The Root Cause

Summer Rainbow Salad

Over the Christmas period, we drove 1,900 km’s over 6 days in our car, so we didn’t have access to our usual delicious real food. We ate lots of food our bodies weren’t used to eating much of, and by the time we returned, we were all sluggish and desperate for veggies. So I have been creating lots of salads. I love salads because you don’t need to know how to cook at all. My simple guiding principle is the more colour the better, and I usually stick with one simple salad dressing. This Summer Rainbow Salad is an example of what we’ve been eating. This was made for lunch, but you could easily pimp it up by serving it with grilled chicken, white fish, salmon on top, or even stir through some beef strips.

I’ve included the veggies we had in ours, but go with the veggies your family likes. Remember, the rainbow is key – choose veggies and nuts which are red, orange, yellow, green, purple/blue, white.

Salad Ingredients

  • 1 cup cooked quinoa
  • 1/2 red capsicum, sliced or diced (your preference)
  • 1 small carrot, grated
  • 1 cup of roasted pumpkin and sweet potato (we love the natural sweetness roasted pumpkin and sweet potato offers)
  • 1/2 corn cob, cut kernels from cob
  • 2 cups green veg (we had 1 cup of cabbage sliced, 1 cup of broccoli & beans)
  • 1 cup salad greens (we had rocket)
  • 1 cup purple cabbage, sliced
  • 1/4 cup sultanas (optional, include if you want a bit of sweetness in the salad)
  • 1/2 cup raw macadamias chopped

Salad Method

  1. Cut everything
  2. Throw everything in a big bowl
  3. Add the dressing
  4. Mix gently so all mixed through
  5. Serve

Dressing Ingredients

  • 3 tblspns olive oil
  • 1 tblspn lemon juice
  • 1/2 tspn french mustard
  • pinch of salt and pepper to season

Dressing Method

  1. Put all ingredients in a screw top jar
  2. Shake jar
  3. Use this dressing on the summer rainbow salad or any salad really.

This quantity makes enough for one large salad like this one. In summer, I tend to make this up in quantities much larger than this and keep in the fridge then pull it out when needed. Then I adjust the flavours depending on what salad I make. Sometimes adding paprika, sometimes cumin & coriander, maybe a splash of tamari etc.