Soy Good "Egg" Salad

Today's recipe comes from Carb-Conscious Vegetarian by Robin Robertson. You may be thinking; "Hey, I read your blog Deb, and you appear to be neither a vegetarian, based on all that lamb you eat nor particularly carb-conscious after all that bread I see you enjoying so whats up with the cookbook?" My cookbook collection has no bounds or prejudices and since I dabble in eating a more plant-based diet by eating no or little meat a couple of days a week, my collection has a lot of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. I bought this book at Costco as I have one of the author's other books; Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker and I like her recipes. I have had eggless "egg" salad from the natural foods store before but generally find them to be too one dimensional and much too mustardy. I liked the ingredients for this one and thought it would be good for a healthy lunch.

Soy-Good "Egg" Salad

Carb Conscious Vegetarian, Robin Robertson

1/3 cup soy mayonnaise

2 Tbsp tahini paste

1 Tbsp Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 Tbsp white wine vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground paprika

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

1/8 tsp ground red pepper

1 lb extra firm tofu, well drained, squeezed and patted dry

1/3 cup finely chopped celery

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh, flat-leaf parsley

2 Tbsp chopped scallion or green onion

1 tsp capers, rinsed, drained and chopped (optional)

In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, tahini, mustard, lemon juice, vinegar, salt, paprika, turmeric and ground red pepper, stir well.

Place the tofu in a large bowl and crumble it with a fork. Add the celery, parsley, scallion and capers. Stir in the mayonnaise mixture and blend well. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or overnight. When ready to serve, taste to adjust the seasoning.

Serves 4 (per recipe 190 cal, 16 g fat, 9 g protein, 2 g fiber but replacing the mayo with Greek yogurt and a bit of low fat mayo brings those calories and fat counts down)

Notes/Results: I reduced the mayonnaise (and I only had light regular mayo) to 2 Tbsp and used Greek yogurt for the rest of the 1/2 cup soy mayo requested. I also doubled the capers and did not chop them--I love me some capers. I also added some ground black pepper and used a chipotle powder in place of the ground red pepper for a bit more smokiness. The flavor of this "egg" salad is delicious and has lots of layers--smokey, tangy, just enough mustard. The texture is not exactly egg salad-like but it is close and there is no messing with boiling eggs, peeling and chopping them. I ate it for lunch wrapped in green lettuce leaves but would also eat it it as a sandwich, a salad topper or on crackers. I will make this again.