Peanut Ginger Asian Crunch Salad

Eat the rainbow!

There is something so exciting to me when I create a recipe that is full of color and raw vegetables like this Asian crunch salad. I am not a raw vegan, and I don't think that eating raw vegan meals is the ultimate answer to achieve great health. However I do think that there are tons of benefits to eating raw meals.

When I was on my health grind big time, I was eating raw vegan salads pretty much everyday for lunch, and I ended up losing tons of weight just by eating more raw vegetables. Why did this happen? It's simple really, I am a volume eater so I will keep eating until my stomach is like busting full (not even exaggerating). Raw vegetables take up the most space in your stomach, so when you eat meals that are full of uncooked vegetables you are filling up your stomach with less calories. If you're trying to lose weight I would definitely recommend How Not To Diet by Dr. Greger. This book honestly changed the way I eat forever, it's so good!

Salads to Meal Prep

I am a huge meal prep type of gal. I'm a college student and I have a job, and I have this blog. Therefore I simply do not have time right now to make fresh salads everyday. With that said, I still want to eat salads and other healthy recipes daily. Most salads are HORRIBLE for meal prep. They last maybe a day, then bam! Slimy and gross. After many tragic salad losses, I have developed some meal prep safe salad recipes just like this asian crunch salad that will store in the fridge the entire work week! My favorite meal prep friendly salads are:

• Rainbow Kale Salad
• Winter Dinner Salad
• Roasted Winter Salad
• Lemon Avocado Kale salad
• Winter Kale Salad
• Barley Pesto Salad

Okay, so maybe there is a trend...lots of kale, well basically exclusively kale. The thing is, kale stores extremely well in the fridge once dressed, whereas greens like romaine get soggy quickly. Cabbage also stores very well, so that's why recipes like this Asian crunch salad work so well.

Why use peanut butter instead of oil in this Asian crunch salad?

I've been asked why I opt for nut and seed butters instead of oils many times, and the answer is simple: nutrients. Oil is essentially just the fat stripped away from a perfectly naturally fat and delicious food. For example there's peanut oil that fast food chains deep fry their food in, and there's peanut butter (I am talking about 100% peanuts peanut butter here) which is just ground up peanuts, aka plants! I could have used toasted sesame oil, or some other kind of oil for this Asian crunch salad instead of peanut butter, but I knew that peanut butter would give me all the flavors I was craving as well as the health benefits!

When you choose the option that is less processed and closer to its original form you are choosing the option that is high in all other categories and not just fat. You get essential nutrients like protein and fiber, whereas the oil is just the fat. This goes for more than just peanuts, there's sesame (sesame oil vs. tahini), Olive oil vs olives being the most popular, the list goes on. At the end of the day my rule of thumb is to always try to eat foods as close to their original form as possible!

Ingredients for this Asian Crunch Salad:

• Purple cabbage
• Sweet peppers
• English cucumbers
• Cilantro
• Cashews
• Carrots
• Peanut butter
• Rice wine vinegar
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Peas
• Green onions
• Liquid aminos