Wow! Nasi Goreng is such a fresh and healthy tasting dish, and aside from a couple key ingredients you can make it with almost anything in your fridge plus it’s super simple to make!

I didn’t know much about Indonesian food until recently when I learned how to make Gado Gado, but James, having lived in Amsterdam (where Indonesian food is popular) for several years , was quite familiar with it and was looking forward to incorporating more of them into our meal planning.

What is Nasi Goreng?

Nasi Goreng is a really warming and comforting dish – I just love the aromatics of the cumin, turmeric and ginger that fill the house while you are cooking it. The name translates to ‘fried rice’ and the basics for the dish are simply leftover rice, the traditional spices, and egg or some other protein and vegetables.

What is different about our version of Nasi Goreng?

Just like every other dish we produce, we wanted it to include a healthier balance of vegetables than you would normally find in other recipes for Nasi Goreng, so we loaded it up with pretty much everything we had a bit of in the fridge and the result was AMAZING! I would highly suggest you try this if you often end up with bits and pieces of vegetables leftover and have no idea how to use them up.

The list of ingredients may seem long, but you can honestly use any vegetables you want, and as for the flavouring ingredients, these are items we normal have stocked in our pantry. We realized that when we wanted to eat healthier (but not compromise on flavour), we were going to need to rely on fresh herbs and spices in our pantry so our weekly shopping staples include things like limes, cilantro, ginger, and also fresh vegetables that we routinely throw in meals such a spinach, kale, green onions, sprouts, and cabbages.

We like our food spicy, so there is a fair amount of sambal oelek in this recipe, but if you prefer things on the milder side, feel free to reduce that amount to something more comfortable for you, and keep in mind that the fresh ginger also adds some ‘spice’ to the dish.

Inredients for Nasi Goreng:

• cooked rice
• sesame oil
• fresh ginger
• garlic
• turmeric
• cumin
• sambal oolek
• ketjap manis
• onion
• carrot
• celery
• red cabbage
• spinach
• mushrooms
• bean sprouts
• eggs
• peanuts
• lime
• cilantro

Equipment

• wok
• frying pan

How to Make Nasi Goreng

1. Add the sesame oil to your wok and heat over medium high heat. Add the diced onion, ginger, turmeric and cumin and cook while stirring for about 5 minutes, or until the onions become translucent. Add the crushed garlic to the wok and cook for another minute.
2. Add the cooked rice to the wok, and mix the cooked onion into it. If the rice has just come from the fridge, you may need to use a spatula to break it up a bit so that the rice and onion can mix together. Add the ketjap manis, sambal Oelek and soy sauce to the wok and mix thoroughly to evenly distribute the seasonings amongst the rice.
3. Add the vegetables (except the spinach) to the dish and stir fry while mixing the rice and vegetables to combine for about 3 minutes, or until the vegetables have softened a bit. Once the vegetables have softened, add the spinach. You don’t want to over cook it, just wilt it as you fold it in to the rice mixture.
4. Using a non stick frying pan, cook your eggs to your desired level of doneness. We really like our eggs over easy as we really love how mixing the egg yolk into the dish adds a nice creamy finish to it.
5. Divide the fried rice amongst 4 bowls, and top with an egg and peanuts. Garnish with a generous helping of cilantro and a slice of lime – a quick squeeze of lime juice on the dish before eating a nice zest to the dish and really helps to highlight all the flavours.

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5 from 5 votes

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Nasi Goreng - Indonesian Fried Rice

Nasi Goreng - Indonesian friend rice. Fragrant spices combine with leftover rice and vegetables to make a quick, easy, and tasty vegetarian meal. 

Course Main Course

Cuisine Asian

Keyword egg, indonesian fried rice, nasi goreng, vegetarian

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 4

Calories 420 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 cups cooked rice
• 1 inch fresh ginger minced
• 1/2 tbsp turmeric
• 2 tbsp sambal oelek
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 garlic cloves pressed
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp ketjap manis
• 1 onion diced
• 8 mushrooms sliced
• 2 carrots shredded
• 2 celery stalks sliced
• 1 cup shredded red cabbage
• 4 cups spinach chopped
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro chopped
• 2 spring onions sliced
• 1/2 cup peanuts
• 4 lime wedges

Instructions

1. Add the sesame oil to your wok and heat over medium high heat. Add the diced onion, ginger, turmeric and cumin and cook while stirring for about 5 minutes, or until the onions become translucent. Add the crushed garlic to the wok and cook for another minute.

