Asian Noodle Salad

10/26/2013

I haven’t posted many salads on this site, in fact, this may be the first one ever. It makes use of one of my favorite ingredients: shirataki noodles. They’re thin, translucent, gelatinous traditional Japanese noodles made from the konjac yam (devil’s tongue yam or elephant yam). The word “shirataki” means “white waterfall”, describing the appearance of these noodles. Largely composed of water and glucomannan, a water-soluble dietary fiber, they are very low carb… and while they don’t have much flavor on their own, they’re very tasty when tossed in a light dressing.

I put together an ingredient list last night, darted down the road to Whole Foods this morning to pick up the supplies, then squeezed in a Crossfit WOD before throwing the Asian noodle salad together. I made it through this Crossfit WOD alive, specifically.

I don’t go to Saturday Crossfit workouts often, and as though to punish me for my tardiness, this one was a doozy. Can we talk about pushups for a minute? Coaches throw them into programming like they’re nothing, and the way men pump them out? It’s like someone asking me to do 30 air squats: easy peasy. Except pushups definitely are a different thing altogether… as in, REALLY STRENUOUS. Oh, and then there were burpee box jumps next, which added insult to injury by loading extra-strenuous pushups on top of the regular pushups!

Anyway, I endured a killer workout this morning but a cool, crunchy, spicy Asian noodle salad was just the thing to calm me down. This recipe happens to be paleo, vegan (omit the fish sauce from the dressing) and raw! Yummmmm.

Asian Noodle Salad

Recipe Type: Main

Author: Fresh Planet Flavor

Prep time: 20 mins

Total time: 20 mins

Serves: 3

This simple, refreshing Asian Noodle Salad is full of fresh vegetables in a light sesame sauce. | GrokGrub.com

Ingredients

Salad
1/4 purple cabbage, thinly sliced
1 bell pepper, thinly sliced*
1 package [url href=”https://heyrachelmarion.com/recommends/shirataki-noodles/”]shirataki noodles[/url]
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 head radicchio, leaves separated and washed
Sesame seeds
Chili flakes
Dressing
1 tsp coconut aminos
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp [url href=”https://heyrachelmarion.com/recommends/ginger-juice/”]ginger juice[/url]
1/2 tsp fish sauce (omit for vegan)
1/2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Rinse the shirataki noodles and set them aside in a colander to drain.
Stir together the ingredients for the dressing, then pour over the drained noodles and toss to coat.
Arrange slices of cabbage and bell pepper in the radicchio leaves, then top with a few strands of the noodles in each, plus green onion, sesame seeds and chili flakes.

Notes

I’ve provided exact measurements for the ingredients, but play around with crunchy vegetables in different combinations. Carrots instead of peppers, or add mushrooms and top with cashews. The possibilities are endless![br][br]*I used 1/2 yellow bell pepper and 1/2 orange bell pepper for more color.