Tropical Cabbage Salad with Lime and Vanilla Dressing

When the weather is warm I don’t like making mayonnaise based salad dressings. Today I felt like making a slaw, but it turned into this salad. In my opinion what separates this salad from a slaw is the absence of the acidic hit you typically get from the vinegar in most slaw dressing.

I wanted to use cabbage today because it is a cruciferous vegetable and they are known for their cancer fighting abilities. Citrus fruit is high in flavonoids and is also reported to fight cancer.

This salad is light and refreshing. It is also somewhat sweet from the fresh pineapple. The vanilla gives the salad a floral note that I particularly enjoyed. We thought this salad was much better than the sum of its parts.

Tropical Cabbage Salad with Lime and Vanilla Dressing
Servings 6

Ingredients:

½ head of green cabbage, finely shredded
1 tablespoon of kosher salt
¾’s of a fresh pineapple, peeled, cored and finely julienned
1 red apple, cored and julienned
1 carrot, grated
1 pink grapefruit, supremed and cut into bite size pieces
2 limes, juiced
1 tablespoon of canola oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Directions:

Toss cabbage with kosher salt and refrigerate for 3 hours. After three hours place the cabbage in a wire mesh strainer and rise thoroughly to remove the salt. Spin the cabbage dry in a salad spinner. Place the cabbage in a large bowl big enough to allow you to toss the ingredients. Add remaining fruit and vegetables to the cabbage. Whisk together the lime juice, canola oil and vanilla. Add the dressing to the salad and toss to thoroughly combine. Refrigerate the salad until ready to serve.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 122.47
Calories From Fat (19%) - 23.28

Total Fat - 2.65g
Saturated Fat - 0.21g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 12.51mg
Potassium - 282.82mg
Total Carbohydrates - 26.55g
Fiber - 3.98g
Sugar - 17.7g
Protein - 1.36g

Comments:

This is a very interesting salad in a good way. I hesitated to call this slaw because the dominant acid that is standard in slaw is missing. The salad is crunchy and slightly sweet. The floral note from the vanilla is more obvious than I intended, but is quite nice. The combination of lime and vanilla is much better than I anticipated. Everyone enjoyed this salad today, even my very picky omnivore parents who kept all the leftovers.