Meet Sara Tercero, aka BetterFood Guru, Who Makes Oil Free Eating Easy & Delicious

To get the recipes for these dishes, get your Bundle today only until MARCH 10, 2024 at 11:59pm PST from Sara AKA BETTERFOODGURU’s link:
https://transactions.sendowl.com/stores/15779/199266 and- look for her submission “VOLUME 1 BETTERFOODGURU OIL-FREE FAVORITES’ and you’ll find these recipes and 19 others! See why millions call her the Salad Queen and love Sara’s fresh, vibrant and flavorful salads, delicious soups and more.

About Sara Tercero: Sara Tercero is a Plant-based Chef, Vegan influencer, and Author of Plant-based Diet in 30 Days. She is the founder of Betterfoodguru, a vegan food blog and Instagram sensation with over 1M followers. Sara draws on her 3 decades of restaurant Chefery to create vibrant, healthy and delicious plant-based recipes for everyone. It is her personal mission to make you learn to love eating vegetables. Her mottos are “eat your beans and greens”, “stop eating boring salads” and “proving plants are delicious.” Find out why her recipes are so popular and dive into her first oil free cookbook!

About Volume 1 Betterfoodguru Oil-free Cookbook: This debut oil-free ebook will not be her last. These recipes are so delicious and creative and include these 21 Betterfoodguru recipe favorites: KALE AND BEAN CHOPPED SALAD, PESTO ORZO PRIMAVERA SALAD, REFRESHING CUCUMBER SLAW, THE BEST CUCUMBER SALAD, WILD RICE AND GARBANZO STEW, TAHINI AND LIME SLAW, FARRO SALAD WITH WHITE BEANS, FRESHEST FRUIT SALSA , QUINOA STEW, RAINBOW CHOP SALAD, AVOCADO AND TOMATO SALSA, MIDDLE EASTERN TAHINI SALAD, UDON NOODLES WITH PEANUT SAUCE, PEANUTTY POWER SLAW, WATERMELON SALAD, SHAVED BRUSSELS AND BLUEBERRY SALAD, MIDDLE EASTERN KALE SALAD, VEGAN NO TUNA SALAD, WHITE BEAN FILLING SALAD, CRUNCHY SPINACH SALAD, TAHINI GINGER HEALTH SALAD plus an Introduction which explains oil-free cooking in layman’s terms, a guide for building flavorful dishes without oil and kitchen essential tools for a well stocked vegan and oil-free kitchen.

Subscribe, Like, and Share! Follow Sara Tercero and her mission at Betterfoodguru … Follow Sara on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betterfoodguru/Subscribe to Sara’s Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMhnSkfJ2VVUvOwbM3AcCjw

#ChefAJ #PlantBasedCooking #Oilfreevegan #salads #VeganRecipes #HealthyEating

Sara Tercero
Author, Blogger, Plant-based food Influencer
Founder: Betterfoodguru.com
Author: Plant-Based Diet in 30 Days

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Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The content of this podcast is provided for informational or educational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for informed medical advice or care. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health issue without consulting your doctor. Always seek medical advice before making any lifestyle changes.

Hey everyone and welcome to Chef AJ live I’m your host Chef AJ and this is where I introduce you to amazing people like you who are doing great things in the world that I think you should know about well you know that this is the vegan Health bundle week so we are showcasing

So many of the wonderful contributors who put amazing products in the bundle and today’s guest is no exception her name is Sarah Tero and she’s the founder of plant-based Guru and she’s also the author of plant-based in 30 days she’s going to be making a couple of her

Amazing recipes from the bundle please welcome her to the show it’s very nice to meet you hi Chef AJ nice to meet you too thank you for having me on your show well I’m so excited because I had heard of you from another bundle and you just had such amazing contributions and such

An amazing Instagram channel so I’m so honored that you took the time to do this what did you contribute to the bundle so I put together my first uh no oil ebook it’s uh volume one better food Guru no oil or oilfree favorites and so um this is kind of my

First foray into the no oil movement so I’m kind of excited about it I’m excited too because I love it when you have talented chefs and recipe creators that maybe do things one way and then you give them a challenge or just pose a situation and instead of saying well I

