Creamy Miso Dressing
In the same week that one of my clients told me she gets bored eating salads all the time, my husband came home from work and announced he was sick of eating salad (he had been hitting up the salad bar at work each day for lunch).
I understand that not everyone gets as excited about leafy greens as I do, but nevertheless I was perplexed. Bored by salad?! HOW? Sick of salad?! NEVER!
I look forward to my (sometimes twice) daily salads, and feel incomplete and dissatisfied without a healthy dose of leaves each day. My definition of salad is a far cry from the iceberg lettuce and mealy tomatoes you typically see in a restaurant. Like Elaine Benes, I'm into BIG salads. I love to construct large, nutritious and substantial salads that fill me up and carry me through to my next meal. And my secret to not getting bored? I always switch it up! I had to devise a plan to make salad more appealing to the masses and to make people see that eating salad does NOT have to be monotonous. So here it is!
THE SALAD-A-DAY CHALLENGE!
You do your part by eating the greens. Whether you're brown-baggin' it at work for lunch, fixing a simple side or creating a mega-meal salad for dinner, get one in every day of the week. Seven Days of Salad.
I'll do my part by creating a new post each day on how to keep things interesting—new tricks to try, new techniques to apply and new ways to open up your mind to the wide world of salad! Start whenever you're ready and let me know how it goes!
My first suggestion for the Salad-a-Day Challenge is to make your own dressing.
It's a simple way to jazz things up AND keep things healthy. Many bottled dressings are laced with sugar, corn syrup, preservatives, low-quality oils and other yucky ingredients. When you make your own dressing at home, you know exactly what's going into it, and you can alter it to fit your own personal tastes. You can make your favorite salad veggies more interesting by dressing them with a new homemade dressing. Here's a great one to try!
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup miso*
1/2 cup tahini
2 1/2 T raw honey
2 T Bragg's or tamari
1 1/2 cup water
INSTRUCTIONS
Blend all ingredients in a blender until creamy. Refrigerate up to one week.
I used organic chickpea miso by South River because it's what I had on hand and I love the taste. This miso contains little chunks of the fermented chickpeas and brown rice as you can see here, but those will blend right out when you process your dressing. You can use any type of miso for this dressing. Serve on top of your favorite salad veggies. This dressing is also delicious drizzled on top of sauteed kale.
