About the Recipe
This is a salad that will serve you well as a main course. It gives you your 5-a-day heling of vegetables plus protein and calcium from the brown rice and tofu. Best of all, the wasabi soy dressing makes it all taste great too!
Ingredients
2 portions of cooked brown rice
(I cook 1 cup /140g/8oz of brown rice in a rice cooker as it is a convenient amount to cook. I use 1/2 the cooked rice for this salad and save the rest. If your have bigger appetites to feed, you can add more rice to the salad accordingly)
1/2 a medium size cucumber
15 baby tomatoes
3 spring onions
1 bell pepper
1 medium avocado
300g / 8oz pack of silk tofu or firm tofu
for the wasabi soy dressing:
2 tsp of wasabi paste from a tube*
1/2 tbsp of honey
juice from 1 lemon, appox. 2 tbsp
1 tbsp of Japanese rice vingar
1 tbsp of soy sauce
2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp of toasted sesame seeds for topping (optional)
*wasabi paste available in tubes has a stronger flavour than what you might get with a sushi takeaway. so, if you decide to use wasabi left over from your sushi, then use double the amount
Preparation
first, rinse 1 cup of brown rice 2 - 3 times and drain. cook the rice in a rice cooker or a saucepan
next, prep your vegetables. slice the cucumber into quarters longways, then cut into segments. place in a large mixing bowl
halve the 15 baby tomatoes and add to the bowl
remove the tops and bottoms of the spring onions, then dice and add to the mixing bowl
halve and deseed the bell pepper. slice, then cut into the bite sized pieces and add to the mixing bowl
cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and peel. slice and dice into bite sized pieces. add to the bowl.
remove the block tofu from its packaging. cut the block in half to create a top and bottom layer., then, slice longways and cut into about 1 cm / 1/2 in cubes. drain any excess liquid from the tofu before adding to the bowl
to prepare the wasabi soy dressing:
put 2 tsp of wasabi paste and 1/2 tbsp of honey into a small bowl. squeeze and add the juice of 1 lemon. mix well until the wasabi paste and honey are smoothy blended
add 1 tbsp of rice vinegar, 1 tbsp of soy sauce and 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil to the jar and stir until combined
add the brown rice and tofu to the salad vegetables in the large mixing bowl
pour the dressing in and gently mix everything together, making sure not to break up the tofu
lastly, sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds and your tofu and brown rice salad with wasabi soy dressing is ready to eat