Thug Kitchen Vegan Caesar Dressing

Caesar salad is definitely my go-to salad if I'm out for a light lunch. I love it with some grilled chicken, and its only good if its put together the traditional way- I've seen it served with whole lettuce leaves and slices of sourdough bread. NO.


The lettuce needs to be chopped, it needs crisp squares of bacon and proper croutons. The egg can be coddled, poached or boiled, but if it has a hard yolk I like it added at the end as a garnish and not mixed through because that chalky yolk through my salad does nothing for me. As you can see I'm quite particular about my caesars and to be honest I was a little apprehensive when I embarked on this journey of making a vegan caesar dressing.

The Thug Kitchen Cookbook is vegan so the recipe is basically just lettuce and croutons with this dressing, and while I went to the effort of making the vegan dressing my husband wasn't going to be content with a bowl of lettuce and toasted bread so I did the boiled eggs, parmesan, bacon and grilled chicken with it. It was divine! Don't be fooled- this dressing is really great and isn't limited to caesars, you can have it as an added nutritional boost to any salad.

Ok so enough yammering, here is the recipe;

You will need... (makes plenty!)
1 cup of raw/natural almonds, chopped roughly
1 cup hot tap water
juice of 1 small lemon
1 tsp of rice wine vinegar
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 Tbs dijon mustard
1/2 cup olive oil
a little bit of salt
the recipe calls for capers but they're optional- I didn't use them because I didn't have them on hand but you could add them if you like, just add them before seasoning because they are salty.

Method...
1. Soak the chopped almonds in the hot water for 20 minutes.
2. Add the almonds to the blender and process until smooth, add the remaining ingredients, blitz until its nice and creamy like a caesar dressing. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
3. Use what you need on your salad and store the rest in an airtight container in the fridge for future use, it will firm up in the fridge so to soften it place what you need in the microwave for 5 seconds to take the chill off it before using or just add a splash of water.
My almonds still had their skins on- hence the speckled look. Still delicious

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vegetable Mornay

Image
This is a classic dish that can dress up the most boring vegetables. I personally think cheese or bacon (or sometimes both) can make any meal better! You will need... 1/2 a large head of cauliflower 1 head of broccoli 1 large carrot 2 washed potatoes (I used red delight) 1 cup of peas (fresh or frozen) For the sauce 75gr buttter 1/3 cup plain flour 3 cups whole milk salt & pepper & freshly grated nutmeg 1/2 cup cheddar cheese For the topping 1 cup cheddar cheese 1/4 cup breadcrumbs 2 tbs roughly chopped flat leaf parsley Method... 1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius, grease a large 3-4Lt capacity ceramic baking dish. 2. Peel the carrot and potato and dice into 1 inch pieces then transfer to a microwave safe bowl with a little water, cover with glad wrap and microwave for 1 minute on high to begin the cooking process. Drain and set aside. Wash the cauliflower and broccoli and trim into neat florets.  3. Melt the butte...
Read more

George Calombaris' Pasticcio (AKA Greek Lasagna)

Image
Ohhh pasticcio... This recipe gives me so many warm and fuzzies. My mum always used to make it for me when I was younger for special occasions like my birthday and Easter so I associate it with fun times and getting presents and all that good stuff. The one my mum made came from the old faithful Margaret Fulton Cookbook circa late sixties/early seventies... I'm not sure what my Italian mum was doing making Greek recipes written by an Australian cookbook guru but anyway... it must have been en-vogue when the book was written and I'm not complaining because it's delicious. Mum's pasticcio was put together 'lasagna-style' with layers of curly-edge lasagna sheets that would get all crispy and brown on the edges. She would layer the pasta sheets with the tomato and beef sauce and béchamel and then bake it, and it would usually take her a while to prepare. My New Favourite Cookbook! I like this recipe by George Calombaris because it still has all that wo...
Read more

Anna-Maria's Zucchini Slice

Image
This is Anna-Maria’s Zucchini Slice from Stephanie Alexander’s Cooks Companion …   I’ve tweaked it a little as I’m sure most people do, it’s one of those no-rules recipes where you can customise it as much or as little as you like. I love zucchini because it is such a versatile vegetable (although technically it’s an immature fruit- wiki will tell you it’s a swollen ovary of a zucchini flower… sounds appetising), you can put them in almost anything because they don’t have a very strong flavour, which is great when it comes to hiding veggies from your kids! I’ve even eaten a chocolate cake that had grated zucchini in it and it was one of the best chocolate cakes I’ve ever had- so moist (haha MOIST!) You will need… ¼ cup of olive oil (the recipe says half a cup but you really don’t need that much) 500g zucchini, grated 1 small carrot, grated 1 small onion, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 200gr smoked bacon, finely chopped 100g freshly grat...
Read more