Spicy Rainbow Slaw

This healthy Spicy Rainbow Slaw complements any summer meal — it’s cooling, crunchy, and crazy colorful!

I adore coleslaw — it’s right up there with salsa as one of the most perfect foods, especially in hot weather.  It’s as healthy as it is versatile, and I think it adds that perfect touch to so many summer classics, from hot dogs and burgers to fish tacos and grilled kabobs.  I had a bit of fun with this one, hunting down the most day-glo veggies I could find for a rainbow effect.  Every batch will be a different color scheme, depending on what you find at your store or farmer’s market.

I employed a combination of shredding techniques depending on the particular veggies.  I used my food processor with the slicing blade for some (red cabbage) and the shredding blade for others (carrots, jicama.)  I used a sharp knife to finely shred my Savoy cabbage, watermelon radishes, and peppers.  I used my mandoline slicer to get ultra thin slices of onion.  You don’t need to use all these methods, a good sharp knife will do the trick for everything too.

TIP:  Veggies that contain a lot of moisture, like onions or peppers, are better thinly sliced than grated.  Grating releases too much water and makes them mushy.

My dressing is a combination of yogurt, buttermilk, lemon, and poppy seeds.  It’s skinny, tangy, and delicious.

TIP:  Add a bit of celery seed to the salad for a classic coleslaw flavor.

I’m highly recommending this slaw, I brought it to a barbecue yesterday and everybody raved.  The bright pink watermelon radish was especially intriguing.

TIP:  Stay away from red beets in this slaw.  While they’re delicious and can certainly be shredded and eaten raw, they will bleed their color and turn the salad into a uniform shade of pink.  If you want to use beets, use a golden, or chioga variety instead.

notes:

• Don’t shy away from the buttermilk in this Spicy Rainbow Slaw, it’s low in fat and packed with tangy flavor.
• Coleslaw does fine for a few hours in the refrigerator, in fact it gets better as it sits for a while, allowing the dressing flavors to penetrate the raw veggies.

don’t forget to pin it!

used in this post…(the photos are clickable)