Flavorful Salad on a Budget

I've been in the mood for a salad dish that fits my teeny tiny college budget without bland flavor or time consuming instructions. My meals became quite monotonous this week and something had to be done, so Tuesday after work I headed over to the grocery store with ingredients for the recipe below in mind. Lucky me, all the ingredients were super cheap and I already had several stocked in my pantry.

Inexpensive? Check.

The recipe I used is from a collective cookbook that my natural health doctor put together after a patient potluck. I altered it a smidgen to fit my diet specifications, but I have the original at the end of this post.

The dressing needs to refrigerate for a few hours so I got that started first. In my trusty Magic Bullet I blended 1 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup white vinegar, 2 Tbs low sodium soy sauce, and 3/4 cup sugar.

It looked weird.

I stuck the bullet of dressing in the fridge and let it chill for two hours.

Next I heated 1/4 cup of olive oil in a pan and browned 1/4 cup sunflower seeds with approximately 3oz gluten free rice noodles. The recipe called for a block of buckwheat ramen noodles, but those aren't gluten free so I estimated a weight equivalent in rice noodles. I'm resourceful like that.

The 1/4 cup of oil that the recipe called for was way to much as far as I'm concerned. Next time (and there will be a next time!) I will just drizzle oil over the pan.

I let the now lightly browned noodles and seeds cool while I combined 1 bag of cole slaw and 1 bag of broccoli slaw in a large mixing bowl.

Then I added the seeds and noodles to the cabbage and tossed it again.

 

The refrigerated dressing went on next, followed by one final toss. The original instructed to refrigerate for 20 minutes before serving, but I like my cabbage salads to sit for a day. Maybe I'm the only one, in which case go a head and eat it the same day you make it, but I love a slightly soggy cabbage.

 

The next day it looked like this and tasted awesome!! I foresee this salad making its way into my regular lunch lineup.

 

 

 

It was so tasty I had to have a bowl of it for supper too.

 

Easy? Check.

 

Delicious? Double check.



 

 

 

Original Recipe from Abi Stevens

Ramen/Cabbage Salad
1 bag cole slaw with shredded carrots, or equivalent amount of home-shredded cabbage/ vegetables
1 bag broccoli slaw with shredded carrots
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1 square King Soba ramen noodles, broken into small pieces (these are made with buckwheat flour)

1/4 cup oil

Dressing

1 cup oil

1/4 cup vinegar

2 Tbs coconut aminos (or soy sauce, if you can have it)

3/4 cup sugar, or a blend of sugar and stevia

Blend dressing ingredients together in a blender and store in refrigerator for several hours or overnight. Brown noodles and sunflower seeds in oil, strain, and let cool. Ad to cole slaw mix. Toss in dressing and refrigerate for 20 minutes or so before serving.