Miso Sesame Dressing - Massaged Swiss Chard Salad

This recipe is adapted from Choosing Raw's Outstanding Miso Sesame Dressing's recipe. I had some beautiful rainbow Swiss chard waiting to be eaten. Swiss chard, like kale can be a bit tough when raw so many people make what's called a "massaged kale salad" to help soften it and make it more palatable when raw.  So I went looking for a good dressing to make with the ingredients I had on hand and came across this recipe and YUM! I made some minor changes due to my preferences and on hand ingredients.

Dressing:

1/4 cup chick pea miso (regular mellow white miso works too!)

1/4 cup tahini

1/2" knob of fresh ginger (minced if you don't have a good blender)

1 garlic cloves

pinch of Himalayan salt

1/2 cup water

Salad:

1 bunch rainbow Swiss chard (or kale)

2 carrots diced

1 medium tomato diced

1/2 zucchini diced

2-3 small sweet red, orange, yellow peppers sliced

sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds

Toss all the dressing ingredients in a blender and blend till smooth and creamy. You can add more or less water to make it the desired consistency. I like mine a bit thick. Alternately you could mince the ginger and garlic and mix by hand. 

For the salad, you'll want to de-stem the Swiss chard, tear it into bite size pieces, dice or matchstick the carrots, slice the peppers, dice tomato and toss them in the bowl with the chard. Scoop on your dressing, making sure not to put on too much. I personally do not like my salads to swim in a thick dressing, yuck! Then mix to coat, wash your hands and dig in to rub the leaves, this softens them. You can serve this immediately or store it in the fridge and eat it later.

Not sure exactly what miso is? It is a fermented bean paste traditionally used in Miso soup. Fermented foods are highly beneficial to our diet. They provide us with beneficial bacteria and are a natural way to add probioctics to our bodies. They can aid in digestion, nutrient absorption and they are a natural way to preserve foods. Here is just one site on fermented food benefits. There are lots of different fermented foods out there.