Sometimes you just want a nice, thick, sandwich. You know, slather a little mustard, add a few tomatoes, maybe a pickle or two….mmmm.
Maybe it’s just a guy thing.
But what about the filling? Are there any good sandwich ‘meats’ that aren’t processed, full of fat, or guaranteed to leave some funky soy isolate taste in your mouth?
The answer is most definitely yes!
Vegan Tuna Salad
Ok there’s not really any tuna in this…..we’re vegan remember?
But it looks like tuna, and spreads like tuna, so it’s the best description so far.
And it’s made from a simple ingredient you can find in any grocery store.
Garbanzo Beans (or Chickpeas)
Yep. when you smash them down enough, it actually looks just like tuna. I use an old-fashioned potato smasher. I guess you could use a food processor but for 1) you really don’t want a bean paste here (yuck) and 2) it’s just another gadget to clean, so I use a potato smasher. And when they start slipping in between the wires of the smasher I switch over to a regular old fork.
Does a pretty good job.
And when you add your typical tuna fish sandwich veggies, you know – onion, celery, pickle relish, etc – it looks pretty much like the real thing.
Before you get started, add about 1/2 cup of raw cashews to your blender right now and a 1/2 cup of water. Just let these hang out awhile so they’ll get nice and soft. We’ll use these later for the dressing.
I start with a single 15oz can of low sodium garbanzo beans. Rinse and drain them well and then plop them in a bowl big enough for you to work in. Now, go to town with that potato masher (or fork) just until the consistency is that of flaked tuna.
It’s ok if you leave a bean or two untouched.
Then I add about 1/2 cup of red onion, a single stalk of celery and a small carrot, all diced pretty fine. And finally, about 2 tablespoons of dill pickle relish. I always used relish in my tuna salad, but if you like sweet relish better – go for it.
Stir that up a bit and it should look pretty good by now. Feel free to add whatever veggies you used in your tuna salad. Just make sure they are all chopped pretty small and about the same size.
Now it’s time to make the dressing.
At this point we would ‘normally’ add gobs of full fat, artery clogging, mayonnaise. But to keep this recipe low-fat and healthy we’re going to use something else.
Cashews
Remember we had these guys soaking while we chopped the veggies?
Well now add about 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, a couple of teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, 1 full tablespoons of regular yellow mustard, a teaspoon of low sodium soy sauce, and about 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder. I also like nutritional yeast, so I add about a teaspoon of that too.
Now put the lid on and pulse your blender until the cashews get pulverized, and then run it on high-speed until you got a nice smooth dressing. You may want to stop every now and then to scrape down the sides.
That’s it!
Pour the dressing into your ‘tuna’ and mix well.
Vegan Tuna Salad
That’s going to make one mean sandwich.
Find a couple of slices of healthy, whole wheat bread, add some red leaf lettuce, a slice or two of fresh tomato, and some dill pickle …. mmmm mmmm.
Enjoy!
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: #cooktime#
Total time: 20 mins
Serves:
Serving size:
Calories:
Fat:
- ½ cup raw cashews
- ½ cup water
- 15ox can low sodium garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
- ½ cup red onion, diced
- 1 stalk of celery, diced
- 1 small carrot, diced
- 2 tbls dill pickle relish
- 3 tbls lemon juice
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbls yellow mustard
- 1 tsp nutritional yeast (optional)
- 1 tsp low sodium soy sauce
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- Add the cashews and water to your blender to let them soak
- Mash garbanzo beans in a large bowl using a potato masher, or fork
- Add diced veggies and stir
- All the remaining liquid ingredients to the blender with the cashews and water and pulse until smooth.
- Stir dressing into 'tuna' .
