As the weather begins to warm and the flowers begin to bloom again, we know what that means: Spring is just around the corner. With a new season approaching, there are many things that come along with it in terms of food: soups, salads, and everyone’s favorite… VEGGIES! There are many delicious dishes that come with spring due to the wonderful vegetables that are in season including asparagus, carrots, peas, and potatoes. Recipes including these vegetables are all simple yet elegant and can all be made at home by even the average home cook. However, you can’t have any dish without seasoning, and the perfect thing to sprinkle on top of these homemade meals are our various sea salts from Louis Sel salt. Here are three wonderful and healthy dishes that are perfect for the three months of springtime, and go great with Louis Sel salts:
Spring Carrot Soup: March
Though the spring season slowly approaches us in March, the weather can still be unpredictable, which means that a hot, delicious soup is still the perfect meal. Using a tasty spring vegetable, carrots, you can create a flavor-filled carrot soup. And to really enhance this homemade meal, a touch of Louis Sel’s Sel Marin with Fennel and Citrus makes it that more flavorful. This unique flavor mix adds a distinct flair to dishes with its blend of sel gris and the slightly sweet taste of fennel seeds and citrus peel.
*Ingredients: one roughly chopped onion, about one pound of carrots cut in rounds, one roughly chopped fennel bulb, olive oil, butter, four to five cups of chicken or vegetable stock, pepper, and of course Louis Sel’s Sel Marin salt with Fennel and Citrus
*Recipe: On a baking sheet sprinkle cut carrots with Sel Marin with fennel and olive oil and roast for 30-40 minutes at 375. Meanwhile, saute onions with olive oil and butter for 3-5 five minutes on medium heat until translucent. Add fennel and continue to cook for a few additional minutes until softened. Add roasted carrots and stir together Add chicken broth to completely cover the mixture. Add a few dashes of pepper and a few additional sprinkles of Sel Marin. Bring to a boil then turn down the heat to low, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Take an immersion blender into the pot and puree until smooth. Finish with a splash of cream stirred in if desired
Pea Toast: April
Tired of your everyday, same-old avocado toast? Well, since it is a new season, why not try a new type of toast recipe? Using a heart-healthy, classic spring vegetable, peas, make the ultimate spring-inspired pea toast. Simply use any bread you like, mash some cooked peas, and place it on the toasted piece of bread. You can also add toppings to include more flavors, such as radishes and pecorino cheese (as photographed). Then, to really elevate the taste of your pea toast, finish it with our fleur de sel as a special flavor enhancer.
*Ingredients: frozen or fresh peas, olive oil, thinly sliced radishes, sliced bread of choice, pecorino cheese, if desired, and the star of the meal: Louis Sel’s Fleur de Sel
*Recipe: cook peas until softened then mash with a fork in a bowl mixing with a little olive oil. Then toast sliced pieces of bread. Spread the pea mixture onto the toast. Top it off with a few slices of radish and sprinkle Fleur de Sel on top. Add a thin slice, or crumbles of pecorino cheese if desired.
Strawberry Salad: May
With every season comes a perfectly-matched and balanced salad to go along with it. For spring, a strawberry salad proves itself to be both delicious and light for the warm weather. What’s more perfect to eat on a beautiful, sunny spring day than a salad full of flavor and color? For a traditional strawberry salad, start with a spring mix as your base, which is comprised of both lettuce leaves and spinach leaves. Then add strawberries (of course); goat cheese, snap peas, radishes, and croutons to add that crunch that every good salad needs. For the dressing, there are many different options you can use – whether it be extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, balsamic vinaigrette, or honey or agave nectar. For your strawberry salad to really make your taste buds dance and to elevate the taste, add on Louis Sel’s Sel Marin with Baies Roses. These fun pink peppercorns provide a nice bite to the sweetness of the strawberries and the creaminess of the goat cheese.
*Ingredients: baby spinach leaves, sliced strawberries, snap peas or English peas, goat or feta cheese, radishes, croutons. For the dressing, olive oil, lemon juice, dijon mustard, and Louis Sel’s Sel Marin with Baies Roses
*Recipe: Combine salad ingredients into a bowl. To make the dressing, whisk juice from one lemon along with about a teaspoon of dijon mustard. Pour in a few tablespoons of olive oil and whisk it to emulsify. Then add a few sprinkles of Sel Marin. Once the dressing is made, pour and add the dressing into the bowl with the salad ingredients and mix!
