Best Vegan Caesar Salad |

I'm so excited, y'all. I'm so excited because I'm about to show you how to make my favorite salad of all time. This is my kale Caesar salad, and it's made with sunflower seeds. Y'all might remember that I made this salad in the video that I did with Gray recently. You know, the one where I totally remake and transform my friend Gray and Nikki's kitchen. If you haven't seen that, click through and watch that first, because it's a lot of fun. But I made this salad with Gray. He was mind blown with one, the fact that it's so easy to make, but two, it's literally the most delicious thing you can imagine. So I wanted to show you guys step-by-step how I make this because I wanna make sure that you guys eat this as well on a regular basis, because that's just really how delicious it is. This recipe actually comes from my cookbook, Sweet Potato Soul, and it is on page, everyone open your cookbooks, it's on page 76. And yeah, y'all, it's the bomb. Let's get started, it's so easy. We're gonna need a blender. I'm using my little ninja. So all we're gonna do is put all the ingredients in here, blend it up, and voila. For our dressing, we are going to start with one of my favorite ingredients, garlic. I've been eating a lot more garlic recently, raw garlic, because it is so good for you. It's antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial, and it tastes really good. Yes, it does make your breath smell horrible, but who am I kissing? No one, just Baby J. So start with some garlic. Ooh, ah, okay. I'm just putting this into the food processor or the blender so I don't have to mince it. And then after that, we are going to also do our soaked sunflower seeds. So for the sunflower seeds, I soak these overnight. They look terrible, but they're perfect because they're nice and soft, and when I blend them, they're gonna get extra, extra creamy. I use sunflower seeds because I'm allergic to cashews and because they actually have more flavor than cashews, which is really nice in this recipe, and they're very healthy, very, very good for you, very high in vitamin E and a lot of other things. So I'm actually gonna drain this in a mesh strainer and then add them to my blender. Ooh, I'm dripping, I'm dripping. Oh, okay. Sunflower seeds, nice and drained, and they look a lot better when they're not floating in water. That was about a half a cup of soaked sunflower seeds, half a cup measured when they're dry, not when they're wet. Three tablespoons of nutritional yeast. The nutritional yeast is going to give it, I don't wanna say cheesy, but yes, cheesy, dairy-y in a good way flavor. Three tablespoons because we want a lot of that delicious flavor in our dressing. And then we are going to do capers. So two tablespoons of capers. Worcestershire, Worcestershire sauce. Worcestershire sauce, oh. Make sure the one you use is vegan though because typically it's not vegan. It has anchovies in it. So just buy the vegan one. This one's just from Kroger. I didn't have to go anywhere special for it. Two tablespoons of lemon juice. Ooh, this is a juicy one. No seeds in this one either. Now we're gonna use soy sauce. We're doing a tablespoon of soy sauce. I'm using Tamari, which is a gluten-free soy sauce. Here we go. And two teaspoons of Dijon mustard. So I'm gonna add a quarter of a cup of water. That's gonna help it blend. I'm also gonna add some black pepper and some olive oil. So that's all for our dressing. Really, that's it. You just put everything in, put the blender lid on and blend until creamy. Okay, you see how nice and creamy it is and smooth? That's exactly what we want. This dressing is so tasty that I could really eat it with a spoon, but I won't. I'm gonna put it on my salad. Let's cream it. Mm. I was just hoping it didn't get on my shirt. Mm, so good. It's literally perfect. Now we're gonna put it on our salad. I'm gonna teach you guys how to massage kale. For those who aren't familiar with massaging kale, this is important. Kale is kind of tough, you know? If you've ever had kale at a restaurant where they didn't massage it, you're like, this is a lot to chew. So massaging it not only makes it more palatable and delicious, but it also breaks down the cell wall of the leaf, allowing your body to basically better access the nutrients in the kale. So the kale is more nutritious when you eat it, and it tastes a lot better. And the way you massage it is literally just like massage it. Just how you would massage someone's shoulders, you're gonna do it to the kale. But here's another little tip. Before you even get that far, you're gonna mince the kale. No, not mince. You're going to chiffonade the kale first. So basically, take a bunch of kale, put it on your cutting board, and you're going to, with a sharp knife, cut this kale as thinly as you can. Well, not as thinly. About an eighth of an inch thick slices of kale. And you're basically doing a chiffonade. We are going to add our dressing, and I'm going to show you how to massage it. First, I must roll up my sleeves, put my hair back, and I'm gonna go wash my hands. I'll be right back. So you're not gonna waste this. First, I like to scrape the dressing off of the blade. So we are gonna put quite a lot of dressing. So you're gonna need it to do the massaging. Let's