Zucchini & Red Pepper Salad with Spinach “Pesto”

Mar 20 2008

Zucchini & Red Pepper Salad with Spinach “Pesto”

Posted in: Food Photos, Lunch Ideas, Salad Ideas, Side Dish Ideas, Snack Ideas, Vegetarian Ideas |

Loosely based on a salad from an old Atkins cookbook, I make this every year for an Easter Dinner salad (or something similar – I tend to change it a bit every year). The "pesto" is a simple green dressing made from spinach and dried basil. Its nothing like traditional pesto, I just didn’t know what else to call it. lol

Today I made it as run through before servings it to my whole family on Sunday. I’m super happy with the results. So happy, I ate my whole experiment batch today! Zucchini & Red Pepper Salad with Spinach “Pesto”

2 medium zucchini sliced really thin
1 red bell pepper cut into short strips
1 cup baby spinach leaves (~30g)
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp dried basil (I used ½ with 2-3 leaves of fresh aging basil – I was running out)
1 tsp dried parsley
½ tbsp olive oil (7g)
½ tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Salt & Pepper
½ tbsp parmesan cheese

Blend the spinach leaves, garlic, basil, parsley, oil, lemon juice, vinegars, salt and pepper in a food processor or blender. Pour over zucchini and peppers. Eat it right away or let zucchini marinate in the fridge for a bit. When ready to serve top with the parmesan cheese.

Now I’m counting the dish as 2 large servings, it can serve more then that as a side. The picture shows the entire recipe.

Aprox Nutritional Information per serving
Servings	Amount per Serving	Calories	Fat	Fiber	WWPs
2	1/2 the recipe	110	4g	4g	2

Comments

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 20th, 2008 at 10:07 pm and is filed under Food Photos, Lunch Ideas, Salad Ideas, Side Dish Ideas, Snack Ideas, Vegetarian Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

4 Comments so far

Mel on March 21, 2008 6:31 am
Roni,

Wow that looks great!!! I am going food shopping today I will definitely be getting the ingredients for this recipe.

Mel
Noelle on March 21, 2008 8:48 am
We have a few Atkins/Protein Power cookbooks around too. I really like how many of the veggie dishes can still work as WW things if I just reduce the cheese or oil some. I guess that’s why we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, eh?
Kalyn on March 21, 2008 9:41 am
Sounds really tasty! I really like raw zucchini as a variation to cucumber.
deanna s. on April 4, 2008 12:52 am
Hi Robin - Just found your website from a link via Kalyn. Loving it! I made the zucchini and pepper salad and put the leftovers in some tacos on the next day. Thanks for the inspiration! -Deanna

I'm Roni, a 30ish working mom with a passion for coming up with lite recipe ideas. In '05, I started a weight loss blog to help me lose 70lbs! Now I'm focusing on archiving and sharing my food ideas. Read more on the about page.