Recipe: Summer ham salad with honey mustard tahini dressing

Summer ham salad with honey mustard tahini dressing. Photo / Olivia Moore, That Green Olive

With a new year comes goals and resolutions - the vast majority of which tend to fail several weeks into the year.

If eating healthier is something you’d like to accomplish, here’s a start: make it enjoyable. No supposedly good habit will be of benefit if you drag yourself through it!

This is a salad you can make a meal of - it’s got a great balance of protein, carbs and fats, and is packed full of vitamins, minerals and fibre.

Use up any leftover ham (or roast chicken, smoked fish or boiled eggs will all do) from Christmas, and pair it with fresh summer produce and a seriously good dressing that will use up some of the mustard you bought for the ham.

It’s a great salad to bring in the new year - and because it’s also full of sustenance for a healthy and balanced meal, you might find yourself repeating this recipe (and switching ingredients as you wish) to make nutritious eating stick.

Visit Olivia’s website for more recipes: www.thatgreenolive.com

Summer Ham Salad with Honey Mustard Tahini Dressing

Serves 2 as a main or 4 as a side

INGREDIENTS

● ¼ cup quinoa

● 1 small corn cob, husks removed and snapped in half

● 150g plum or campari tomatoes, quartered

● 2 handfuls baby spinach

● 175g ham, chopped into bite-sized pieces

● 1 small avocado, sliced

● 6 olives, thinly sliced

● 2 tbsp sunflower seeds

Dressing

● 2 tbsp honey

● 2 tbsp Dijon mustard

● 2 tbsp hulled tahini

● 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

● 1 clove garlic, finely chopped

● ¼ tsp salt

METHOD

1. Place quinoa in a medium saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes or until tender, and some of the white “tails” have begun to detach. Remove from heat and drain in a sieve.

2. Return pan to the heat and add corn cob halves. Cover with water, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and cook for 3-5 minutes, until corn is bright yellow and just cooked. Drain and run under cold water.

3. Cut corn kernels from cobs and add to a large bowl, along with cooked quinoa, tomatoes, spinach, avocado and olives.

4. To make the dressing, whisk everything together in a small bowl. Add to the salad bowl and toss to fully coat. Transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle over sunflower seeds. Serve chilled.