I might be a little obsessed with this pesto and this salad. And the two together. Mostly the two together. There’s something about potatoes smothered in pesto that’s all kinds of right. Plus potato salad has long been a favourite food of mine… I just don’t usually make it this green!

Speaking of being green, this version of potato salad is loaded with green goodness. There’s loads of interesting and tasty veg going on and the pesto dressing is made with 4 cups of herbs alone so you know you’re putting something good for you in your body. Plus boiled and then cooled potatoes are a source of resistant starch, hey good for my gut food.

This is my first recipe in my gut health programme, I ate this with a serving of salmon with the same pesto used in this salad used to give it a crispy top coating. The recipe makes more than enough dressing to do both. You could also add grilled chicken to this salad or eggs for a vegetarian option. But the salmon was amazing. If you have left over dressing have it with your eggs in the morning or dollop it on a baked sweet potato. Yum.

The pesto is dairy free and doesn’t need parmesan at all. It’s full of flavour from the different herbs, but make sure you use a really good quality olive oil. I used a beautiful organic one from Cockatoo Grove.

I’ll post the salmon recipe later in the week, until then make this salad for your lunches this week. It’s a dream.

Serves 4

Ingredients

500g baby potatoes or chat

1.5 heads of broccoli, chopped into bite sized florets, can chop the stalks and use too (Waste less!)

1 cup peas, I used frozen

1 fennel bulb, outer leaves removed and very finely sliced

1 lemon

1/8 tsp pepper

1 Tbs olive oil

4 radishes, finely sliced

1 avocado, sliced

2 Tbs sunflower seeds

4 tbs dill, roughly chopped

3 cups spinach

Pesto:

2 cups basil leaves

1 cup dill leaves

1 cup parsley leaves

1/2 cup sunflower seeds, toasted

1 lemon

2 Tbs olive oil

1/8 tsp pepper

1 clove garlic

Directions

Place potatoes in a pot and fill with water to just cover. Add a generous pinch of salt and bring to the boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook for 10-20 minutes, this will depend on the size, or until tender. Set aside to cool.

Steam broccoli florets over the potatoes in a teaming basket for a couple of minutes until just tender. Set aside in the same bowl as the frozen peas to cool, the heat from the broccoli will defrost the peas.

Slice fennel finely and combine in a small bowl with the juice and zest of the lemon, pepper, a pinch of salt and the olive oil. Toss to coat and set aside.

Pesto: Place herbs, the juice and zest of the lemon, garlic, pepper and sunflower seeds in a food processor. Blitz to combine, add the olive oil along with 3 Tbs of water to make the pesto dressing.

To serve: Toss the potatoes in 3 tablespoon of the pesto dressing and combine with all other salad ingredients (your prepped broccoli and peas, the fennel along with it’s liquid, radishes, spinach, dill and sunflower seeds). Taste and add more pesto if the flavour isn’t strong enough.

Keep leftover pesto in a sealed container in the fridge.

HH. x