Vegan Victory Salad
I call this salad Vegan Victory Salad because it is packed full of goodness and it’s a heart healthy recipe.
Back in April I was focused on eating high protein low calorie meals – I rediscovered something I already knew I cannot maintain a low-calorie (1400 if you’re wondering) diet. So I kind of threw out all my plans on that and I didn’t actually post this salad recipe that I had written up. In fact I kind of dropped twimii and healthy-eating and all that since April. I will never try to reduce my calories again. I just can’t manage it. Anyway I should have posted this recipe. It needs more rice to be really good and also more dressing – but it’s good.
There’s about 26 grams of vegan-friendly protein in this salad. So to be quite honest with you, this is a heavy salad. I focused on getting as much protein in the dish as possible – and in making sure it was all vegan-friendly. The reason? Because I’m trying to have follow a vegan menu one day a week and I am also trying to eat on average 60 grams of protein every day.
I like the flavours in it. It’s basically like a cross between a Mountain Atlas Salad and a brown rice Tabbouleh with a tin of chickpeas and a fistful of walnuts thrown in for good measure. So there’s lots of healthy fat and fibre in this too.
It is heavy though. So if you’re not specifically looking for protein rich vegan lunch option what I really recommend is doubling the amount of rice in this and making it a lovely salad for two. And doing it that way you’d still get about 15 grams of protein per serving.
But if you’re looking for a filling vegan lunch option that’s rich in protein this could be for you.
Also it’s chock-full of ingredients that to me feel very cleansing; pomegranate seeds, lime juice, tomatoes, cucumber, mint and parsley. So it’s worth a taste or two.
Ingredients
- 200g cooked brown rice
- 1/2 cucumber, deseeded and diced
- seed from 1 pomegranate
- 2 tomatoes, peeled, deseeded and diced
- 3 spring onions, topped, tailed and sliced
- leaves of 2 sprigs of mint, finely sliced
- 2 sprigs parsley, finely sliced
- juice of 1 lime
- 30g walnuts
- 1 tin chickpeas, very well rinsed and drained
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- salt and pepper.
Instructions
- Combine all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Sprinkle over the lime juice and stir around. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the olive oil.
Notes
Tip: When cooking the brown rice add a couple of cloves of garlic and a pinch of salt to the pot. You discard the cloves when it's cooked - they give brown rice a great flavour.
