Vegan Caesar Dressing
This will be your new power house dressing. Perfect as a dressing for classic Caesar salad, as a sauce for roasted vegetable and grain bowls, and even as a dip. The base of the dressing is roasted garlic, which gives it a lot of depth and flavour. When garlic cloves are broken down, they release a compound within their cell walls that helps mixtures emulsify, which makes this dressing thick without the use of eggs. That’s why the garlic sauce on your shawarma is so thick!
The trick here is to add the oil in very slowly, so that the emulsion doesn’t break (this has happened to me before and I had to start over-it sucks). This recipe also makes use of the oil the garlic is roasted in, for lot’s of extra garlicky flavour without all the bite of the raw stuff. You will have some oil leftover, so use it for pasta, roasting veggies, and dips.
Even if your not following a predominantly plant-based diet, this dressing is still amazing cae-sal edition. I have been known to add it to my salad, and then add bacon, so do you.
Vegan Caesar Dressing
makes about 1 cup of dressing
2 heads of garlic
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
4-5 tbsps of water, divided
1 tsp salt
black pepper
3/4 cup canola oil
Roast the garlic: Separate and peel all the cloves from both heads of garlic and place in a small, shallow oven-proof dish. Cover garlic cloves with canola oil (about 1 1/2 cups) until fully submerged, and cover dish with foil. Roast at 250 F for about 45 minutes until cloves are golden and soft. Remove the garlic cloves from the dish and reserve the oil for later.
In a blender, food processor, or the bowl of an immersion blender, combine the roasted garlic, mustard, tahini, lemon juice, vinegar, 2 tbsps of water, salt, and black pepper. Process until a thick paste forms. With the blender running, drizzle in 3/4 of a cup of the reserved oil, very slowly and gradually. The mixture will be thick and increase in volume. Add the rest of the water, 1 tablespoon at a time, to thin out the dressing to your desired consistency.
Pour the dressing into a container and store in the fridge for up to one week.