I’d never tried kohlrabi before, but when I was gifted two – one purple, one green – I was keen to experiment. My first trial of kohlrabi chips was an incinerated disaster, but this simple salad graced our dinner table three times in a week. When I asked the family for feedback, they said “so fresh! Crunchy! Yum, is there more?”
When I say simple, I mean simple. The main ingredients are kohlrabi, cucumber and apple (which almost puts it in a ‘slaw’ category, right?) dressed up with lemon juice, olive oil, sesame seeds & fresh mint. Optional extras like chili and spring onion offer that extra savoury kick, but the salad is fine without them.
Kohlrabi is a member of the brassica family, which also houses cauli, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale – in fact, its leaves look a lot like kale and can be cooked as such. Although the name kohlrabi means ‘cabbage turnip’ in German, it’s not a turnip at all, but a very stout compact cabbage. But I can see where the turnip idea comes from – to me, it tastes like a broccoli stem crossed with turnip…in a good way! It’s not a particularly strong flavour, but very ‘brassica’, if that makes sense! It works wonderfully with cooling cucumber & sweet apple in this salad.
1 cup of raw kohlrabi, finely cut into matchsticks *
1 cup of apple, finely cut into matchsticks
1 cup of cucumber, finely cut into matchsticks
a small handful of fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
½ tsp salt
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds (toast in a clean dry pan until golden)
couple of grinds of black pepper
optional: slices of fresh chili
sliced spring onion
* if the outer skins are tough, cut them away and use the less dense vegetable within. Discard any fibrous material.
Toast your sesame seeds, if you haven’t already. Get out a big mixing bowl & add all ingredients, stirring well. Serve immediately, or store in the fridge so the flavours meld even more.
Serves two as a side salad, or one big salad for a hungry plant-muncher!
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