say about, I don't know. You need more, you add more. I don't know how much that is. So let's talk about massaging. Do like this, all right? Kind of, there we go. Oh yeah, just massage that dressing into the greens, and they're gonna reduce in size like they're cooking. Because they kind of are cooking. You're breaking them down. Cue sexy music. ["Sexy Music"] So how do you know when it's done? Well, it's kind of reduced in size by half. But also, you can just take a piece and taste it. And if it feels very tough still, you're gonna need to keep massaging. But if it's nice and tender, and just how you like it, then you're done. Okay, just a piece like that. Mm, nice texture, nice texture. That's it, that's great. Now I'm just gonna get it off my fingers. All right, so now we're going to do our romaine lettuce. I promise it's actually, it's in here. Chop. There we go, there we go. That's manageable, I can do that. I know you're wondering, why not just do kale, Jenae? Why else do the romaine? Or why not just keep it simple, just do the romaine, Jenae? Well, the answer is all in the texture. The way I cook, I think about flavor, one, but just as important is the texture of everything. And in a salad, when you have crunch, that's a good salad. And sometimes I use kale salads, but they're better when they have some crunch to them, so that's why I add the romaine. And why not just do romaine? Well, because that heartiness from the kale, even the texture of the kale, really adds something nice. So now we have our romaine lettuce on top of the kale. Just gonna add some more dressing out of my blender. That seems like a good amount. You cannot have too much of this dressing, you cannot. It is so tasty, like, mm. I'm gonna put this aside while we make those crispy chickpeas, and then we are going to eat our salad. Can't wait for our chickpeas, it is so easy. You're gonna want to have an air fryer, and if you don't have one, you can actually do this in the oven, no problem. So I have cooked chickpeas here. Just add those to a mixing bowl, and it's so simple. I'm just gonna add some olive oil to the top. I have a recipe for this on my blog. I will link it, because I eyeball it now. I make these, like, at least three times a week, because they're the perfect thing to top a salad with. And then I have a spice mix here, or a few spices. I'm doing smoked paprika, garlic powder, and salt. And a lot of all of the above. These are gonna be full of flavor. But that is not it. I'm also going to add some nutritional yeast, which, let me just eyeball it. That's pretty good. So give it a stir. That's literally it. Now we're gonna put this in the air fryer at 400 degrees. 375 to 400. Everybody's air fryer is different. But I'm gonna do mine at 400 for 10 minutes. Chickpeas. Ooh, look how crispy they are. Mm, mm, the flavor. I don't even think this piece has any beans, but I think it's just the flavor. Nugget. Yeah, basically. Mm. So the chickpeas are done, and the salad is done. And so let me just plate it up now. Mm. Full disclosure, I usually eat this out of the mixing bowl, but you know, for YouTube, I'm gonna plate it and make it pretty. I don't usually do all this, though. Ooh, so my thing kind of like, crumbs come out of the bottom. I hate to waste that. So try to not waste your crumbs. Ah, just on top. It's a simple salad. If you wanna bulk it up more, you could also add cornbread croutons. I have the recipe for that in my cookbook. It's really nice because then you have the salad, the beans, and the cornbread, which is in the grain category. And it's even heartier. But this is hearty as it is. I love to eat this salad as an entree salad at night. Sometimes I eat it with sweet potatoes or toast. Avocado toast. Or along with anything else I'm making. Chili, my etouffee. I will leave links to all these recipes down below. But this is a delicious recipe, and I'm gonna taste it and prove it to you. Mm. Delicious. Mm. Now you guys know how to make my famous Caesar salad. What is it called? Yeah. Now you guys know how to make my famous kale Caesar salad recipe. I created this recipe six years ago, and it's still one of my favorites. So that's how you know it's really, really good. Give it a try. As I said, all the links for the recipes that I even mentioned in this video will be down below along with this one at the very top. So give it a try. Let me know what you think. And please, when you try it, leave a review and a rating on my blog post. That really helps send more traffic to the blog because it helps tell Google that this recipe is the bomb. So please leave a rating and a review on the blog post when you try all of my recipes. I will also link to my cookbook where this recipe was originally published. So I definitely think you should try that book too. A lot of the recipes, most of the recipes in the book are not on the blog. So buy the book and have fun with that. Give this video a thumbs up. And if you've tried this recipe already, leave a comment down below. Let everybody know how amazing it was for you as well. If you haven't already subscribed to my channel, please hit the subscribe button and turn on notifications so you don't miss a future video. I put out new videos every week on Thursday. Thanks so much for watching. Bye, guys. Bye.