This Shaved Zucchini Salad with Cilantro Dressing is such a simple salad to make. It’s healthy, crunchy and ever so tasty. Eating zucchini raw is refreshing and mixed with the gorgeous cilantro dressing you are in for a treat.
With only few ingredients you can make this salad in no time. It’s vegan and paleo, perfect to prepare for the summer gatherings and parties. It’ a fantastic side dish to compliment any meal, but you could even eat this on it’s own for a light lunch.
I always used to cook zucchini in the past and am fairly new to eating them raw, but really enjoy it, especially during the hotter months when I’m craving more cooling meals.
Shaving zucchini is so much fun, looks beautiful and I think it makes the zucchini much more appealing when eaten raw. If you’ve never shaved zucchini before, trim the edges and use a julienne style peeler to peel long strips from top all the way down.
You will end up with the seeded centre, that you can peel into smaller strips until you have almost nothing left or just chop it up. I usually tend to save the middle part and add to a soup or a sauce later.
I’ve mixed in some radishes to add more color and crunch and give the salad summery feel. Radishes are in season now and I always have a bunch in the fridge.
They used to be my favorite when I was a child and I have so many beautiful memories growing them in our garden.
The cilantro dressing is made with a small bunch of fresh cilantro, garlic clove, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. It’s very simple, but adds so much life and flavor to this simple salad.
I whizzed the dressing in my high speed blender, but you could happily whisk it by hand. Just chop the cilantro first, crush the garlic and mix with the rest of the ingredients.
If you don’t like raw garlic, leave it out or add other herbs that you like. Other things you could mix in are ginger, chili, parsley, basil or mint. Choose the ones that are your favorites.
I like to drizzle the dressing over the salad just before serving to keep it fresh and crunchy. Enjoy!
- 2 medium zucchini
- 5 radishes
- ¼ cup pumpkin seeds
- Cilantro dressing:
- ½ cup cilantro
- 1 garlic clove
- sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- ½ lemon, juice
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- Wash and trim zucchini and using julienne peeler carefully peel away long strips working all the way around.
- Wash, trim and finely slice radishes.
- To make the cilantro dressing add cilantro, garlic clove, sea salt, black pepper, lemon juice and olive oil into blender or food processor and blend until smooth consistency. You can also do this by hand, chop the cilantro, crush the garlic and whisk with the rest of the ingredients.
- Place shaved zucchini on a serving platter, top with sliced radishes, drizzle with the cilantro dressing and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.
- Serve immediately.
- Enjoy!