This baby packs a flavour punch + is filled with loads of veg to help you get your daily fix. You could make it with any noodles you have on hand and it will work out just fine. I know I’ve posted a few noodle based recipes lately but that’s because they’re so good for this warm weather we’ve been having, a 30 degree spring days (celsius for you international peeps) is crazy for Melbourne, so maybe I’ve gone a little crazy for cold salads too. Just maybe.

This is great just by itself or you can serve it with some roast chicken. I butterflied a whole chook the other night, smothered it in green curry paste and put it in a 180 degree oven. 45 minutes later (the salad was made in 20 of those minutes!) we had this huge salad and a roast chook for a delicious dinner… and lunches for days. I love making one big meal every few days that will sort me out for a couple of days worth of lunches to follow. It means that your dinner prep is doubling as lunch prep and that’s the kind of time saving genius I’m all about.

The coriander pesto the noodles, and salad, are dressed with came about as our local green grocer was basically giving coriander away, with two huge bunches only setting us back $1. But it needed to be used stat and the best way I know to use a crap load of herbs is pesto. But when I suggested coriander pesto my boyfriend looked at me like I had two heads. So I clarified by saying ‘with peanuts and ginger and chilli and stuff’. I now must have had 3 heads. But it’s really good, super pungent, stuff. It’s also crazy good on avocado toast.

Store the pesto in your fridge for up to a week.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Pesto

2 cups coriander leaves, firmly packed (this should be 1 large bunch of coriander, leaves stalks and a couple of the well washed roots. )

1/2 cup roasted, unsalted, peanuts

1.5 tsp soy sauce

1/3 cup olive oil (a lightly flavoured one will be best)

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp black vinegar or rice wine vinegar could work

juice and zest of one lime

1 spring onion, roughly chopped

1/2 a hot red chilli (or a whole mild one)

1 tsp freshly grated ginger

1 small clove of garlic, crushed

Salad

300g noodles of choice (I used egg white egg noodles, but rice stick, egg or even spiralized zucchini would work)

1 large carrot, spiralized or grated

1 cup of cucumber, halved and thinly sliced

2/3 cup of coriander leaves

1/2 a red chilli (finely sliced)

3 spring onions finely sliced

1 cup bean shoots

1/4 of a small red cabbage finely shredded (2.5 cups approx)

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

pinch salt

3 Tbs roasted peanuts

Directions

Place cabbage in a bowl and dress with vinegar and salt, toss to combine and set aside to pickle slightly (this creates a much milder cabbage flavour and better texture for your salad).

Make pesto: Put all ingredients in a small food processor and blend until pesto consistency is reached. Taste and adjust seasoning and flavouring as required. Scrape into an airtight container.

Make salad: Cook noodles as per packet instructions, drain refresh briefly in cold water and drain again. Toss with 2 tablespoons of the pesto you’ve just made. Drain the cabbage and combine with noodles, coriander, carrot, cucumber, spring onion, and 2/3 of the bean shoots. Add more pesto to this mix if you want to. Top with remaining bean shoots, the sliced chilli and the peanuts and dot around another tablespoon of the pesto.

Enjoy!

HH. x

P.s This keeps in the fridge for lunches for a couple of days.