light coleslaw saladQuesta ricetta è disponibile anche in italiano.
Easy light coleslaw with vegan Greek yogurt and vegan ham strips. Ready in only 15 minutes and perfect for summer and as an healthy side!
I’m in love with coleslaw and, to be fair, who isn’t? light coleslaw salad
I used not to have it as much as I wanted because, sadly, it is a quite caloric food, especially those store bought.
That’s why today I’m sharing with you a completely guilt free vegan version of this mouthwatering summer treat.
All you need to do is to grab a plain vegan yogurt – ideally Greek style – and that’s it!
Yogurt is such a great alternative to mayo. Not only has less than half calories, but it is also much more nutritious, as it provides a bunch of vitamins, as well as proteins, fibers and – last but not least – cultures, great alleys for our digestive system.
Alternatively, if you can eat nuts, you can make at home my nourishing and light vegan mayo out of cashew nuts.
Making coleslaw at home it is really dead easy, and you can achieve it with as little as 3 simple steps:
Wash the veggies for the Light Coleslaw Salad
Vegetables as well as humans, are affected by the environment that surrounds them.
Washing well the vegetables before use, especially if not organic, is important to prevent food born illnesses caused by bacteria’s (E.Coli, Salmonella, etc) and to remove residues of harmful pesticides.
As for this recipe, we are going to consume them raw, that means we should pay even more attention to this step.
One method I often use, especially for highly pesticides exposed vegetables like celery and fennel, is to soak the veggies in 1 liter of water and 1 tbsp of Baking Soda for 15 minutes. It has been shown that soaking vegetables in this solution for as little as 10 minutes completely removes pesticides, they are then 100% safe to eat raw.
Prep the veggies
After washing the vegetables, all we need to do is to finely chop them.
You can keep it more chunky and thick for extra texture, that’s completely up to you.
First I suggest to start with the purple cabbage. 
If you are in rush or you find hard to slice the cabbage, you can simply use a food processer.
I do use mine when I have guests and I have to make tons of food (who likes to chop forever?), but when I’m making food just for the two of us I actually enjoy chopping it by hand.
Then we can move onto the spring onions.
Then goes the parsley and the vegan ham.
Lastly I personally do the carrots because they tend to oxidate very quickly.
I never remove the skin as it contains even more nutrients than the actual vegetables, did you know that?
That’s right. Nutrients like vitamin C and niacin are more concentrated in the peel while beta-carotene (source of vitamin A) is contained equally in the fruit and in the skin.
For this reason I really recommend you to keep the carrots (and potatoes!) unpeeled. It cuts the prep time and it is also better for our health, sounds pretty cool, don’t you think?
For the carrots you can either cut into matchstick or use a vegetable spiralizer. For this recipe I actually used my super handy spiralizer.
If you don’t own one yet I seriously suggest you to make this small investment as nowadays spiralizers are not as expensive as they used to be a few years back!
They’re super easy to use, they allow to cuts prepping time and also you can make hundreds of dishes and salads with it. Believe me, I didn’t think I needed one because, as mentioned above I do enjoy cutting fruits and veggies, but from the very first moment I tried one, I literally started spiralizing everything! It’s a game changer indeed!
Assembling the Coleslaw
Now that all our vegetables are chopped and looking good, we need to add the juice of one lemon, both for acidity, to fix the vitamin C and also to prevent the oxidation.
Next, all it remains is to add the yogurt, the mustard, the salt and the pepper.
Let’s give our coleslaw a final mix, until every vegetable is nicely coated.
and we are ready to enjoy it!
You can serve this coleslaw salad straight away if you like, although I do recommend to refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes before serving.
The coleslaw salad can be stored in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Please note that it will get a bit soggier after the first 24 hours because the vegetation water naturally contained in the vegetables that tends to be released in the presence of salt, but it will still be 100% safe to eat.
Let me know if you enjoyed simple recipes like this one or if you’d like me to “veganize” something in particular by leaving me a comment in the section below.
A Veg Taste from A to Z is also on Instagram and Facebook and I’ll be very happy if you tag @avegtastefromatoz or #aVegTasteFromAtoZ whenever you make one of my recipes!
Now I’ll leave you to the recipe and the nutrition facts.
Light Coleslaw Salad Recipe
Ingredients:
1 Purple Cabbage
1 cup Greek Style Vegan Yogurt
2 Large Carrots
1 Bunch Fresh Parsley
4 Spring Onions
100 g Vegan Smoked Ham
1 Lemon
1 tbsp Mustard
Sea Salt
Pepper
Method:
1. Wash all the vegetables.
2. Cut the cabbage in 2 and finely slice each half.
3. Finely chop the spring onions and the parsley.
4. Cut the vegan ham into strips.
5. Finally finely slice the carrots.
6. Combine all ingredients together and sprinkle the juice of one lemon.
7. Mix well then add the yogurt and the mustard, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
8. Give the slaw a final mix and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.
