Roast pumpkin salad with lentils and honey-miso dressing
- Serves: 3
- Time: 50 min
- Date added: 2024-11-02
Description
The pumpkin is doused in honey to enhance its natural sweetness and roasted, while the honey-miso dressing ups the flavour ante — it's sweet and salty, with a subtle ginger zing.
In fact, this dressing is so good you'll want to serve it up at every barbecue this season. It's perfect as a dip for chargrilled veggies and would also be fabulous as a noodle salad dressing.
While some salads are best eaten immediately, this dish deserves special mention for being patient. It actually tastes better after hanging around for a while, allowing the butternut, lentils and dressing to get to know one another.
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 1 small (about 1kg) butternut pumpkin, peeled and cut into wedges
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 6-8 thyme sprigs
- 2 French shallots, finely sliced
- 1 heaped Tbsp honey
- .75 cup (150g) Puy lentils, rinsed
- 1 clove garlic, skin removed
- 1 cup chopped soft herbs (such as parsley, coriander, chives, dill)
- Handful of microgreens, sprouts or baby rocket
- Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
For the honey-miso dressing:
- 1 heaped Tbsp mild miso
- 3 heaped tsp runny honey
- 1 clove garlic, grated
- 1 cm piece ginger, peeled and grated
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tsp water
- Sea salt and black pepper, to taste
Directions
- Preheat oven to 190˚C (375F).
- Place the butternut pumpkin onto a large baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, season with sea salt and black pepper, and scatter with thyme sprigs. Roast for 15 minutes, then remove tray from oven, turn the pumpkin pieces over, and drizzle over the honey. Scatter the shallots over the pumpkin and add another drizzle of olive oil. Return to the oven and roast for another 15-20 minutes until the pumpkin is tender. Remove from the oven and season with sea salt.
- Meanwhile, add the lentils and garlic clove to a large pot of salted water. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 15-20 minutes until lentils are just tender. Drain, and if the garlic clove has not disintegrated, mash it up with the back of a fork and fold it through the lentils. While still warm, add the herbs, drizzle with a touch of olive oil, season with sea salt and black pepper and toss to combine.
- To make the dressing, place all the ingredients except the water in a bowl and whisk to combine. If the mixture is too thick, add 1-2 teaspoons of water to loosen it up. Season with sea salt and black pepper.
- To serve, combine the pumpkin, shallots and lentils. Drizzle over the miso-honey dressing and fold it through the vegetables to distribute evenly. This can be made up to three hours ahead. When ready to eat, top with the microgreens, sprouts or baby rocket.