Don’t do that which you get from a lot of people you just embrace it and and that’s the sign of like a talented recipe Creator in my opinion thank you I agree I really I I’m all about evolving evolving my craft you know I worked in

Restaurants for 30 years and so I worked with every kind of food and going plant-based was like huge for my creativity it just kind of pushed me into making so many different foods that I just never had thought of combining before and then going into to the no oil

Is even more exciting and kind of pushes the envelope you know I I I don’t know if you went to at like culinary school and if it was a traditional culinary school but when I used to live in LA I would sometimes do consultations with restaurants that heard about this no oil

Concept maybe from Dr esselon especially when b b Bill Clinton went vegan it was like a big thing and they were so resistant to it at first but then when they understood it they were like hey it’s actually doable when we do it in our soups and salad dressings were

Saving money so how difficult or easy was it for you to to learn no oil to be honest with you it was fairly seamless I mean I’m still learning I mean we’re always students right but I didn’t go to traditional culinary school I worked my way up the ladder in

Kitchens and so my Beginnings were actually working with Whole Foods so I started in health food and so when I went into restaurants and stuff I was bringing Health Food knowledge into restaurants with me and making more uh salads and healthy dishes on men on the menu of whatever restaurant I was the

Chef of over the years and many of them were not um you know vegetarian restaurants many of them did not have a veggie heavy uh menu until I came in as their chef and even as an omnivore I was really veg heavy and veg forward and so once I

Wanted to go more no oil it wasn’t really hard because my regular recipes are very low oil anyway most of them have a tablespoon of oil for six servings you know so it Go just cutting that out and putting in another like natural fat or oilfree fat is really not

Difficult right especially because I mean if you ask me like if I have a choice of eating avocado or just I mean just without any anything else or olive oil to me the whole food fat actually tastes better than the oil yes and it’s more satisfying yeah and it’s got more

It’s got fiber it’s got nutrients tell me uh Sarah your plant-based story when did you start thinking about adopting a plant-based diet and why how long’s it been and how’s it been for you it’s a long story honestly and it’s been kind of convoluted I did go fully plant-based in

2019 uh I decided I was going to do one year of vegan and see how I felt um I had tried it before and I loved it and so um since then it’s kind of uh transformed my life in a lot of ways um not only has it made me feel amazing at

My age I still feel like I’m 30 years old even though I’m about to turn 50 um initially I had lost some weight unfortunately that kind of came back last year when I had uh an injury that kept me off my feet for eight weeks but um you know it’s really just been

Amazing for my career and I’ve published a cookbook I published my first cookbook in 2021 which was always one of my dreams um you know it was it was really easy for me to be honest with you unlike most people I had such like an Arsenal behind me of um education working in

Whole Foods in my youth I also had many years where I was a vet vegetarian before I really got serious about being a chef um so it’s it’s kind of been a long journey for me um one of the things is on social media I always talk about is

That I’m the salad Queen and that’s because even as a child I was eating salads I would come home from school and I would make myself a salad um you know a lot of times they would have cheese or meat on them but it still was a big

Volum luminous salad which is very odd for a a teen to do um so it’s it’s not just like I became a veggie lover overnight it’s kind of been a lifelong love affair that’s very cool have you ever done chop salads I have done some I actually have

A chop salad in my um my ebook I love but I haven’t tried those chopped salads now that they’re putting on sandwiches have you seen that Viral new trend they’re putting a chopped salad on a sandwich I haven’t seen that yeah most of them have meat and cheese and stuff

But I’m thinking I want to try doing one where they just they basically make a big pile on their cutting board and they just chop it up and chop it up and chop it up and until it’s like this big like pile and then they put a piece of bread

Over it and pick it up I bet Melissa could do some really cool stuff with her hand salads with it you know it can’t be you’re just you’re blowing my mind cuz that’s exactly what I was thinking rolling it up and you know CU I I feel like with traditional bread or a

Sandwich it’s going to fall out but with one of Lissa’s wraps or any kind of wrap you could pick it up that would be delicious yeah really I’ve seen people do it with Bagels too I mean it looks like you’d probably take a bite and it

