Vegan Garbanzo Bean and Spinach Salad with Homemade Italian Dressing

This is a very hearty salad, in my opinion.  Because of the beans and carrots, it's not low carb, but I consider it very healthy and good in moderation.

I paired it with a pseudo-Italian dressing.  Basically I just made my standard salad dressing but jazzed it up with some Italian spices.

Friday is cooking day at my house.  I only have one or two cooking days a week.  We always do dinner on Friday nights.  I have a neighbor friend who comes over and Mom comes downstairs and we eat dinner and watch guilty pleasure tv (usually Property Brothers then Ink Master).

Serving this salad tonight along with a few other foods, but I feel it could totally stand alone as a meal.

Since today is cooking day, this is not a 10-minute dish.  Cutting up the veggies and making the dressing doesn't take too long but it's certainly more than 10 minutes.

When I take the time to prepare food, I like to do it big... meaning there's enough left over for a few days.  See, then I don't have to cook every day!  So this salad will be enough to get me through the weekend and the dressing will probably last beyond that even.


Vegan Garbanzo Bean and Spinach Salad

• 3 cans (46.5 oz total) of organic garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 4 cups of organic fresh spinach, roughly chopped
• 2 organic carrots, (instead of slicing, I use my peeler to make shreds because my mom has a hard time eating hard food)
• 1 organic red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 organic yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 4 slides of organic onion (any color), chopped

Just combine everything.  Make sure your garbanzo beans have strained properly after rinsing them.  For that I often rinse them an hour before I'm going to make the salad then let them sit in the colander or strainer until I'm ready.  If I'm in a rush, I will put 2-3 paper towels at the bottom of my salad bowl and put the damp beans on top of them.  It takes me 10-20 minutes to prepare the rest of the salad, and before I dump everything in, I just remove the paper towels.

Pseudo-Italian Salad Dressing

• 1 cup of organic extra virgin olive oil
• ½ cup of organic white wine vinegar
• ½ cup of organic fresh lemon juice
• 5 garlic cloves, mashed
• 1 Tbl organic honey
• 1 Tbl dried organic parsley
• 1 Tbl dried organic chives
• 2 tsp dried organic basil
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• ¼ tsp dried organic oregano
• 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 Tbl organic Dijon mustard
• 2 tsp organic soy-free miso

I throw everything into a quart-size mason jar and shake as hard as possible to mix and emulsify.  This recipe makes a good amount.  Feel free to half it.

If you store it in your fridge, make sure you take it out 30-60 minutes prior to using it and always shake it up right before putting it on your salad.

Since I want my salad to last for three days, I'm not dressing it now.  I'll dress it before each meal to keep the spinach from getting soggy looking.

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Have a recipe you’d like me to try out?  Let me know in comments.  So long as it’s gluten free, sugar free, yeast free, and corn free… I’ll have a look.  When leaving a comment, you may need to use the pull-down to change the selection from "Google Account" to "Name/URL" or "Anonymous"  Thanks!