A simple hearty winter salad made from shredded carrot, beet, radish, celriac and cabbage. You’ll love the combination of earthy sweet, spicy and nutty flavors.
The key to eating more raw root veggies, is shredding them, that way they are softer to enjoy in a salad. The cabbage then adds a little crisp, or a crunch if you cut the slices thicker. The texture is slightly softer than coleslaw due to more shredded veggies, which release a flavorful liquid that melds everything together quite nicely.
Local Winter Vegetables
You can use any variety of carrots, beets, radish, etc. You could also use kohlrabi, broccoli, kale, butternut squash, or any other winter veggie you prefer. There are some winter veggies I wouldn’t eat raw, so don’t get to carried away; for instance I wouldn’t put potatoes in this salad. 😉
I try to only use vegetables from the farmers because they are always more fresh and flavorful; plus supporting family farms feels good! They are hard working people, who put love into what they do, or else they wouldn’t be doing it, I love food that is grown with love.
You’ll know exactly what’s in season and what’s not when you buy produce from the local farmers, they can give you an idea of what it tastes like and what their favorite ways of preparing the ingredient are. Sometimes they even have samples!
The older the produce, the more flavor lost. I’m not sure this salad would taste the same with produce from hundreds of miles away.
Storing Root Vegetables
I store all the veggies for this salad in the same bag, so all I have to do is pull out the bag and start shredding. Then I put the veggies back in the bag, and back into the refrigerator until next time.
Just about the only vegetables you see in the winter months, are root vegetables, mainly because they store well in a root cellar. They also store for a long time in the fridge under the right conditions. I normally store all of my vegetables in freezer bags, and they last about 2 month.
The trick to storing root vegetables in the fridge is to get the humidity right. Too little moisture and they go limp, too much moisture and they mold. If you put a piece of paper towel in the bags it will soak up any excess moisture, and problem solved.
All you do is put it in a bowl and pour over your favorite dressing. I use more of a pasta salad type dressing, but a ginger soy sauce dressing also sounds good! Any kind of dressing will do.My favorite is this sweet onion dressing from Nicole at Two Acre Farms. Her dressing is the only dressing that allows me to enjoy eating an entire bag of greens in one sitting…it’s so good!!!
Greened Out
I love green salads, and we still have farmers growing and selling many different kinds of greens from their greenhouses. But I buy 5 bags of greens a week in the summer, yes I would eat about 1 bag of greens a day, and I can honestly say I’m greened out.
That doesn’t mean I don’t consume greens in the winter, I just drink them instead. You may have heard me rave about Warrior Greens by Healthforce, and I still do, for good reason, it’s easy and it does the job. It’s mixed with so many different kinds of greens, herbs, probiotics, seeds, and more.
I also consume spirulina, drinking spirulina shots, or I putting over foods like stir fry or spicy popcorn, or any other asian dish where the seaweed taste actually compliments the dish.
Nettle infusions are another favorite way of mine, to get greens in. Like spirulina, it’s loaded with nutrients and super alkalizing!
When you add easy foods like this to your diet, you feel good, and it makes you want to do more good!!
I hope you enjoy all these super healthy ideas!
Winter Root Salad
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup cabbage
- 1 cup carrots
- 1/2 cup beets
- 1/2 cup radish
- 1 tbsp celeriac
- 1/8 cup dressing
INSTRUCTIONS
- Cut the cabbage in half, thinly slice the cabbage downwards, starting from the inside.
- Shred the rest of the veggies.
- Add it all to the bowl and add dressing.