I don’t remember when we started making this caesar salad, but it entered our meal rotation so seamlessly it could have been a decade ago. My usual salad routine involves chopping up a bunch of veggies and tossing them together with greens and beans, plus a simple vinaigrette. But sometimes I want a little more.
I never make it quite the same, based on what ingredients I have on hand, but I have a basic formula modeled after the NYT recipe that I tend to stick to, and try to approximate that taste each time. My version of the dressing, with only slight modifications to the rest:
Dressing
- 1 cup vegan mayo
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 4–5 garlic cloves
- 1 seaweed snack sheet (if I have it)
- 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
- 1 teaspoon dijon
- 1 teaspoon tahini
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- ground pepper
Heat oven to 400F. Chop kale roughly, removing center spine. Blend dressing ingredients together in a food processor, and pour it into a bowl with kale and any other desired greens, coating the leaves.
Dice the bread (I usually use sourdough, and cut up about 5 cups so that I have extra bread for snacking) and spread out on a sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle salt, pepper, and garlic powder on top. Mix together. Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas, spread out on a sheet pan and mix together with olive oil, salt, pepper, and paprika. Because of my weird oven, I usually toast the bread for 15–20 minutes, and the chickpeas for 25–30.
Add the toasted bread and chickpeas to the dressed kale, and toss everything together until it’s all coated evenly. I sometimes add more nutritional yeast on top, depending on how salty I want it. If it lasts until the next day, I’ll add more greens.
I also roasted fennel with a red onion and some carrots that have been around forever, and had that as a side. My usual deal for roasting veggies: chop to inch-ish pieces, oven at 400F, drizzle with olive oil, maybe balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and any additional seasonings (red pepper flakes, squeeze of lemon, herbes [what I used this time], etc) that might round it out. Roast for 20–30 minutes on the middle rack, or until veggies can be easily pierced with a fork. Asparagus and broccolini I leave long (just chopping off the rough bottom stem and maybe halving if too wide), and only roast for 18, or until sweaty. Beets for 45-ish. Think that’s it.
Rhubarb Season 