Would all just smush out having a wrap though that would be that is amazing I remember I I mean it’s been a while since I ate oil but I remember there my my relatives live in Pittsburgh and they had this restaurant called piman brothers and they had you know

Sandwiches I mean you can give vegan ones or meat ones but they had and and on every sandwich was colaw and french fries and it was like the best thing I ever ate having col salant and french fries on a sandwich so I can’t I mean imagine a chopped salad sandwich would

Be amazing yeah that would be good well time for you to make one on your on your Instagram I know and maybe I’ll use um have you seen people making wraps with um iceberg lettuce well I mean I I I could imagine how that could be because it’s round and

It has you know it’s got like kind of a thing they take like the center out and they use the big leaves and they put all the sandwich business in the middle and then they roll it up like a burrito and then roll it up in um like a wax paper

Or whatever just like they would at the sandwich shop so it stays together a friend of mine Terry Turner she’s not vegan but she’s an amazing Chef or home cook she likes to call herself uh makes those on her Channel and they always look so good I want to try it do people

Get their ideas in creativity it’s amazing awesome it’s really awesome I love it I love it so what dressings are you are you gonna make dressings I believe right or Salad well I’m actually GNA make two salads uh today that one of them is I call it the

Best cucumber salad it’s a fairly basic um cucumber salad but it’s got a lot of fla flavor because it’s got a lot of fresh herbs in it it’s got the sharp Ness of red onion and then the dressing itself is made with vegan yogurt lemon a

Tiny bit of maple syrup and um that it’s simple simple simple so I’m in the middle of a kitchen renovation right now I don’t know if I told you this so the last three weeks of my life I’ve been making basically easy things and uh you

Know not much else because that’s all I can do and that’s the beauty of these recipes is they’re really easy they don’t require any cooking it’s basically just chopping and uh mixing you know so I’m gonna I’m GNA move the camera down a little bit so that you guys can see what

I’m doing with the food you might not be able to see my face anymore let’s see how’s that we can see the perfect I can perfectly see the the Cucumbers those look like Persian cucumbers they are I’m a big fan of a Persian cucumber because you don’t have

To peel them they taste great as long as you get them organic and you wash them there’s no big deal and I they’re so easy to chop because you just kind of put them all together use the end of your knife to make it straight and then

You can just chop them all at once which is one of my favorite ways to chop I also find they taste a little better because they seem to be less seedy you’re right and they they release less water I feel like too right less mushy yep yeah so I’m a big fan of

Making things that will last like three or 4 days in the refrigerator um being the mother of a family with three kids who don’t always eat what I eat I like to make larger batches of things that I can eat for days you know because I don’t always have time to like

Be nourishing myself as a mom and so this is the best way to do it and so these cucumbers actually don’t release tons of water so they’re they’re good for a couple days when they’re they’re they actually get more tasty because they’re marinating in that

Dressing um I’m a big fan of onion as well especially with something that’s going to marinate like that but some people are really sensitive about them so they could either chop them really small or omit them is that that bowl is beautiful is that a bowl you can chop

In um I I’ve never chopped in the bowl but I use these Bowl I’m I’m like a wood bowl addict I use wooden bowls all the time I just feel like it makes it so much more special it looks so natural and so like just showcases the food so

Much better um I’ve got some cilantro and mint I’m a huge herbs fan I feel like it really kicks up the um flavor of any dish and it’s really healthy in my new ebook that um is in the bundle I have a whole section about um kicking up the flavor without using

Oil and um sugar it’s like basically an oilfree flavor enhancing guide and I talk about herbs as well I just going to throw those in there I love this salad because it it’s kind of cooling so it’s good for summertime or if you’re eating something spicy it goes really nicely with a

Curry or you can just eat it over a bed of greens obviously I’m not going to give you the recipe right because we want them to get it in get the bundle you’re showing them how to make it and you yep also in my ebook I included a page

Or two about the basic equipment that you need to be able to make these kinds of recipes regularly obviously people who don’t use any sugar don’t have to use the maple syrup I just like to um lighten up the the tanginess a little bit same with salt you can use miso if

