Before I started blogging, back in 2007, I was a regular reader of Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks. And I’m still a reader now.
Her food is just as inspiring to me now as it was back then, and I love discovering new ingredients through Heidi’s recipes. And while quinoa wasn’t a new ingredient to me, I loved Heidi’s use of quinoa to make patties, and adaptions of Heidi’s base recipe have become a firm favourite in our house, with zucchini and haloumi quinoa patties, and Asian style quinoa patties (which you’ll find in my cookbook Delicious everyday) becoming weekly staples.
Last week Heidi shared her “Ideal Lunch Salad“. The yoghurt miso dressing sounded divine, and I couldn’t wait to make it. I wasn’t quite sure how it would go down with my husband though, as the salad contained chickpeas, which my husband despises. So I sneakily decided to roughly mash the chickpeas, hoping he wouldn’t recognise them, but no such luck. The upside was I had leftovers of the salad for lunch the next day. Every cloud has a silver lining!
I made a few changes to Heidi’s salad, based on what I had on hand and our tastes. Replacing the broccoli for green beans, and removing the avocado and black olives. I also added some sunflower seeds.
This delicious substantial salad makes a wonderful lunch or side salad and I think it would also make wonderful picnic food. I can see this salad will become a lunch staple for me for sometime.
Green bean salad with yoghurt miso dressing
Ingredients
- 3 celery stalks very thinly sliced
- 1 cup cooked or tinned chickpeas drained and rinsed
- 3 handfuls rocket arugula
- 1/3 cup toasted pepitas
- 1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds
- 1/2 small red onion finely sliced
- 2 cups of green beans trimmed
- YOGHURT MISO DRESSING:
- 1 clove medium garlic grated
- 1 tablespoon white miso
- 1 tablespoon mirin
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- big pinch of ground cumin
- 1/3 cup / 80 ml plain yogurt or substitute coconut or other dairy-free yogurt
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Steam or blanch the beans in a saucepan of simmering water until tender. Drain and set aside to cool.
- Combine all of the salad ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine.
- Add all of the dressing ingredients to a small bowl or jug and whisk to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Just before serving add the dressing to the salad, about half at first, and toss to combine. Add additional dressing until it's dressed to your taste.
