Gado-Gado Vegetable Salad with Peanut Dressing

Gado-gado translates roughly to "mix-mix," and true to its name it's built from whatever vegetables are on hand — here a mix of blanched green beans and cabbage alongside raw cucumber and bean sprouts for contrast in both texture and cooking method. The peanut dressing, warmed with garlic, chili, and a touch of tamarind, is what pulls the whole plate together.

Because the base of the dish is vegetables, boiled egg, and tofu, this comes out as a genuinely fiber- and plant-protein-forward meal, and the peanut dressing's fat is mostly the unsaturated kind, which is part of why dishes built around nuts like this tend to fit comfortably into a heart-healthy way of eating. It's substantial enough to be a full lunch rather than a side salad.

Arrange everything on a platter rather than tossing it if you're serving a group — it looks like the feast it's meant to be.