Three Sisters Salad recipe - Vegan! (video)

[Saviolo]

The Three Sisters are three crops that were co-planted by Indigenous communities before Europeans came to North America. The three crops are beans, squash, and corn. They were frequently co-planted because they help each other grow in a symbiotic way. Most of the actual Indigenous recipes using the Three Sisters have been lost, but there are many ways to use them together that are delicious and extremely nutritious. We add pecans to this recipe as well, as they were more common amongst groups further south in North America.

This recipe is vegan, but we found that a little crumble of feta cheese on top really made it pop. Of course it's not extremely traditional once we get into adding olive oil and lemon juice, but the main ingredients, the squash, corn, and beans are very traditional. The squash was more likely to be something like a zucchini at the time, but any number of different squash would be a great add to this dish.

[intrepidity]

1. Huh. That wasn't butternut squash

It's kabocha, and I never peel it because the peel actually is quite edible and tasty.

[Saviolo]

2. Ack! You're right it wasn't butternut

It was buttercup (at least it was stickered as buttercup), which is extremely close to kabocha. We wanted to get kabocha, but we couldn't.

This one was slightly underripe so the skin had a quite unpleasant strong green flavour.

[intrepidity]

3. Ah, I will look for that next time I venture out to grocery store

Kabocha has become my favorite go-to squash, mainly because I don't have to deal with peeling, and because I like eating the rind (when it's good--very few have been tough).

But knowing buttercup looks similar, I will start reading the labels, lest I bring the wrong one home.

Thanks!