Cucumber Wakame Salad

One of the great parts of my job is to create recipes for seasonal cleanse classes taught by Nutritionist Andrea Nakayama and myself.  Each time, I am challenged to create even more recipes than the year before.  One of my goals for the Rejuvenate: Spring Cleanse was to include more seaweed recipes.  Along with the Kelp Noodle Salad and Veggie Nori Rolls, I added a Wakame Cucumber Salad, which I love.  Its great to have sitting in the refrigerator to snack on especially during a cleanse when hunger strikes.  Wakame is one  of my favorite seaweeds to work with.  It is known as the womans seaweed and is actually an algae that is amongst the oldest living species on Earth.  It has been used in traditional Japanese, Chinese, and Korean cuisine as an important health food.  It is high in a variety of vitamins including vitamins A, C, E, and K, it’s a good source of minerals such as iron, calcium, and iodine, all important during a food based cleanse.  For more information on our spring cleanse and to register Click Here.

Cucumber Wakame Salad

ingredients:

3 large Japanese or regular cucumbers

1 tablespoon sea salt

1/2 cup dried wakame

4-5 tablespoons brown rice vinegar or to taste

1 teaspoon raw honey, coconut palm sugar, or sweetener of choice (optitonal)

Sea salt to taste

instructions:

Cover the wakame with water and soak for 10-15 minutes.  While soaking, thinly slice the cucumbers into rounds. Place them in a colander over the sink, sprinkle with sea salt, and mix together. Set aside for 10 minutes. Rinse them well and squeeze the cucumbers dry. Rinse and squeeze dry.

Combine the cucumber and wakame in a bowl, add the rice vinegar and sweetener, and mix well. Season to taste with sea salt and allow the salad to marinate for 20 minutes.

Serves 4-5