Recipe A Day #14: Sardine Superfood Salad

This is the first recipe of the month that Laura didn't really like. Which isn't much of a surprise, since she both hates and fears sardines. So all you haters and fearers out there can safely skip this recipe.

Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, in my view, this is a really good, really interesting and extremely healthy salad. It's inspired by Rebecca Katz's The Healthy Mind Cookbook (and if I'm not mistaken this is the third time we've drawn from Rebecca's wonderful new cookbook), but I've adapted and changed it up heavily. This simple salad has the perfect balance of mustard, lemon and seasonings, and quite honestly it's not all that sardine-y... that is, unless you truly hate sardines.

And ohhh those Omega-3s! This is why they call sardines a superfood.

Sardine Superfood Salad

Ingredients:
3-4 Tablespoons of lemon juice
1 generous teaspoon of lemon zest
2 teaspoons dijon-style mustard
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon dried ground thyme
salt and black pepper to taste
about ¼ cup fresh chives or fresh scallions, minced
about ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped finely

2 3.75-ounce cans sardines (in oil, in water or in hot sauce, your choice)
6-8 large lettuce leaves, such as romaine

Directions:
1) Place lemon juice, lemon zest, mustard, olive oil, ground thyme, salt, pepper, chives/scallions and parsley in a medium bowl. Combine very well.

2) Remove sardines from cans, split in half and remove spines/backbones, cut into chunks and add to dressing bowl. Combine gently so fish stays in large pieces, or combine well, per your choice (see recipe notes, below).

3) Mound spoonfuls of dressing onto individual lettuce leaves and serve that way, OR chop lettuce leaves and combine with dressing into a family style salad.

Serves 2-3.
**********************************
Recipe Notes:
1) On serving/plating this salad: Note the either/or option in Step 3. Feel free to either: a) serve the sardines and dressing mounded onto an individual lettuce leaf (a serving could be 1 or 2 separate lettuce leaves per person with a mound of dressing on each), or b) tossed into a salad of well-chopped lettuce. We tried both, and for our part we preferred the tossed-style salad.

2) One more comment on the sardines: I think if you have eaters who are neutral or unenthusiastic sardine eaters, mix the sardines up very well in the oil/lemon/mustard mixture. If you’re serving to eaters who simply love sardines, feel free to gently flake the fish with a fork, leaving the sardines chunked and only partially mixed in with the dressing. Your choice.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.