Sprouted Salad with Honey Ginger Vinaigrette

I love sprouts, can you tell? lol.. Anyway, sprouting is easy, I sprout my own lentils, mung beans, alfalfa sprouts, garbanzo's and more. Sprouts are extremely nutritious and much easier to digest than unsprouted legumes and seeds. Plus they add a nice crispy crunchy element to any dish. Ok enough on sprouting. Lets get to the good stuff! The dressing! I love making my own fresh dressings. Store bought dressings have so many unneeded and unhealthy ingredients. You think it is healthy when it says "with olive oil" but if you read the label, sure they use some olive oil, they will also use soy oils and other partially hydrogenated type oils as well. A lot of them also use high fructose corn syrup, and lots of other weird thickenings, preservatives, colorings, etc. Bad stuff... Packaging is VERY deceptive. You have to read labels. But, I find making my own dressings is easy, healthier and so much tastier!

A lot of vinaigrette type dressings are really simple to make and only require adding them to a cruet type container and shaking them. Or if you have a blender you can toss the ingredients in and emulsify them. I have a blender with single serve smoothie cup attachments which make this super easy and quick. I use the Ninja Mega Kitchen System. It's has several attachments and I love it. I use it daily as a food processor, blender, mixer, smoothie maker, salad dressing maker... The small cups are so quick and convenient to use for smoothies and salad dressings. I also bought this at Bed Bath & Beyond with a 20% off coupon! This system also has another attachment set to slice and grate which I will be ordering when I have the money. It's really nice to have this all in one capability, one base to leave out, and lots of attachments to do everything I need. I realize this is a bit on the pricey side, but consider it like a stove... These things are what I use daily. I don't actually use my stove much any more! Any blender you have will work for these dressings though! Anyway, on to the recipe!

Honey Ginger Vinaigrette Dressing:
1/4 inch knob of fresh ginger peeled
1 clove of garlic
1 inch of the green part of a scallion
1/2 lemon juiced
1 tbsp honey* or real grade b maple syrup
2-3 tbsp unfiltered apple cider vinegar
2-4 tbsp cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup of water
Himalayan salt or sea salt to taste

Sprouted Salad:
sprouted lentils
sprouted mung beans
sunflower sprouts
romaine lettuce
bibb lettuce
red leaf lettuce
grape tomatoes
red pepper diced
broccoli florets and stems diced
carrot shreds
button mushrooms
avocado chunks

For the dressing, if you have a blender just throw everything in and blend till smooth and emulsified and done! Alternately you can mince the garlic, ginger and scallion and whisk together or shake it in a bottle. You can also use dried garlic, onion powder and ginger if you don't have any fresh around. You'll want to use about 1/4 teaspoon of each to start with, then maybe add more to your taste. The best way to make a dressing is to start with less of an ingredient and taste it and add a little more at a time to get it the way you like it. I try to keep low on the oils in my dressings since I eat avocado in my salads frequently. You need the healthy oils, but you also don't want too much in your diet. So start with less oil and more water. If you need to you can add a bit more. The salad is a no brainer, just use what you like or have handy! 

*honey is not considered vegan. you can easily substitute maple syrup, date paste or stevia if desired.