2. Add the cooked rice to the wok, and mix the cooked onion into it. If the rice has just come from the fridge, you may need to use a spatula to break it up a bit so that the rice and onion can mix together. Add the ketjap manis, sambal Oelek and soy sauce to the wok and mix thoroughly to evenly distribute the seasonings amongst the rice.

3. Add the vegetables (except the spinach) to the dish and stir fry while mixing the rice and vegetables to combine for about 3 minutes, or until the vegetables have softened a bit. Once the vegetables have softened, add the spinach. You don’t want to over cook it, just wilt it as you fold it in to the rice mixture.

4. Using a non stick frying pan, cook your eggs to your desired level of doneness. We really like our eggs over easy as we really love how mixing the egg yolk into the dish adds a nice creamy finish to it.

5. Divide the fried rice amongst 4 bowls, and top with an egg and peanuts. Garnish with a generous helping of cilantro and a slice of lime – a quick squeeze of lime juice on the dish before eating a nice zest to the dish and really helps to highlight all the flavours.

I REALLY love a good plate of pasta with sauce, but it’s not something we want to eat regularly as the pasta has little nutritional value. Lately, we have been loving trading off the pasta portion of noodle meals for healthier zucchini noodles made with our vegetable spiralizer. We really loved the results in our Vegetable Pad Thai, so we thought we’d try our hands at lightening up pasta puttanesca with zucchini noodles.

If you already love zucchini noodle recipes, this dish is an easy vegan zoodle recipe to add to your collection, and it is quick enough for a weeknight meal.

Spaghetti alla Puttanesca is a traditional Italian dish that typically includes tomatoes, olives, capers, garlic, and anchovies. Depending on the region, it can also be a bit spicy or include various other ingredients. It’s a really tasty, salty and garlicky kind of sauce and it is 100% full of flavour.

We wanted to make our version a vegan dish since it was *almost* there naturally, and we just had to figure out how to substitute the anchovies without losing some of the distinct flavour that they bring to the dish. With a little research, we decided that we would give the addition of dried seaweed a try! If you think this sounds strange in a pasta dish, you are definitely not alone – I had my reservations about it too, but I was definitely willing to give it a try. It turns out that the dried seaweed was an excellent choice! It brings a bit of that salty sea flavour that the sauce would be missing without the anchovies! The seaweed is COMPLETELY optional, but if you have it lying around at home, its worth an add. Since we like to eat a healthy amount of protein at every meal, we also wanted to add some to this vegan puttanesca, and white beans were a natural fit since we already love their mild flavour in other Italian dishes.

Ingredients for Vegan Puttanesca Zoodles:

• Olive Oil
• Garlic
• Red onion
• Capers
• Fresh oregano
• Chopped tomatoes
• Black olives
• White beans
• Zucchini
• Chili flakes
• Artichoke hearts

Optional (but suggested) Ingredients or Toppings:

• Parsley
• Dried seaweed
• Hemp hearts

Equipment:

• spiralizer

How to Make Vegan Puttanesca Zoodles:

1. Chop your red onion, garlic, olives, and and oregano. Using a mortar and pestle, grind the seaweed into a fine powder (you can also skip this altogether)
2. Add the oil to a large pot and heat to medium high heat. Add the onions and garlic and sautee for for 2-3 minutes, or until the onions have softened and start to turn transluscent. Add the capers, black olives, chili flakes, and oregano. Saute for another minute or two.
3. Add the tomatoes, beans, artichokes and ground seaweed (if using) to the pot and bring to a boil. Return the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. While the sauce is simmering, heat a large frying pan over medium high heat. Add the zoodles to the pan as toss frequently to heat the zucchini.
5. Divide the zoodles between 4 plates and top with sauce
6. Garnish with parsley, hemp hearts, nutritional yeast, or whatever other toppings you enjoy!

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5 from 4 votes

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Vegan Puttanesca Zoodles

vegan puttanesca sauce with white beans on top of zucchini noodles

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Keyword easy vegan zoodle recipe, puttanesca sauce

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 4

Calories 310 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• 3 cloves garlic finely chopped
• 1/2 red onion finely chopped
• 2 tbsp dried seaweed pulverised
• 2 tbsp capers drained and rinsed
• 3 tbsp fresh oregano chopped
• 1 can chopped tomatoes (14 oz)
• 1/2 cup black olives chopped
• can artichoke hearts quartered
• 2 tsp chili flakes
• 2 cans cannellini beans drained
• 2 large zucchini spiralized
• 1/4 cup parsley chopped
• 2 tbsp raw hemp hearts
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Chop your red onion, garlic, olives, and and oregano. Using a mortar and pestle, grind the seaweed into a fine powder (you can also skip this altogether)

2. Add the oil to a large pot and heat to medium high heat. Add the onions and garlic and sautee for for 2-3 minutes, or until the onions have softened and start to turn transluscent. Add the capers, black olives, chili flakes, and oregano. Saute for another minute or two.

