle of mint, leaves removed from stems
- ½ a medium bunch of cilantro, stems trimmed a bit if woody/dirty
- 1 clove of garlic, smashed with the flat of your knife and peeled
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- juice of one lemon
- salt and pepper
- 1 jalapeño, seeds and membranes removed (or left in, as you like it)
- First make the dressing. Put the mint, cilantro, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, jalapeño, and a good grind of salt and pepper into a beaker and blend with your immersion blender. Alternately, blend in a food processor or regular blender, but you will have to do more pausing and scraping down with those. Taste, smile, and set aside.
- Bring a medium pot of salted water to the boil, add the soba, and cook for 4 minutes. Drain and rinse the noodles in cold water.
- Add a tablespoon of olive oil to a large skillet and heat over medium high flame. Add the zucchini noodles and cook for no more than 2 minutes, or just until the zucchini starts to soften.
- Add the soba and zucchini to a large bowl. Add ⅔ of the dressing and toss to coat. Add the red pepper, the cabbage, and the scallions. Toss, then add the remaining dressing. Garnish with any stray mint or cilantro leaves, and enjoy.
Mobidea
August 31, 2017 at 3:20 pmI was looking up for info like this, finally I got it, thank you.
Laura
August 31, 2017 at 8:44 pmHi Mobidea, I’m so glad!