cabbage salad with lime and oregano

This salad recipe is based on one in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Suppers book. It’s fine even the next day as leftovers—it just gets to be more like cabbage pickles. It’s fantastic with homemade refried beans, or on top of the beans piled on a tostada… add diced avocados and you have a feast!! See the recipe for “tostadas three ways” for all kinds of recipes to serve with this salad!

If you’re serving this salad on its own (not with refried beans or something else), you can sprinkle it with toasted green pumpkin seeds (pepitas) for a little extra pizzaz. See instructions, below.

Tip: in case you like to make things occasionally with lime juice (like guacamole, or this recipe, for example) but you don’t always have limes hanging around, you can buy a big bag of them from Costco, squeeze them right away, and freeze the juice in small containers. Then you can just pop a container in the microwave for a few seconds when you need some fresh lime juice.

6 cups finely sliced green or red cabbage
1 ½ teaspoons sea salt or kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
¼ cup finely diced white onion or scallion
2 pinches dried oregano
2 to 4 tablespoons chopped cilantro (if you have it—but go ahead and make this salad without cilantro if you don’t have any hanging around.)
1/3 cup lime juice

Toss the cabbage with the salt and onion and sugar. Add the rest of the salad ingredients, toss well, and taste carefully. Does it need more sugar? More salt? More lime? Add until you’re happy with the flavors. Its should be bright and pickle-y, not bland. Refrigerate until ready to use.

toasted green pumpkin seeds
Put a ½ cup or so of green pumpkin seeds (not the ones from your Jack-O-Lantern, but the kind you can buy in bulk at the grocery store) in a skillet over medium-high heat and toast, stirring fairly constantly (with your extractor fan running for the inevitable smoke) until the seeds swell up and turn golden around the edges. Some will make popping noises. Pour onto a plate and let cool for a bit to crisp up before serving.