September 28, 2020

Next-Level AMAZING Vegan Caesar Dressing

Want to make the best, next-level amazing vegan Caesar dressing? You’re in the right place! This dressing is rich, creamy, tangy, salty, punch-you-in-the-mouth flavorful. It takes your lettuce from a boring bowl of blah, to a “let-us have thirds!” salad transformation. Make it once, and beware, you will be making it again. I warned you.

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What is Umeboshi?

The secret to this Caesar dressing being AMAZING, instead of just creamy, is all in the umeboshi paste. Sure, the nutritional yeast is great to add some of that parmesan complexity, and the black salt gives that extra special eggy flavor, but the umeboshi is what really makes it. Umeboshi is a Japanese salted, pickled plum (technically it’s actually an ume, but that’s similar to a plum). Umeboshi are extremely sour and salty, and can be bought whole or ground into a paste. . My recipes uses the paste, but you can always blend up whole umeboshi plums if that’s what you have. Look for them at your local Japanese store, or you can find them online- here’s one option. The claims of umeboshi’s health benefits are many and varied across history, from warding off the plague, to cavity prevention, curing a hangover, improving digestion, and stopping cancer growth (and while not all of these have been studied, there is at least some evidence to back other claims up!). But beyond that, umeboshi is just plain delicious! A little bit goes a long way, but start using it and soon you’ll be hooked.

How to Make a Caesar Salad, Vegan

The original Caesar salad was made by Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who owned a restaurant in Mexico, catering to Americans in the 1920’s era of prohibition. The original Caesar salad was served tableside, and isn’t all that similar to what we now think of as a Caesar salad. These days, a Caesar is made up of romaine lettuce, grated parmesan, croutons, and is dressed with a dressing including raw egg yolk, olive oil, lemon, and anchovies. When making a vegan Caesar salad, the most important thing to address is the dressing. The lettuce, of course, can remain the same. The croutons can be made or bought to be vegan. You can even pick up some vegan parm, although with the right dressing I don’t think you actually need it. Because this vegan Caesar dressing incorporates the luscious, eggy flavor of the yolk, the salty, the punchy, salty flavor of sardines is replaced with punchy, salty, and fruity umeboshi, and a little nutritional yeast gives you all the parmesan flavor you need.

Looking for Salad Recipes? Try one of these!

How to Make Vegan Caesar Dressing

Once you have all your ingredients, this recipe is very simple. Just one step in fact-

Add all the ingredients together, and use an immersion blender until the dressing is smooth and creamy.

It’s just that simple! Make sure to give it a little taste, so you can tweak it to your tastes, maybe adding a little more lemon, vegan yogurt, mustard, or any other ingredient. Once you make your dressing, store it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. Like all homemade dressings, it may separate a little in the fridge, so make sure to shake it well before using. A quick note, but if you don’t have black salt (kala namak), you can replace it with regular salt although it will loose the eggy flavor. Just make sure you have that umboshi paste, and you’ll be okay!