Do you love broccoli? Have you ever tried cold broccoli salad? You can serve broccoli to me just about anyway and I love it. Well, any way except doused with cheese sauce. Dousing broccoli with cheese sauce pretty much defeats the purpose of eating this exquisite crucifer, since all the great antioxidants and phytonutrients therein will be drowned out in the casein slather.
In fact a cheese bath on any vegetable is the equivalent of a terrorist attack on the nutritional constitution of the veggie. The cheese, with its free radical production, acid forming qualities and carcinogen influencing effects, pretty much counteracts any benefit that the vegetable has to offer.
Truthfully, cheese is not the only culprit here. There’s also the cream of “you fill in the blank” soup that so many seem to think enhances a vegetable’s flavor (you know what I’m talking about…grandma’s green bean casserole.) In fact smothering any vegetable in processed cheese or soup or anything else has the same effect. One really looses the benefit of broccoli or any other fresh vegetable when they insist on cooking them to mush and adding processed foods to them.
Okay, enough of that…what about cold broccoli salad? A few weeks ago I created a delicious and simple cold broccoli salad…I hope you like it.
Cold Broccoli Salad – Marinated Broccoli Salad
Preparation time: 5 Minutes
Serves 6-8 as a side dish
Ingredients
1 head broccoli cut into 3-4 inch thin spears
¼ cup pure virgin cold pressed olive oil
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic minced
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Place broccoli spears in a large bowl. Whisk together the remainder of ingredients. Toss broccoli spears with the balsamic vinaigrette dressing until thoroughly coated. Place in a casserole dish and chill in the refrigerator for approximately 2 hours. Serve and enjoy your cold broccoli salad. (May be served at room temperature as well.)
