Christmas is not only cakes, puddings and cookies. You can spread a Christmas charm on to all festive meals. With couple ingredients, ordinary red cabbage side salad may become more special and festive. Simply by adding, dried berries, some cinnamon, handful of nuts or almonds and orange juice, you can prepare delicious side salad for your Christmas dinner.
Especially vegetarians and vegans may include this recipe in their Christmas menu, adding plenty of nuts to increase the amount of healthy fats. Red cabbage is a great source of Vitamin C and Vitamin K, so make sure you prepare a large bowl of Christmas red cabbage salad for you and your family. Cruciferous vegetables has a high water content, and is a good source of dietary fiber and other nutrients such as antioxidants. Personally I like eating veggies raw – I like the crunchiness and freshness of raw cabbage. But if you have problems with eating raw vegetables, you can easily cook or steam your veggies, so they will be easier to digest. It is best to steam vegetables. As a result of heating, ingredients that need contact with heat will be activated, and the rest won’t go to water. Veggies also should not be overheated. To minimize the loss of valuable ingredients, boil in a little water and strain as soon as the veg is ready. According to 2008 report in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, cooked cabbage (also other veggies) supply more antioxidants, such as carotenoids and ferulic acid than raw. Vitamin C doesn’t like to be cooked so veggies loosing it in high temperatures. So the best option is to eat veggies cooked and raw interchangeably.
Anyway, if you have any problems with eating raw cabbage, you can simply steam it or cook it in some water, don’t forget to add a little bit od vinegar to it to lock in the colour. Cool it down and follow the recipe. I hope this side salad will be one of the stars of your Christmas menu.
Christmas inspired red cabbage side salad
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 red cabbage
- 1 small red onion
- 1 carrot
- juice from 1 orange
- couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 2 handfuls of dried berries (cranberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants or raisins)
- 1 tsp lemon pepper (or coarse)
- good pinch of natural rock salt
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- optionally: almond flakes or walnuts
DIRECTIONS
Wash all veggies thoroughly. Strip off the outer leaves of cabbage, then slice into quarters, cut out the hard central core on each quarter. Finely sherd and place in the large bowl. Now finely chop red onion, grate the carrot and add to cabbage. Give it a good stir. Drizzle with olive oil, orange juice, sprinkle with salt, pepper and cinnamon. Also add dried berries. Give it a really good stir, so all the ingredients mix together.
Put to fridge for about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with almond flakes or walnuts before serving (you can toast them as well if you like). My advice is to add nuts or almond just before serving, if you mix them with salad and leave in the fridge they might become soggy, and won’t be as crispy as they should.
You can store it in the fridge for about 2 days.
Source of knowledge:
Eat Better Feel Happy 