I started making Vermicelli Salad the other day. Vermicelli is my new find at my favorite out of the way grocery store! It's a thin rice noodle ordinarily used for stir fry, soup, and spring rolls. I've been buying the brown rice version and making a sort of no-fry stir fry salad. There's likely some precedent for this. But I've really just been taking my typical Quinoa w/ Rice Vinegar & Tamari recipe and adapting it to a fresh salad. Today, I also had some radish leftover from making Falafel w/ Hummus, Tzatziki, Radish, & Sprouts. So, really this meal is quite the amalgam of everything that I've already been making! Just mixed together with all of the produce left in the refrigerator.
Sometimes I crave a good salad, though. I'm not ordinarily one for salads and you'll never see me order one at a restaurant or pick one up in the grocery store. Working in the restaurant industry, salads are one of the worst things that you can order. Lettuce is difficult to keep fresh and oftentimes comes already wilted. It easily dries out on top of the line, while concentrating moisture at the bottom of the container. So, there's a constant battle between it spoiling from drying out and spoiling from collecting water and bacteria.
Not to mention the fact that so many salad dressings don't actually contain real ingredients! They're full of processed ingredients and laden with unnecessary fats, sugars, salts, and preservatives.
Since salads are already considered a "health food," we often pay little attention to what actually goes into them. Which, if you look at the ingredients label, is truly disgusting.
When I eat a salad, I want it to be fresh, light, and airy. And contain actual food! The whole host of unpronounceable ingredients created in a laboratory are not food. And, while they may make the salad dressing in the deep, dark crevices of your refrigerator last forever? That is not fresh and light and airy!
So, here I present salad that is actually salad that I will eat. Which also happens to be delicious.
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Variations of Vermicelli Salad
This vermicelli salad trend has become a bit of a staple in my culinary world as of late. I've been turning whatever produce I have on hand or looks good in the grocery store at the time into them. It's a great recipe to mix and match ingredients in. The same basic principle applies. Simply mix in vermicelli with tamari, tahini, and rice vinegar. Then add whatever combination of produce, nuts, and other ingredients that you want.
This vermicelli salad combines radish, carrot, bell pepper, cucumber, avocado, ginger, garlic, tahini, tamari, and rice vinegar with crushed peanuts and sprouts. It's a great light and airy salad. Feel free to mix and match whatever produce that you have on hand or to fit your own personal preference. Vermicelli salads are essentially an unfried stir fry where you can toss together whatever produce you have lying around in 15 minutes. The crisp crunch of the fruits fruits and vegetables is incredibly refreshing on a bright, summer day.
Add about 4 inches of water to a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat.
Cook vermicelli according to the manufacturer's instructions.Vermicelli cooks very quickly. I tend to add the vermicelli and then immediately remove it from heat. Then, go on to prepare the produce. Merely sitting in the once boiling water is sufficient enough soften it enough to eat without overcooking.
Assemble Salad
Mince and chop all of the produce and add to a large bowl.
It can help to mix the tamari, rice vinegar, and tahini together in a separate bowl and then mix in. Although this isn't explicitly necessary as long as the tahini doesn't clump together.
I have also started adding the chopped avocado in afterwards, to keep it from breaking down too much while mixing in the other ingredients. This isn't entirely necessary, though.
Add in sprouts and peanuts afterwards. You can really mix the peanuts in at any time. However, sprouts go back much faster than the other ingredients, so I don't mix them in until serving and store them separately.
Serve immediately or chill in the refrigerator for about an hour. I'm quite fond of this dish at room temperature or mixed in with salmon or scrambled eggs. It keeps incredibly well in the refrigerator, though. There's enough sodium and acidity in the mix to last for about a week without the produce browning. The liquid will start to separate and just need stirring before serving again.
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