This salad got rave reviews at a recent event I hosted and I felt it deserved a space here too! The event was wellness focused with a fun mini bootcamp followed by a healthy-ish vegetarian meal. Now we all know the importance of proteins and in the midst of a great menu, I felt protein was still lacking. Enter – quinoa! Summer watermelon is abundant at the moment and always welcome but I was sick and tired of the usual stereotypical watermelon and feta salads. I needed something different. So quinoa and watermelon came to mind and since we had an Asian feast happening (Thai curry, rice and teriyaki peanut potatoes), I felt an Asian twist was called for. Adapting from the Watermelon QUInoa Curry Salad, I added some Thai-style flavours by making the tadka in coconut oil, adding ginger, soya sauce, rice wine vinegar, Thai basil leaves and sweetener.
Try this one out – it has the stamp of approval from my favourite group of girlies!
The Recipe
6-8
Ingredients
1 cup cooked quinoa (with salt and a piece of ginger added to the water)
2 tsp coconut oil
1 medium onion, sliced
5-8 ginger juliennes
Pinch of salt
8-10 curry leaves
2 dry red chilies
1 tbsp brown sugar or coconut sugar or honey
4 tbsp dark soya sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp cold water
Handful of chopped fresh Thai basil leaves
Handful of spring onions, finely chopped
Caramelised peanuts
¼ cup toasted and broken peanuts
2-3 tbsp sugar
Instructions
First make the caramelized peanuts by melting sugar
Once it starts brown throw in the peanuts and remove from heat and swirl the pan to coat the peanuts well and place the peanuts aside on parchment paper to cool and harden
Then break it up and store in a container in the fridge until ready to use
Salad:
Warm the coconut oil (could be in the same sugar pan!) and fry the onions and ginger with pinch of salt
Then once they have browned, add the curry leaves and dry red chilies
Fry until crispy, and then at the end switch off the heat and stir in the sweetener (sugar or honey) and mix well
Pour this over the quinoa and stir well
In a separate bowl whisk together soya sauce, rice wine vinegar and cold water and pour into the quinoa
Just before serving add the watermelon, basil leaves, spring onions and caramelized peanuts and toss well
Should be served very cold.
