This sea vegetable and cucumber salad is really easy to make, and a is full of healthy minerals. You can make it ahead even with the dressing, and it will still taste great the next day. I get a dried sea vegetable mix from the Asian section of Surfas, which is an awesome gourmet food and kitchen supply store in Culver City. This mix has six varieties of dehydrated sea vegetables. All you need to do is rehydrate them and add them to salads, soups or they can be a side themselves.
Although we have grown accustomed to eating nori in sushi, sea vegetables are sadly lacking in the standard American diet. I personally love seaweed (and sea vegetable) salads. I think they are really cool looking, and photograph beautifully 🙂 Plus, they have no calories, are full of nutrition, and very filling (aka high in fiber). A simple dressing with sesame oil and rice vinegar is all you need to make these greens taste amazing. I gave mine a spicy kick, with some red pepper flakes that I put through the spice grinder.
- ½ seedless cucumber
- 1 packet of dehydrated sea vegetables
- ½ tsp of sesame seeds
- 1 tbsp of sesame oil
- 2 tbsp of rice vinegar
- a pinch of freshly ground sea salt (3 grinds)
- (optional) a pinch of red pepper flakes (finely ground)
- Rehydrate sea vegetables in cold water for 10 minutes. They expand in volume 15 times.
- Use a vegetable peeler to slice stripes of the skin off the cucumber. Then slice cucumber.
- If you don't have finely ground red pepper flakes, throw a tsp of them in a coffee grinder used for grinding spices.
- Drain sea vegetables, pat dry.
- Mix cucumber slices and sea vegetables. Then drizzle with sesame oil and rice vinegar.
- Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
- (optional) sprinkle with finely ground red pepper flakes.
Darn it! I hate recipes that call for “one packet” of something (or terms that mean an none determined amount) that is not available in my area of the world.
If you do this, could you at least give us a measurement in ounces, grams, etc. It is marked on your “packet” and if we can’t buy an item, we can find a similar product and check it for volume.
Yes, I know that for a salad it makes not so much a difference. In so many other recipes someone will call for a jar, a bag, a can, etc. of an item I cannot purchase and have never seen. I don’t know if it is 4 ounces, or 2.2 pounds. Sometimes it does make a difference.
So happy you took the time to post this recipe but this is something to think about for others reading this outside your residential area.
Sorry to be vague. Here is a link below to a seaweed packet, although the one I used is not available online and the serving size for my packet is two. The only ingredient in the packet is dried seaweed, so you can also make your own mix from what is available near you. In addition to posting recipes, I oftentimes post healthy living resources and events for people living and/or traveling to LA. http://www.iherb.com/SeaSnax-SeaVegi-Seaweed-Salad-Mix-0-9-oz-25-g/58786?gclid=CjwKEAiA3IKmBRDFx-P_rLyt6QUSJACqiAN8i_URXBIcUZFLQnIiOnDn6ijQGHGq9ciVQNEyyXWMkBoCtXDw_wcB