pasta salad with five-spice tempeh

Last week I made five-spice tempeh twice in a couple of days. The first time I served it more traditionally, with rice and gailan and things, but the next day the weather was quite warm and I’m trying to get more into salads this summer, so thought I’d try my hand at a pasta salad.

five-spice tempeh pasta salad



ingredients
five spice tempeh
½ avocado (diced)
¾ pack pasta spirals (I use the 500g packs)
half a dozen sundried tomatoes (roughly chopped)
1 cup beanprouts (washed and tails off)
handful of snow peas (chopped into four or five pieces, ends removed)
half a dozen mushrooms (sliced)
a large handful of spinach
peanut oil

2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 clove garlic (minced)
1ish tablespoon chili flakes
half cup vege stock
one shake apple cider vinegar
shake or three sesame oil


method
Prepare the pasta spirals.

Prepare the tempeh (link). Don’t clean the wok after frying the tempeh; instead, add a little more peanut oil and fry the mushrooms. Due to the method used for the tempeh, there should be crispy spiced bits floating about in the oil. This will give the mushrooms a slightly spicy, wok-hei sort of flavour.

Combine the lemon juice, garlic, chili flakes, (hot) vegetable stock, vinegar and sesame oil. Mix until well combined. Drain the pasta, rinse in cold water, and in a large serving dish combine with avocado, tomatoes, beansprouts, snow peas, mushrooms, and spinach. Pour in the dressing and mix well. Leave to soak in for a few minutes, top with tempeh and serve whilst the pasta is still slightly warm.


This time around I used baby spinach, but not-baby spinach will work fine.