Thai Peanut Butter Salad

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Wishes Are Like ... Strawberry Infused Balsamic Vinegar

Twice a month I have lunch with a girlfriend. She is an amazing cook, so we always eat well. This is a salad I made for one of those get together and was requested to write a recipe for it. I like this salad because it s liking having 2 salads in one. It is actually quite hardy and would make a great meat-free, dairy-free, carb friendly dinner. It looks pretty too, which is nice when you have guests!

Please read the whole recipe before cooking!

Peanut-butter Coconut Salad Dressing

½ cup peanut butter

⅛ cup coconut milk

2-3 TBL honey or coconut sugar

1 TBL soy sauce

1 TBL fish sauce

1 minced garlic clove

* (Add these later)

juice of half lime

1 generous tsp. grated, fresh turmeric (or tsp. dried ground turmeric)

salt and pepper as need

**Water, if needed

In a small sauce pan add the first 6 ingredients. Heat ingredients together on low setting on your stove until melted and whisked together. You do NOT want to cook this, you are just warm it up enough to melt ingredients together. Take pan off heat and let cool 10 minutes, then add lime juice and turmeric. Whisk, together, taste and adjust flavors to your liking.

**If the dressing is too thick you can whisk water in. Start with a TBL at a time, the dressing with separate at first but keep whisking and the dressing with come together.

Asian Vinaigrette

½ cup mild flavored oil, I like avocado oil

3 drops toasted sesame oil

2 TBL (or more to suite your taste) rice wine vinegar

1 TBL fish sauce

1 finely minced garlic clove

fresh ground pepper

soy sauce or salt as needed

Whisk all ingredients in a small bowl. Tastes and adjust to your liking.

First Salad

2 cups or so of greens (I used spinach)

a small bit of chopped fresh cilantro

1. Toss greens in Asian vinaigrette. Line your platter with dressed greens.

Second Salad

3 cups or so chopped raw veggies. I used the following veggies, but use what you like: radishes, snow peas, bell pepper, cucumber, cabbage, green onion, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower.

Peanut-butter dressing

avocado

roasted salted peanuts

fresh lime

2. Chop veggies in bite-size pieces.

3. Mix veggies in a bowl with peanut-butter dressing.

4. Top greens in vinaigrette with dressed chopped veggies.

5. Garnish salad with avocado, roasted salted peanuts, lime wedges and more fresh cilantro if you like!

note, if you have leftover dressing, it will keep in fridge for one week.