Salad doesn't HAVE to be Boring - Try this Flavourful Salad.

Okay, so I know I'm guilty of thinking this at some point. Generally, I hate salad, with a passion. You order a salad at a restaurant and you're going to be getting a bowl of lettuce, spinach, cucumber, tomatoes and maybe if you're lucky you'll get some nuts and/or seeds.

It's colourful, but boring as all hell and by the end of the 'meal' you need a jaw replacement from chewing on fibre for the last hour and a half. But you don't need to suffer in silence. Next time you tell your friends you're bringing salad round, they'll have such low expectations that when you bring this bad boy around, you'll look like a salad god.

I had to write this recipe down as I want to make it again and I'm terrible at replicating my recipes if I don't write it down. I made it yesterday, so it's fresh in my mind. But take a look at those veggies, this recipe isn't the only thing that's 'fresh'.

Sorry, I'll lose the jokes.

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Anyway, here's how you do it. I won't use exact ingredients, because 1 (I didn't measure it out) and 2 (You might like more of a certain vegetable and I'm not going to take that away from you).

For your grains, I suggest quinoa. You can use any kind, but use a mix if you want some interesting colour variation. In fact, you can use any veggies you like, it really doesn't matter, the chickpeas are the star of the show.

What I used to yield the amount shown in the pictures:

1x Asparagus Bunch
1x Broccolini Bunch
2x Portobello mushrooms
1/2 Cup Frozen Sweetcorn
1 Cup Frozen Peas
2x Red Bell Peppers
2x Medium Potatoes
2x Carrots
Handful of Dried Apricots, chopped
Handful of Sultanas
1/2 Cup Sunflower seeds
2x Vine Tomatoes
3x Cloves garlic
1x Red Onion

You want to take these ingredients, chop them up to how chunky you like them, and cook them (of course you could do it raw) whilst you have 1.5 cups quinoa cooking away. I steamed my potatoes, broccolini and asparagus. I cooked the peas and sweetcorn in a frying pan with the carrots, peppers and mushrooms, along with 3 cloves garlic and the red onion.

Once cooked, added them to the white serving dish as shown, along with the apricots, tomatoes, sultanas and sunflower seeds. The broccolini and asparagus can be thrown in too when cooked along with the potatoes (Potatoes will take longer than the greens). When the quinoa is done, add that too.

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Now for the star of the show, the chickpeas. You can use either dried or canned but I used 2 cans, which were already cooked. If you use fresh, you'll want to soak them and boil them for 15-20 mins to cook before doing the next step.

The star of the show being the chickpeas, you'll be toasting them and adding plenty of flavour to them. I like mine to be nice and smokey and garlicky, hence the amounts of garlic powder and paprika. You can do them how you like.

1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1 Tbsp Worcester Sauce (You can buy a vegan version in certain places)
1 Tbsp Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp Smoked Paprika
1 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
1 Tbsp Dried Parsley (Or just use mixed herbs)
1 Tsp Onion Powder
1 Tsp Turmeric
1 Tsp Cumin Powder
1 Tsp Chilli Flakes

Feel free to toy around with the flavours if you like. I dry toasted the chickpeas until they were slightly brown, without oil. Actually, I didn't use any oil in the cooking of anything, just a non stick pan and water.

Once toasted, takes 5 mins or so, throw on top of the salad with all the ingredients mixed, and serve

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Serve as it is, or with your favourite dressing. I don't bother with oil in any of my cooking so you might consider my dressing rather peculiar, but here's what I used.

Water: Balsamic Vinegar: Maple Syrup: Wholegrain Mustard... In equal ratios. Plus 1 clove of crushed and chopped garlic + pepper and salt. I have a rather strange palate when it comes to dressings so I know this won't work for everyone. Feel free to look around for your favourite dressing recipe, but with these garlicky smokey chickpeas, I've tried it with and without my dressing and it worked fine.

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I'll be working on improving how this recipe reads and my future recipes read in my coming posts, because currently, a wall of text isn't the most pleasant.

Enjoy. Hopefully you'll fall in love with this amazing salad.