Edamame are Salad Stars

by Dana Jacobi for The American Institute for Cancer Research

I love seeing wasabi, an ethnic food that’s been around for centuries, becoming the next big thing. It is rather like seeing Daniel Craig, the British actor who has done solid work for years, suddenly gain the international spotlight as the new James Bond.

It’s also fun to see unfamiliar items get 15 minutes of culinary super-stardom and then stick around to become everyday choices. Take supermarket staples like radicchio and kiwi fruit. Today they are commonplace, but both were unknown to most Americans until the late 1970s, when gourmet chefs suddenly had to have them on the menu.

Edamame is another veggie traveling this path, and it’s doing so at an even greater speed. Long served as a bar snack in Japan, they started popping up in U.S. Japanese restaurants in the early 1990s. In 1996, it started showing up in frozen vegetable mixes sold across the U.S. Two years later, many supermarkets were selling bags of edamame on their own. Now you can find ready-to-eat edamame in refrigerator cases nearly anywhere sushi is sold, and people often tell me that edamame are the soy they most enjoy.

Edamame are ideal in this pasta salad. I make it when I have leftovers of grilled, poached or baked fresh salmon. Sometimes I use canned fish, which is also good and costs far less. The green-on-green (on green) of spinach linguini, fresh spinach and edamame produces a fresh, vibrant summer look. Choosing baby spinach eliminates the work of stemming and chopping larger leaves. Fresh greens have a better texture than frozen and make a more attractive salad.

Salmon and Pasta Salad with Edamame - Makes 4 servings.
4 oz. spinach linguini
Boiling water
2/3 cup cooked shelled edamame
1 cup (one 8 oz. can) coarsely flaked pink salmon, or leftover grilled, poached or baked
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
1/4 lb. baby spinach leaves
1/4 cup snipped dill
4 tsp. Dijon mustard
Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain, and place the pasta in a mixing bowl. Add the edamame and the salmon.

In a medium-sized skillet, heat the oil over medium-light heat. Sauté the onion until it is translucent, about 4 minutes. Mix in the spinach until it is wilted, about 2 minutes. Add the onions-spinach mixture to the pasta.

Add the dill. Mix with a fork to combine. Mix in the mustard. Season the salad to taste with salt and pepper. This salad keeps for 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Per serving: 263 calories, 8 g. total fat (1 g. saturated fat), 29 g. carbohydrate, 20 g. protein, 6x g. dietary fiber, 357x mg. sodium.