Dino Caesar Salad

Vegan and Gluten-Free

(inspired by KateFruitFlowers)

Dino? Why Dino?

To be honest, this salad isn’t your average salad. Not only because it can be made completely raw when subtracting an ingredient, BUT because this salad. IS. HUGE.

DINO huge. Popcorn bowl HUGE.

Worthy of the Dino title I gave it, in my opinion. I’m always about having quality AND quantity in my meals. Can’t blame a bae!

Also to note, this recipe was inspired by KateFruitFlowers. I tweaked the recipe a bit, purposefully and accidentally. How do you accidentally tweak a recipe? Well, I’ll tell you my curious baes.

My memory is on par with that of a squirrel’s.

No joke LOL! I swear, someone will introduce themselves to me and as SOON as their name comes out of their mouth, it keeps travelling past me, never having reached the inner sanctuary of my brain storage. Sad really, but at least I can say I’m a face person, as in I can totally recognize your face but have no idea what the first letter of your name starts with. Meaning I’m most likely going to start a guessing game on where I saw you before getting to the nitty-gritty part—asking what your name is.

OFF-TOPIC!

Okay, so bad memory/attention span proved in the point above. Anyways, I came to follow KateFruitFlowers by recommendation of one of my friends. After doing my own research—let’s be honest, I creeped on her feed and YouTube channel—I decided to purchase one of her raw ebooks for two reasons.

1. I’m always down to find new vegan recipes to expand my pallet.

2. I was curious about raw veganism and if I could personally take part in it.

I’m going to be honest here and say that a raw vegan diet isn’t for me. And not because the food isn’t appetizing, quite the contrary, the food is good, healthy, and makes me feel like I’m sprouting a flower crown while the sun shines on me. No, this bae simply likes foods that aren’t considered “RAW” too darn much.

For example:

1. Tofu

2. Bread, rice, udon noodles

3. BEANS

4. Hummus

5. Air fried chickpeas

6. Crispy Brussel sprouts

The list goes on and on, thanks to the ever-adapting recipes that vegans continue to come up with to blow our MINDS (and tastebuds, more importantly).

And this is not hating on raw vegans whatsoever, I’m a complete fan of the way eating raw makes me feel. In my last semester of college, I actually ended up doing a research paper comparing an omnivore, vegan, and raw vegan diet. It’s truly stunning how bodily functions improve based on how you eat! Antibodies with a vegan diet, based off of legitimate studies, were shown to drastically improve in the body. Now compare it to a raw vegan diet? The study compared the antibodies to a marathon runner! How crazy is that!! It’s incredible what the human body can do when feeding it whole foods and reaping the benefits of it.

So, here’s The Dino Caesar Salad, which you can make raw vegan if you take out the beans:

Dressing:

½ cup raw cashews

1 ½ teaspoons mustard

1 tablespoon coconut aminos (or soy sauce)

½ lemon (freshly squeezed)

½ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ cup water

Salad:

1 head of romaine

2 oz. cherub tomatoes (sliced in half)

½ cup black beans (canned)

Optional:

Sub black beans for ½ a block of air-fried tofu or neither.

Directions:

1. Chop the head off of romaine lettuce (yikes, sounds scary). Cut in portion sizes, rinse, then place in a large bowl.

2. Place raw cashews in a small high-powered blender/food processor. Blend fine, or if you want a little crunch like I do, halt the blender before fully blending cashews.

3. Combine the rest of the dressing ingredients into the blender/food processor and blend.

4. Place beans and halved cherub (also known as cherry) tomatoes in a bowl with lettuce.

5. Mix dressing with lettuce, tomatoes, and beans in a salad bowl.

6. Serve.