Sweet potato and courgette spaghetti salad with a Thai touch

This salad is inspired by the Thai cuisine, maybe my favourite after the Italian one for the fresh, pure and tangy flavours. Give me a bowl of Tom Yam soup or a Thai curry (vegetarian or not) with rice and you’ll make me happy!

Sweet potatoes are almost always eaten cooked and that makes them incredibly sweet. If you eat them raw, something I regularly do, you discover that they taste a lot less sweet, are still very yummy and have a delicious bite. For this salad I cut them into spaghetti with my spiralizer, along with a raw courgette, and dress them very simply with lime juice, fresh mint, chilli peppers, olive oil and salt.

Because raw sweet potato can be quite hard, I leave the the spaghetti to marinate in the fridge with the dressing for half an hour, after which I add the zoodles and the rest of the ingredients. The salt and the acidity from the lime juice make the sweet potato go a little softer and easier to digest.
Because I’m detoxing, today I’ve had a big bowl of this salad for lunch, with nothing else. It really fills you up and it’s delicious, raw and pure! Of course you can use it as a side dish and/or enrich it with all kinds of delicious ingredients like cashew nuts, chunks of grilled chicken, goat cheese, tomatoes, etc. And if you like coriander add a handful of this powerful herb to get an even more Thai-like flavour.

For another delicious salad with courgetti (or zoodles) click here.

Insalata con spaghetti di patata dolce e zucchina alla tailandese
(salad with sweet potato and courgette spaghetti with a Thai touch)

Serves 2

1 large sweet potato, peeled
1 medium courgette/zucchini
3 spring onions
1 lime
1 red fresh chilli pepper, seeds removed
5-6 twigs of fresh mint
extra virgin olive oil
salt and black pepper

Cut the sweet potato with the spiralizer and put the spaghetti into a bowl. Sprinkle with the juice of 1/2 lime, a little olive oil and some salt and pepper and leave for about 1/2 hour in the fridge.

Make zoodles with the courgette and put them in the bowl together with the sweet potato spaghetti.
Cut the chilli pepper into rings after removing its seeds and toss in the salad, together with the spring onions, also cut in rings, and the shredded mint leaves.

Add more lime juice and optionally salt, oil and pepper and serve immediately.