If You’re Not Eating Blanched Vegetables, You’re Doing It All Wrong

Blanched vegetables with the two healthy dippings that will save you from tasteless ones.

I have had a balanced diet for most of my life, and I don’t mind eating only vegetables as a side dish sometimes. But being an Indonesian with foods packed with flavors, I can totally see why you — yes, you who’s reading or anyone around you, can be sick of them.

They can be quite bland, and their raw taste in salads can be quite disgusting on some occasions. However, I’m pretty sure the tastelessness didn’t stop you from finishing a whole bowl.

I get it. We all want to be healthy, so let me do you a little favor by giving you a few flavorful Indonesian-ish dippings to up your vegetable game.

The main key for all the following recipes is to eat them with blanched vegetables.

Dippings Recipes

1. Peanut Sauce Dipping

A few months back, I had some peanut sauce left after making some satays. I was thinking of what to do with it and ended up eating it as a dipping for blanched broccoli, carrots, chayotes, and long beans. It was the best.

I couldn’t believe I didn’t try doing so earlier!

This sauce is really easy to make, and since all the flavors are inside, all you need to do with the vegetables is to blanch it. Also, a note, I manually ground my groundnuts, but you can use unsweetened peanut butter instead.

The ingredients you’ll need are:

• 250g Unsweetened peanut butter
• 3 Shallots, sliced thinly
• Juice of 1 key lime
• 4 tbsp Sweet soy sauce
• Salt to taste
• 2 Red bird’s eye chillis, sliced (Optional)

Preparation:

1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients.
2. Taste and adjust, and you’re done.

Those are the amounts of ingredients I use, but you should adjust it to your taste in case it’s not sweet, salty, or spicy enough for you. However, don’t add on sugar if it’s not sweet enough, but rather add on more of the sweet soy sauce.

You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and it can last for weeks.

2. Sambal

Sambal is a type of chili paste. Everyone I know in Indonesia eats sambal with almost everything. We have different types of sambal, but the recipe that I’m giving you is really good when eaten with blanched vegetables.

To give you an image, I use this sambal to eat blanched spinach, water spinach, cucumbers, eggplants, and more. It fits with all kinds of blanched vegetables, but I especially like it with the leafy ones more.

The ingredients you’ll need are:

• 9 Red bird’s eye chilis
• 9 Curly red chilis
• 4 Shallots
• 2 Garlic cloves
• 45g Palm Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Shrimp paste
• 30g Tamarind pulp
• 1–2 tbsp hot water
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preparation:

1. In a small bowl, add the tamarind pulp along with the hot water, and let it sit for about 3–5 minutes.
2. With your hands, squeeze the tamarind until all the flesh is combined with the water.
3. Sieve the mixture and add in the juice to a food processor.
4. Add in the rest of the ingredients into the food processor and blend it until everything is mixed thoroughly with no lumps.
5. Pour it into a small bowl and serve.

Beware that this is pretty spicy, so try eating it in small amounts first!

Well, that is it. I hope with these two dippings, you’ll enjoy eating vegetables more.