Beetroot, Chickpeas and Cashew Cheese Salad
This is more of a recipe idea than a recipe, in that it’s really simple, relies on a few good ingredients and can be seasoned to taste, without much measuring involved, if any. It’s a great side dish, or light main course and the ingredients can be repurposed into a dish for the little ones if necessary.
All you need is some steamed beets, cooked chickpeas, store bought is fine (preferably in glass jars and not cans, or BPA free cans if you can’t find jars), and some storebought cashew cheese. My go to is this one. If you prefer dairy cheese, you could replace the cashew cheese with sheep feta or goat cheese.
This beetroot, chickpeas and cashew cheese salad comes together in minutes when you have all the elements pre cooked in advance. Whenever I steam beets, I make a big batch. I store some in the refrigerator for use in salads or this beetroot maca latte throughout the week and keep some in the freezer for smoothies, soups, or to make a beetroot purée. As for chickpeas, when I like to cook them in a large batch too, which I then store in smaller portions in the freezer and use in soups, stews, or to make hummus. I also keep some jarred chickpeas in the pantry for those times when I don’t have any kicking around in the freezer and they come in handy for salads like this.
Beetroot, Chickpeas and Cashew Cheese Salad
Author Nissrine Boufawaz @ HolisticNiss.com
- Time 30 minutes
- Difficulty Easy
- Servings 1 (can be doubled or tripled easily to feed more people)
- Diet vegan, gluten free
- Category Salad
Ingredients:
- 2 Small-Medium Sized Beets
- 1/4 C Chickpeas, Cooked
- Fermented Cashew Cheese, as desired
- Umeboshi Plum Vinegar, to taste
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil, to taste
- Freshly Squeezed Lemon Juice, to taste
- Sumac Spice, to taste
- Fine Sea Salt, to taste
- Fresh Ground Black Pepper, to taste
Method
- Wash, scrub and steam the beets in a steamer pot until you can pierce a fork through them easily, about 20 minutes. I use a steamer pot like this one. Remove from steamer basket, set aside to cool then slice into large chunks.
- Dress your chickpeas with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and sea salt to taste. Omit the sea salt if your chickpeas are storebought as they are usually salty. Season with sumac spice, to taste.
- Dress your beets with umeboshi plum vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and sea salt to taste.
- Layer beets, chickpeas and crumbled pieces of cashew cheese on a plate and serve as a side salad with a fresh ground black pepper if desired.
