June 12, 2018

Colorful Edamame Slaw

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This edamame slaw is full of color, flavor, texture, and protein. That’s a lot to ask of slaw but we ask a lot of our side dishes.

When we were in Austin a few weeks ago we grabbed a quick lunch out. I got edamame slaw as a side dish and I really liked the flavors in the dressing — ginger and sesame oil, with a hint of sweetness. I couldn’t wait to get back home and start chopping up stuff to make my own edamame slaw.

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Ingredients

We wanted our edamame slaw stand out from the crowd. As luck would have it I had also picked up a head of cauliflower and wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. So, when we started assembling the slaw and figuring out how much of this and how much of that, I pulled out that cauliflower, chopped into little bits, and added it to the mix. Those crunchy bits of cauliflower add even more texture to this slaw.

And what about all that color? I like it. I want my food to look pretty, not just taste good. Why have plain cabbage when you can toss in some red cabbage too? Add some orange carrots, green edamame, and you have this colorful edamame slaw. For the dressing, you’ll need soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, ginger, vegetable oil, lime juice, and vinegar.

In addition to the nice green color and crunchy texture, the protein in the edamame kicks this slaw up a notch. We like to take this dish to potlucks because of that protein. As vegetarians, it can be difficult to find things that we can eat, so if we take something like this, we’re guaranteed at least a little protein.

Making Edamame Slaw

Measure a cup of frozen edamame and put it in a bowl of water to thaw. Get out your measuring cups and a big bowl. Slice the cabbage into strips and then slice those strips into smaller pieces. Loosely pack the chopped cabbage into the measuring cup. It’s kind of hard to know exactly how much cabbage will equal three cups — two cups of green and one cup of red. Cut up some of the green cabbage and add it to the measuring cup as you go. When you have two cups of green cabbage in the bowl, cut up a cup of red cabbage. That way you won’t wind up with more cut cabbage than you need. Cut the cauliflower in small pieces and add those pieces to the measuring cup until you have one cup of cauliflower. Add that to the bowl with the cabbage. Loosely pack half a cup of shredded carrots and toss them into the bowl with the other ingredients.

Test the edamame to see if it has thawed. Just pop one in your mouth. If the edamame is still frozen, pour off the water and add more water so the edamame will thaw out. When it is thoroughly thawed, drain off the water and add the edamame to the mixture in the bowl. Use a couple of large spoons to mix everything up.

Making the dressing

That’s it for the slaw mix. Now onto the dressing. Of course, it’s best to make this up ahead of time so it will be ready to put on the edamame slaw when you’re ready to eat it. We wanted a dressing that would add an Asian flair, but not overwhelm the flavors in the edamame slaw. It took some experimentation to arrive at our amounts. We started with soy sauce, ginger, sesame oil, lime juice, and honey as the main flavors and added some vinegar and oil to round things out. I hope you like it.

Use a small mixing bowl or a two-cup glass measuring cup. Add the soy sauce, lime juice, vinegar, honey, and minced ginger to the mixing bowl. Slowly whisk in the sesame oil and safflower oil. Stir well before adding the dressing to the slaw mix. Optionally, add about a teaspoon of sesame seeds to the dressing.

This dressing recipe makes a little over half a cup of dressing. When you add it to the slaw mix, start with about half of the dressing, then toss the slaw some more to mix the dressing in, and taste the mixture. Add more dressing as needed. When you have it just like you want it, put some in a bowl and enjoy. Add some crunchy fried wontons on top if you want. Even with the added dressing, leftovers of this edamame slaw keep well in the refrigerator for an extra day.