You like instead i’ that’s something I’ve just started doing my myself I never really thought much about the salt uh because I have great blood pressure and nobody’s ever told me to cut down on my salt although I think I’m very low salt in general my husband’s

Always telling me that the food needs salt when I ask him how dinner is he’ll say it’s really good but it needs salt couldn’t he couldn’t you have just a salt shaker on the table and then he I know well the thing is in our house we

Actually I don’t even think we own a salt shaker is that funny my kids are used to having like one of these little like a little bowl with salt and taking a pinch and doing it like a chef because we don’t even have it on the

Table so so then I just mix it so that it’s a mix and a Marin and um that’s really quick and easy and it’s a great side or if you wanted to eat it as a meal obviously you could add in whatever protein you like I think white

Beans or chick peeas or something added in there for protein and then eat it over a bed of greens would make it even more filling easy peasy that’s one recipe so fast literally 10 minutes of your life to eat something delicious I love I love

That about Vegan Cooking you know I I I nothing is worse than spending hours in the kitchen to eat something that like literally takes you 10 minutes I know I don’t I don’t know how people do that you know when I get see a recipe with more than say four or seven ingredients

I’m scared away to do it I don’t mind ingredient list it’s just like when it’s things that are like take so long to cook you know when when I do a a recipe that has cooked things in it I usually thy it so that uh like if I’m roasting some

Vegetables on a sheet pan I’m chopping all the other stuff while it’s in there I kind of that’s how I write my recipes so because I know that not everybody knows how to timey things so the second recipe that I have I’m calling it a filling no it’s a white bean filling

Salad so that’s kind of a play on words because it’s a filling meaning you could put it on a sandwich or in a wrap but it’s also really filling because it’s got beans which everybody knows have tons of fiber it has some nuts and seeds we’ve got um celery I’m GNA move

You back down again oh I didn’t I just need to be like that there we go tilted do you ever substitute fennel for celery sometimes in recipes I never have but that’s a good idea I bet that would be delicious in this one especially because it’s kind of

A Mediterranean um Vibe you know uh I recently did a recipe where I used fennel and it was a soup and um I used fennel and Tempe and I called it a sausage soup even though it didn’t have meat obviously it tasted like it had sausage because of the fennel and the um

Tempe it’s really cool that’s a good idea I don’t use fennel enough I really I’m just I I’m not too picky but I don’t love celery but I do love fennel so often I’ll just substitute it in a recipe I tell you I don’t really love

Celery either but it’s got such a nice fresh crunch that’s why I put it so small so you don’t get like a bite where it’s all that celery flavor um I just like that texture so I’ll definitely try it with fennel it’s a great idea of course I got these

Cherry tomatoes it’s the only kind of tomato I feel like that tastes good at this time of year too because they’re they’re they’re like I don’t know I just like them because they’re kind of like personal size yeah and they taste they’re so sweet and I love the colored ones have

You ever had the green or the orange or the yellow yes I love those I love the green ones have the sugar balm they’re delicious oh my God they’re totally worth worth the $6 how long have you been doing uh Instagram I started my Instagram in 2018

I believe I don’t even know I didn’t realize it was there all the way back then wow yeah but I mean I started it before I was vegan and so and my whole thing my concept was at first that I just wanted to teach people how to cook

And how to make better choices about their food um it wasn’t a vegan account at that point not until 2019 January 1st that’s when I went vegan so if you scroll back to the beginning which would take hours uh you’ll probably see some salads that have things on them that maybe I should

Archive I don’t know you know the thing is Instagram with the has like the word instant in it and I don’t know if people ever really scroll back on Instagram you think I don’t think so I mean I’ve done that uh I’ve scrolled back on other people’s

Accounts when I was trying to figure out how to grow on the account I guess because I wanted to see the people who were doing really well if they were always doing really well I kind of wanted to see their evolution so I suppose that would be the only reason

Somebody would do that what what did you learn what is the secret well one of the secrets is oh God you’re gonna get me going I I’m kind of an Instagram nerd Chef AJ I really am kind of a nerd and I’m passionate about it it’s so much fun because I had no

