Caesar Salad Dressing is Outrageously Delicious -Vegan

Do you like Caesar salad?

I love it, and I think it's all about a good dressing!!

Making homemade salad dressing is very easy and often healthier than consuming commercially bought salad dressing because homemade is often frequently lower in sodium, chemicals, and oils.

Caesar dressing is one of my favorites - so I was blown away by the taste of this recipe for oil-free vegan Caesar salad dressing. 

It is so delicious that it is perfect for vegans and non-vegans as well. I actually did not expect it to taste so good (of course it is gluten-free too).

Yes, I realize that this is not a traditional Caesar salad. I made it vegan and left off the croutons because I'm gluten free. Regardless, I think everyone would enjoy this dressing on any salad. 

I haven't had Caesar salad since becoming totally vegan about a year and half ago because it ordinarily contains dairy and sometimes anchovies. This dressing is made with cashew nuts and capers. 

I decided to add a little grated carrot for color and nutrients

Creamy, tangy, and tastes like it contains a little cheese - but it doesn't.  I enjoyed it over a humble bowl of chopped romaine lettuce that included a little grated carrot for color.

The recipe is simple and the dressing is made in a powerful blender. 

I used my new NutriBullet Rx which produced a nice smooth end product which was quite white and creamy.

A Quick History About Caesar salad  

The following information about the origins of the Caesar salad is quoted from Wikipedia:

The salad's creation is generally attributed to the restaurateur Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who operated restaurants in Mexico and the United States.^[2] His daughter Rosa recounted that her father invented the salad at his restaurant Caesar's (at the Hotel Caesar in Tijuana, Mexico) when a Fourth of July rush in 1924 depleted the kitchen's supplies. Cardini made do with what he had, adding the dramatic flair of the table-side tossing "by the chef."^{[3][incomplete short citation]} Cardini was living in San Diego, but he was also working in Tijuana, where he avoided the restrictions of Prohibition.^[4] A number of Cardini's staff have said that they invented the dish.^{[5][incomplete short citation][6]}

• Julia Child said that she had eaten a Caesar salad at Cardini's restaurant when she was a child in the 1920s.^[7] 
•  In 1946, the newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen wrote of a Caesar containing anchovies, differing from Cardini's version:

Q: Would I use this dressing on other salads? Absolutely!!!! It would be tasty on any kind of salad combination. 

Q: Would I use this dressing on other types of food? 

Yes, I think it would taste good over vegetables too.  

Author of the blog: Judee Algazi

Prep time: 6 minutes (+ 1-2 hrs soak time for cashews)

Cook time: N/A

Makes: 1 cup of salad dressing

Serves: 2-3 servings (depends how much dressing you use)

Ingredients: 

1/2 cup of raw unroasted cashews, soaked for 1 hour (or more) and drained 

1 and 1/2 tablespoons of capers

1 tablespoons of caper juice 

1/4 teaspoon of dijon mustard powder 

1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder

1/2 - 3/4 cup of unsweetened almond milk (depending how how thin you like it )

1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice 

Pinch of cracked black pepper 

Notes: 

1. The reason for soaking the cashews is for better digestibility. If that doesn't matter to you, you don't have to soak them. 

2. All of my recipes on this blog, for the past year and half, are now whole food plant based vegan and oil-free and still Gluten Free.

3. I follow the food guidelines of the websites - Forks Over Knives and The Starch Solution

4.  For an additional interesting taste, Add 1/4 cup of capers to the salad

Sharing this post on Weekend Cooking where any blogger can share a food related post.

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My favorite oil-free ideas and recipes come from Plentiful Kiki (link) but I love her YouTube videos the best! followed by High Carb Hannah. - Both of their recipes are based on the McDougall Diet (link) and the book The Starch Solution. 

Forks Over Knives (link) is another site that has a variety of oil-free recipes 

Fit for Life based on Dr. Joel Furhman's diet (link) also advocates oil free cooking.