RED PEPPERS, RICE AND SWEET PEPPER HOUMOUS
I love a salad, it’s a rare mealtime, when there is not a huge heap of greens on my plate, sometimes it’s the only thing on my plate and this dish is definitely a meal in itself. This is a simple plant based meal that I made when I had some red rice leftover and perfect for a #meatlessMonday.
You can easily buy red pepper houmous from your local deli or supermarket, but below I’ve put a recipe together so you can make your own, though you’ll need a food processor or a blender for blitzing
INGREDIENTS:
Recipe to make your own houmous
1, 400g tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
1 lemon, juiced
3 tbsp tahini
Jar of roasted peppers (2 tbsp roughly chopped)
50ml oil from jar
60ml of water
½ tspn salt
Chili flakes (optional)
METHOD:
In a food processor, add your chickpeas and oil and blitz till combined, then add garlic, lemon juice, tahini, roasted peppers, salt and water. Blitz once again until silky smooth (3-5 minutes)
AND
INGREDIENTS FOR SALAD (with shop bought houmous)
1 tub of sweet pepper houmous
100g of cooked red rice (about 40g of uncooked rice, it doesn’t have to be red, but it has a lovely nutty texture!)
Bag of mixed leaves
½ cucumber, diced 2cm
Red pepper, diced 2cm
½ red onion finely chopped
Avocado, diced 2cm
25g peanuts (I had chilli peanuts which worked so well)
2 tbpsn Extra virgin olive oil
½ juice of a lemon
Chilli flakes
1tspn Sumac
½ bunch of coriander (roughly chopped)
METHOD
There’s not much to do for this recipe, once you’ve prepared the vegetables and put them in a bowl, its more of an assembly.
Dress the vegetables with olive oil and lemon juice, then gently mix in with the rice and season with salt and pepper.
Transfer to a serving dish, and spoon the houmous over the top, (one spoonful per person), sprinkle with peanuts, sumac and coriander.
This is great on its own, but cold roast chicken would be fabulous too!
You could prepare in advance, make houmous, cook rice (drain, allow to cool and refrigerate as quickly as possible) prep cucumber, red onion and red pepper.
When ready to serve, dress with oil and lemon, and slice the avocado now, to avoid it turning brown.