Social media background whatsoever and no food photography background at all nothing and I do all of this all by myself um and the whole thing is learning how to do beautiful photos I really feel like that’s what needs to happen to see exponential growth on that platform the Aesthetics are wicked important wow

Yeah I I didn’t see major growth and following until I learned that and I don’t think I learned that until 2020 2021 maybe and then all of a sudden it was no more pictures make movies right it’s all about them all about the videos so here’s my fresh herbs you know

I already told you I love fresh herbs we’re going with fresh herbs you have a favorite herb I’d say mine is mint I love mint as well but I think my favorite is cilantro I love cilantro I love blending it into dressings uh I love it Blends so well

With um just about everything some of my most beautiful dressings are cilantro blended with tahini um it just and with some Citrus in there too it just makes such a delicious and fresh burst of flavor here we’ve got an avocado this is one of my biggest things that I always talk about

On on the internet so people always hack at the AV ocado pit it makes me insane having a um restaurant background I lose it when I see people with knives in the air doing stuff you know that you can just pop it right out yep I always tell them and

People are like no you can’t yes you can if you can’t pop it out that thing’s not ready and um so this one I’m just going to scoop it out I like to use a spoon when I uh have to keep my hands clean otherwise I would just use my thumb this

One to to test for the ripeness of the avocado do you squeeze it this way because I was told if you squeeze it this way you can bruise it so always squeeze it from the top oh I never went with it that either way I never uh made the connection that there

Was a difference I don’t squeeze it hard because I don’t think that that’s necessary here let me grab another avocado so um I usually hold it like this so it’s up and down and I just give it a little little press and rather than a full-on squeeze because if you squeeze it

Absolutely your thumb is going to go right through it and it should just have a little bit of give another way to tell is uh and this made Tik Tok really mad um if you pick out the belly button it made Tik Tock mad because that

Makes it more exposed to be able to get uh rancid or something I guess they were like don’t go around picking the belly button off avocado I wasn’t telling them to go to the store and pick the belly button off all the avocados that’s what they they thought but when you pick that

Off if it’s green in there you know it’s still going to be beautiful like if if that’s if it’s a ripe one that’s already soft because you know how sometimes you cut one open you think it’s going to be beautiful and it’s got like a lot of

Brown in it or black stripes and stuff cuz it’s already gone past you’ll already know if you pick this off and this in here is like black or brown and there’s no green whatsoever left you know that your you your guy is past its prime but um I will stick that Avocado

Now that I’ve taken the belly button out I’ll stick it in the fridge because that will stop it from from keep going and then when I’m ready to use it again I’ll pull it out for that day so I got these avocados it was one avocado that I cut up for this

Recipe um I’m going to use a little balsamic where did my oh speaking of balsamic since this is the first time you’ve been on my show you get two free bottles of California balsamic vinegar in the flavor of your choice oh that’s exciting I love balsamic vinegar I can’t wait me too especially

The reduced you know yeah oh where’re this is this oh just went all over my laptop this new uh lemon squeezer I got is insane these are Myer lemons too so they’re really juicy I like them they’re a little bit sweeter yeah and then I’m going to use a little miso instead of

Using salt and that’s um that’s it on this recipe now it’s just a toss so this is that filling that white bean filling recipe since I squeezed the lemon right on top of the avocado the avocado should be good for two days at least um especially if I wrap it up

Tightly but to be honest with you this will last me not very long because it tastes so good this is a a 100% new recipe that’s only in the book The ebook do you have salad every day once a day twice a day I have salad at least once a day if

It’s a great day I have it two times a day yeah there we go that looks stunning thank you it’s going to be so good I can’t wait to eat it [Laughter] so um in in my ebook I’m encouraging people to either put it on in like a

Roma lettuce leaves which are nice and crunchy another thing that I like to use sometimes are Cabbage leaves I like to use cabbage leaves also for tacos because it’s got like that nice Crunch and it also really holds things together well and this one might be perfect also

To do one of those those lettuce wraps I really am um looking at Melissa’s hand salad wraps and I’m thinking that I might need a dehydrator well you know it’s they are delicious you know they really are I don’t have a dehydrator so that might be something that I need in my in