3. Add the tomatoes, beans, artichokes and ground seaweed (if using) to the pot and bring to a boil. Return the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes.

4. While the sauce is simmering, heat a large frying pan over medium high heat. Add the zoodles to the pan as toss frequently to heat the zucchini.

5. Divide the zoodles between 4 plates and top with sauce

6. Garnish with parsley, hemp hearts, nutritional yeast, or whatever other toppings you enjoy!

I am an absolute sucker for a good hearty salad, and this Gado Gado is the kind of thing my salad dreams are made of. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy a nice bowl of delicate leafy greens, but there is something about a salad filled with protein and denser vegetables that really screams healthy meal to me.

Gado Gado translates to ‘mix-mix’ in Indonesian, and traditionally the dish is composed of a rich mixture of boiled or steamed vegetables and proteins such as tofu and eggs. The components vary by region, but the main highlight of the dish is brightly flavoured peanut sauce that the ingredients are tossed in – a beautiful blend of savoury, slightly sweet and slightly spicy.

And let’s just talk about this sauce for a minute because this sauce is EVERYTHING! Creamy, with a perfect blend of flavours: peanut, lime, heat and the right balance of sweetness and saltiness. This sauce is a winner, and you are going to want to put it on everything!

We love Gado Gado for either lunch or dinner, and it is an excellent way to use up leftover vegetables from the week – just add a boiled egg and tofu to whatever vegetables you have in your fridge and top with the sauce.

Don’t be intimidated by the list of ingredients – I like a lot of variety in my salads, so I love to throw as many vegetables in them as possible, but you truly can use whatever you want, or whatever you have on hand. As for the sauce, if you do any southeast Asian cooking at home, you probably have most of this on hand already, but if you don’t it’s just a matter of purchasing them and throwing them all in the blender. It may seem like a bit of investment for one salad, but trust me, you are going to make this one again!

Ingredients for Gado Gado:

For the salad:

Purple cabbage
Cucumber
Tomato
Green Apple
Bean Sprouts
Radish
Extra Firm tofu
Eggs
Green onion

For the sauce:

Coconut milk
All natural peanut butter
Garlic
Birds eye chilli (the tiny red ones)
Tamarind paste
Maple syrup
Lime juice
Soy sauce
Kejap Manis (Indonesian Sweet Soy Sauce)

Equipment:

Blender
Stove

How to Make Gado Gado:

Boil a medium pot of water for the eggs, and heat your oven to 400 F
Cube the tofu into half inch sized cubes and spread out on a baking tray. Bake for 15-20 minutes. The tofu will be crisper and denser when fully cooked.
When the water is boiling, place the eggs in one at a time using a spoon. Dip the eggs in and out of the water a couple of times so they can adjust to the boiling temperature without cracking. Boil the eggs for 6 minutes and remove from the boiling water. Rinse under cold water then set aside to cool.
Blend up the sauce ingredients until smooth
Divide the vegetables amongst plate, then top with tofu and a peeled egg. Drizzle sauce over the salads, and serve.

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5 from 7 votes

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Gado Gado

an Indonesian salad of raw vegetables, tofu and boiled egg with a slightly sweet and spicy peanut dressing

Course Salad

Cuisine Asian

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Servings 4

Calories 420 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

Salad

• 14 oz Firm tofu
• 4 large Eggs
• 1 cup red cabbage, julienned
• 1 Granny Smith Apple, sliced
• 2 ripe tomatoes, quartered
• 4 radishes, sliced
• 1/2 cucumber, sliced
• 2 cups beansprouts
• 1 handful Fresh cilantro, chopped

Sauce

• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
• 2 Fresh red chili, seeds removed
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp Soy sauce
• 1 tbsp tamarind paste
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 2 tbsp Kejap Manis (Indonesian Soy Sauce)

Instructions

1. Boil a medium pot of water for the eggs, and heat your oven to 400℉

2. Cube the tofu into half inch sized cubes and spread out on a baking tray. Bake for 15-20 minutes. The tofu will be crisper and denser when fully cooked.
3. When the water is boiling, place the eggs in one at a time using a spoon. Dip the eggs in and out of the water a couple of times so they can adjust to the boiling temperature without cracking. Boil the eggs for 6 minutes and remove from the boiling water. Rinse under cold water then set aside to cool.
4. Blend up the sauce ingredients until smooth
5. Divide the vegetables amongst plate, then top with tofu and a peeled egg. Drizzle sauce over the salads, and serve.