Cabbage, Quinoa, & Bacon Salad

It's amazing what a little bacon will do to liven up a bunch of healthy ingredients. A lot of bacon will do even more. But I malign the parts of this salad that are not bacon; they are really very tasty too. You would think with all the shredded cabbage and grated carrot it would be a bit cole-slaw like, but with the quinoa and bacon it really isn't. This was greeted with enthusiasm and disappeared in a flash.

I am saying 4 to 6 servings, which assumes it is a side salad. It is a very substantial one though, and it will not do badly as a meal in itself. Even there, it may stretch to 4 servings.

4 to 6 servings
30 minutes prep time not including cooking the quinoa

Cook the Quinoa:
3/4 cup quinoa
1 1/2 cups water
a pinch of salt

Put them in the good old rice cooker; turn it on; cook. I am not even giving you any other instructions at this point because oh, come on. Let cool. Break it up into your salad bowl. This can be done up to a day in advance.

Prepare the Vegetables:
1 large carrot, grated
2 cups finely shredded red cabbage
1 cup finely shredded green cabbage

Peel and grate the carrot. Wash, trim, and shred the cabbages. Add them to the salad bowl, and toss. 

Cook the Bacon & Onion, & Finish:
1 large onion
250 grams (1/2 pound) bacon
the juice of 1/2 large lemon
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste

Peel and chop the onion.

Chop the bacon and put it into a skillet to cook over medium heat. Once it has cooked about halfway, drain off excess fat - and you would have to have very fatty bacon for that to happen, because you want to leave about 3 tablespoons worth in the pan as it becomes the fat for the salad dressing. Add the onions and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are done and the bacon is fairly crisp.

Meanwhile, juice the lemon and pick out any seeds. You might as well leave the lemon juice right in the juicer, and add the balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, and mustard. Give it a good but careful stir.

Season the bacon and onions with salt and pepper. Generously with the pepper, the salt very dependent upon how salty is the bacon. Pour the lemon juice etc over the bacon and mix in well, scraping up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Pour it all over the salad - you will want to scrape out the pan with a spatula, in fact - and toss it in. There we go.





Last year at this time it was Coconut Creamed Cabbage, oh huh.

Posted in: Ontario Food