Zeal Recipes: Aromatics Summer Salad with Lemon Mint Chia Dressing

This light summer salad brings together the taste of some of the warm season’s best flavors. We love the way the fennel and strawberries pair together. Make a larger batch of the lemon mint chia dressing and use it on your other meals throughout the week!

This recipe serves 3-4

Ingredients:

-For the Salad-
8 oz. arugula
⅓ cup pistachios
1 fennel bulb, sliced thin or shaved with box grater or mandolin
1 cup chopped strawberries
1 carrot shaved with either a peeler or box grater or mandolin

-For the Dressing-
⅓ cup lemon juice (2-3 lemons)
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
1T honey
1 clove garlic
1 T diced shallot
1 cup water
¼ cup chia seeds
¼ cup packed mint leaves
¼ tsp salt
dash of black pepper

Procedure:

• First, whisk the chia seeds into the water and let rest for 15 minutes. You will want to whisk it a few times in the first two minutes to prevent the chia sees from clumping.
• For the rest of the dressing ingredients, it’s chef’s choice as to whether you want to dice everything with a knife or break out the power tools, i.e., blender or immersion blender. Either way, just combine  everything while the chia are expanding in the water.
• Once the chia have sufficiently plumped up (and don’t worry if they look like a solid mass of chia), pulse blend or whisk with other dressing ingredients and refrigerate until you are ready to use on the salad. You’ll have about a pint of dressing.
• Wash Arugula and spin or pat dry with towels. Just be sure the greens are not wet or they wont really take the dressing.
• Toast the pistachios. In a 350º oven, put the pistachios on a skillet or baking sheet and toast for 6-8 minutes. If you use a toaster over, watch closely since the heating element is so much closer to the nuts, they can burn quickly.
• Arrange the salad with the greens topped with the remaining ingredients. Serve with the mint chia dressing.

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