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What’s the best coleslaw you ever had?  Mine is Purple Heaven – a combination of purple and green cabbage with a sweet tangy surprise.  It’s the perfect accompaniment to shredded chicken or pulled pork, or just as a side.

I recently had a “cooking party” at a friend’s house.  I was teaching on how to prep healthy meals for a week.  Together we prepared a number of dishes – and had a feast at the end – but Purple Heaven was a hit – it might have even been THE favorite.

We tripled the recipe – there were 6 of us – and made 12 cups of shredded cabbage.  I think the group ate 2/3’s of it even though we had a ton of food.

And best of all?  Purple Heaven tasted so good AND is a great detoxifying salad.  Cabbage is part of the cruciferous family, high in vitamins, fiber, and disease fighting phytochemicals.  The purple cabbage has a little bit stronger cabbage taste and is more nutrient dense – the dark color is a sure indication of that.  But the dressing really mellows it out.  Even an unbeliever at the party was in love with it.

So without further ado…  here is the  recipe.

Ingredients:

Base:

2 cups shredded green cabbage

2 cups shredded purple cabbage

1/4 cup golden raisins

1/4 cup raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

shredded carrots – small handful if you have that on hand

Dressing:

2 Tbsp Oil

2 Tbsp Raw Red Wine Vinegar

2 Tbsp Real Maple Syrup

1 clove minced garlic

Directions:

Cut and quarter the cabbage.  Remove the core with a sharp knife.  For smaller cabbages, 1/4 of a cabbage will yield 2 cups of shredded cabbage.  If you have a food processor such as a Cusinart, I would recommend shredding the cabbage this way.  It’s quick and slices the  cabbage finely.  The clean up won’t be bad, because the remaining cabbage shreds rinse out of the bowl easily.

If you don’t have a food processor, place the cabbage on a cutting board and using a very sharp knife cut very thin slices of cabbage.  The thinner the better.  The slices will be long (the length of the cabbage wedge), so once your done with the cabbage wedge, cut all the slices in half.  This will make it a lot easier for eating and putting into your mouth.

Place the cabbage in a large bowl and mix the 2 kinds together so that there is an even distribution of the purple in Purple Heaven.  At this point I also added in shredded carrots because they’re healthy and make it look pretty.

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the dressing and then pour over the cabbage.  Toss until evenly coated.  Here’s a video on how I prepared it.

I’d recommend waiting for at least an hour so that the dressing soaks into the cabbage and the full flavor develops.  The sweetness from the raisins and maple syrup make this slaw outstanding!

Let me know if you made it in the comments below and if you think Purple Heaven lives up to its billing!

To give credit where credit is due, this recipe was developed by Robyn Openshaw of the Green Smoothie Girl.  I love it so much I want to share it with you.