Macheesmo

When I made my asparagus pizza a few weeks ago I came to the realization that it’s almost easier to sliver vegetables than it is to chop them.

This is a bit counter-intuitive because it looks like it would be harder, but it’s really quick work assuming you have a decent veggie peeler.

I decided to take that idea to the limit with this Vegetable Ribbon Salad.  Everything in it is slivered, ribboned, and sliced super thin.

The only thing it isn’t thin on is flavor!

The Ribbon Salad

by Nick

Serves:

Serves 4

Prep Time:

15 mins

Total Time:

15 mins

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Beautiful fresh veggies ribboned and tossed with a light lemon dressing makes for a wonderful salad! This salad takes like Spring!

Ingredients

8-10 asparagus spears

2 medium carrots

1 medium parsnip

1 medium zucchini

1 lemon, zest + a drizzle of juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, slivered

Salt and pepper

Instructions

1) Wash all the vegetables and peel the zucchini, parsnip, and carrots. Snap the hard ends off of the asparagus.

2) Use a good peeler to sliver each vegetable into ribbons. Add ribbons to a bowl.

3) Add the zest of a lemon and a drizzle of lemon juice along with olive oil. Toss everything together.

4) Top salad with almonds and slivered parmesan cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Vegetable Ribbon Salad

The Veggie Lineup

There was only one rule that I tried to stick to when I was thinking of veggies for this Vegetable Ribbon Salad.  I wanted things that were long so they would make really nice ribbons.

I came up with four good ones: asparagus, carrots, parsnips, and zucchini.  I’m sure there are others that would work wonderfully though.

Just wash all the veggies and peel the ones that need peeling (carrots, parsnips, and maybe the zucchini).

Then just use your peeler to make long slices of each vegetable.  It’s really very straightforward and even a kid could do it.

It is important to have a good peeler though or you might get frustrated quickly.  This peeler is my favorite and is actually off of an infomercial.  Whatever.  It works great.

There’s no rhyme or reason to how I ribboned the root vegetables.  I basically just peeled them and then kept peeling them.

Easy enough!

For the zucchini I did the same thing, but I stopped peeling once I got to the core where the seeds are.  That part of the zucchini wouldn’t be great to ribbon because it would just be a long ribbon of seeds.

The light green flesh is great though!

Then just toss all of those veggies in a bowl.

I just love the fresh look that this Vegetable Ribbon Salad has.

Other Add-ins

The ribboned veggies make for a great salad base, but it needs some flavor and texture.

For the texture, I used some slivered almonds.  They keep with the thin theme and give it some crunch.

I also added the zest of one lemon and a big squeeze of lemon juice.

You don’t want too much lemon juice. I probably used about a tablespoon of juice.

Also, drizzle on some olive oil and a pinch of salt and pepper.

The Parmesan

If you were looking for an all vegetable salad, you could serve it as-is, but I decided to kick it up a notch by adding some parmesan cheese.

In reality, any hard cheese would work fine.  I just like being able to sliver it like all the other ingredients.

Top the salad with the Parmesan slivers and you are in business!

The flavors in this Vegetable Ribbon Salad are really bright and it tastes like spring.

It looks pretty impressive and like it took a lot of time, but it’s actually super-quick to throw together.

Give this a shot if you are in a salad slump!