Carrot Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing

Carrot noodle salad doesn’t sound great, I know. But hear me out.

In the last few months, I’ve relied on grocery delivery more than I ever thought I would. Grocery shopping has always been fun for me — I like picking out produce, browsing the aisles to see what kind of new nut butter I want today, and even just getting out of the house.

I’ve also been trying to eat more vegetables, so services such as Imperfect Foods have peaked my interest. They send you weekly deliveries of various items that are deemed too ugly to sell. Most of the “imperfect” things are produce, but they also have things like broken pretzels, and other snacks. You can customize it based on what you want or need. I found that a lot of stuff was way less expensive than my local grocery store. And free delivery is an added bonus, so I signed up.

I got my first box this week. It’s quite a bit for the money.  As far as veggies, I got some carrots, small apples, a big head of Romaine, some tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, and onions. None of it looked too terrible to me. I also got coffee, some Impossible ground meat, some pasta, and a few other odds and ends. If you want to try it for yourself, you can get $20 off your first order for signing up here.

My first meal with them was this carrot noodle salad — simple, fresh, and easy. You don’t need any special equipment. A vegetable peeler will turn your carrots into broad flat noodles in no time. With an easy peanut sauce, and some crunchy peanuts, and a dash of crunchy sea salt it makes a healthy lunch that is refreshing, and different from the usual sandwich or in my case yogurt and granola.