Tag Archives: sunflower seeds

A vegan tuna salad that checks all the boxes

Posted in The vegan elephant by

Pre-vegan days, I loved a tuna-salad sandwich.  It was such a great comfort food. I tried making vegan tuna-salad using chickpeas to replace the tuna. It was good. But it was nothing like tuna salad. I recently discovered a recipe that uses nuts and seeds to replace the tuna. And you know what? It’s amazing! This is my version of that recipe. This tuna salad is:

  • Vegan
  • Gluten free
  • Soy free
  • Spreadable yet pile-high-able
  • Nutrient dense
  • Delicious
  • Tuna-y without any actual marine life being hurt. Yay!

You will want to presoak the nuts and seeds for at least 30 minutes so you need to plan ahead a bit. You also need a food processor or good blender for this recipe or super cheffy knife skills.

This recipe makes enough for about 4 very full sandwiches.


Ingredients

1/2 cup walnut pieces

1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds

1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds (a/k/a pepitas)

1/2 tablespoon dried seaweed (I used sea oak, also called arame)

The juice of ½ lemon

1 tablespoon brine from dill pickles

1 stalk celery chopped

1 green onion chopped

1 dill pickle chopped

½ cup vegan mayonnaise (I use Hellman’s)

1 generous teaspoon prepared horseradish (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Soak the walnuts, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds in water. You want to soak them for 30 minutes to an hour. I find longer soaking makes everything too mushy. I soaked the nuts and seeds right in the food processor, then just drained off the water.  

Once the nuts and seeds have soaked, drain off the soaking water. Add the dried seaweed and pulse the nuts, seeds and seaweed until you have a grainy mix. Don’t overmix or you’ll end up with a paste. You want to keep some texture.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the lemon juice, mayonnaise, pickle brine, horseradish, and chopped celery, green onion and dill pickles. Mix everything together and then stir in the ground walnut, sunflower seed, and pumpkin seed mixture and blend together.

Taste and add salt and pepper if you prefer. I find the pickles and brine make everything sufficiently salty.

Pile the mixture high, higher, higher on bread, toast or even cucumber slices and enjoy!

Seize her salad….and eat it yourself

Posted in The vegan elephant by

SeizeHerSalad

If you like creamy, garlicky Caesar salad dressing, pay attention.

This recipe comes from Esther’s Kitchen – Esther being the wonder pig. My embellishments are the kale, chickpea croutons and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast. Get out your blender and let’s get started.

Ingredients

One head romaine lettuce – washed and torn into bite sized pieces

TIP – check prices. It’s December in Canada and a big head of local, organic kale costs less than the imported romaine so this salad is got the nutrition boost of kale. Mmm.

½ cup water

1/3 cup tahini

1/3 cup raw shelled sunflower seeds

Juice of one lemon (about ¼ cup)

1 tsp miso

2-3 cloves garlic

1 medjool date, stone removed

Salt and pepper to taste. I used about ¼ teaspoon each.

Directions

Put everything but your salad greens into the blender and blend until creamy. You will have a thick dressing, but it should not be a paste. If it is, add a bit more water and keep blending.

Put your greens in a large bowl. Pour the dressing over top and toss well. I added roasted chickpeas (see recipe below) and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.

Roasted chickpeas

½ cup cooked chickpeas patted dry

1 tsp olive oil

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp each of black pepper, smoky paprika, garlic powder

Toss all the ingredients together in a cup or small bowl. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Let cool before eating. When they are done the chickpeas will be almost melt-in-your-mouth crunchy; they won’t have any chewiness/moisture to them. If they don’t have that texture, roast the chickpeas for another 5-10 minutes.