Description
What’s a better way to celebrate the season than with a Spring Salad. The Buttermilk Poppy Seed Dressing is the perfect topper.
Ingredients
Salad:
- 4 cups baby arugula
- 4 cups watercress
- 8 oz sugar snap peas
- ½ cup freshly shucked English peas (½ lb unshucked)
- ½ cup freshly shucked fava beans (½ lb unshucked)
- 4–6 radishes of choice (I used standard, watermelon & purple ninja), sliced very thin
- 4–6 stalks of asparagus, tough bottom stem removed, peeled into strips
- 4–6 baby carrots, peeled into strips
- Extra virgin olive oil, as needed
- Lemon zest, to taste
- Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
Dressing:
- 1 tsp finely chopped shallot
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 6 tbsp buttermilk
- 4 tbsp plain, full fat Greek yogurt
- ½ tsp poppy seeds
- Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper
Instructions
- Blanch vegetables: Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add cold water and a number of ice cubes to a large bowl to create an ice bath. Blanch snap peas for 30-60 seconds in boiling water, until crisp tender. Immediately transfer to ice water bath, using a slotted spoon. Boil peas and favas for 1 to 2 minutes per bath, until just tender. Transfer to ice water bath. When vegetables are cool, drain them and pat dry. Peel fava beans. Slice snap peas in half, as desired.
- Make dressing: Combine chopped shallot and lemon juice in a bowl, and allow to sit for 10-15 minutes to mellow out the onion flavor. Add buttermilk, yogurt, poppy seeds, salt and pepper, and whisk to combine.
- Dress vegetables: Combine peas, favas, radishes, asparagus and carrots in a bowl. Dress lightly with olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper.
- Serve salad: Combine greens with dressed vegetables in a serving bowl. Drizzle with buttermilk dressing. Enjoy.
Notes
Instead of arugula or watercress, you could use gem lettuce, baby romaine, frisee, bibb lettuce, or anything you prefer.
If you can’t find fresh English peas or fava beans, use more sugar snap peas instead. I would not use frozen peas.
I used a vegetable peeler to create the ribbons of carrots and asparagus. You could also grate the carrots, or blanch and chop the asparagus.
Use any combination of vegetables you prefer with the buttermilk dressing. You can use all sugar snap peas, or bibb lettuce with cucumbers, for example, to keep it more simple.
You can store the dressing in the fridge in an airtight container for several days.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Category: Salad
- Method: Blanch, whisk
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 of salad and dressing
- Calories: 150
- Sugar: 5g
- Sodium: 315mg
- Fat: 9g
- Saturated Fat: 2g
- Unsaturated Fat: 7g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 13g
- Fiber: 4g
- Protein: 6g