My my new kitchen well that you know they don’t come out so good in the oven but they they do come out if you do them in the dehydrator so awesome well that is amazing have you had a chance to check out any of the other offerings in the bundle anything

Catch your eye that you might be interested in making or watching I have I first of all I was like kind of like floored by the sheer amount of of offerings are that are in there and how many of the the resources are actually from doctors which is like

You know that kind of makes everything look so much more legit right and um I’m really excited about Melissa raw food romances um all of her hand salads really get me excited because you know I’m the salad Queen and eating a salad on the go isn’t always the most

Practical thing so being able to make those really cool raw vegan wraps uh is really exciting so I’m I’m really excited to D dive into those and I’m thinking about getting myself a dehydrator for that I was also checking out uh Stephanie Spencer’s mini course about your as old as your arteries I

Myself am turning 50 this year and um you know health is one of the most compelling reasons for plant-based diets uh for me um you know I grew up with kind of a legacy of people who had had some problems with obesity and heart disease and stuff in my family and

Cancer and these are all things that I really don’t want to have uh especially because I had children at a later age so I really want to be around when they’re older and thriving and see them have families and so longevity is like my biggest goal and my biggest why you know um

My father unfortunately died when he was too young he was he was barely 60 years old and uh that’s only 10 years from now in my life and that’s not where I want to go I mean obviously nobody knows what’s going to happen tomorrow but anything that I can do to prevent an

Untimely demise I’m G to do uh so that you’re only old as as old as your arteries uh is looks really interesting to me and I’m actually going to be doing a live with her on Instagram during the bundle week so I’m really excited she reached out fantastic yeah because yeah

Guys whatever video you’re watching of the bundle there is a website that’s going to tell you all the interactions because we have over a hundred contributors that’s why this bundle is worth over $88,000 for only $49 it’s ridiculous it only be available 10 days and if you want to buy it from Sarah

Just look right below this video right where more and that that is her unique link and you can get it from her that’s going to be great on your Instagram channel is it mostly like recipes you videos you post or do you ever like go live with your audience um mine is

99% recipe videos but I do go live with my audience especially when I do these bundles right I love being part of these bundles because it makes so much stuff available to people at such like a small price and not only is great to share

With them but I get to look at all this cool stuff and it’s so inspiring and helpful um and so usually during those I go live or anytime I have anything exciting going on I’ll have lives um with my new my new kitchen Renault that I’m doing right now this is all new

Stuff behind me everything is it’s not done yet but I I think I’m going to be doing lives probably once a week once this is all done because I think it’s really fun nice what’s so far your most popular recipe o so probably my uh winter orzo

Salad that is probably my most popular recipe uh it’s a kale salad it has little orzo pastas it has crispy chickpeas uh it’s a low oil recipe I think it maybe has like a tablespoon of oil but um for like five or six servings but that’s probably my most popular like

It’s got millions of views or whatever how long cool you have over a million Instagram followers congratulations how long did it take you to build that size audience well uh this is going to blow your mind right now um because it blows mind every day so in June of last year I

Had $120,000 followers in junee so from June until Christmas six months I Grew From 120 to 1 million that’s incredible you should write a book on how to do that I think I’m going to write I think I’m gonna make a a mini course about it because I

I mean I like helping people I have a lot of people who reach out to me behind the scenes and I kind of Coach I’ll take it because I I don’t understand inst quite frankly and maybe it’s because I don’t do beautiful photos but I I mean

Mine has stayed the same pretty much the whole time but you’ve got a huge uh instag I mean um yeah yes that’s true yes so I I I guess maybe YouTube people don’t want to go on Instagram and Instagram people don’t want to go on YouTube everybody

Likes where they are I think that I think that that’s one of the things I mean because if you look so I’ve got a million3 now on um Instagram and I’ve only got 14 ,000 on Tik Tok so it’s like it’s go go figure I mean yes Instagram gets my stuff first

Before my website before anything really because it’s my most active platform I’m sure Melissa would tell you the same thing though about the photographs that that is um like it’s just they’re very visual over there I guess maybe I’m not a visual person I’m more more kinesthetic so what

Is your family’s favorite recipe of what you make my family is uh obsessed with Mexican food anything that’s a taco they’re really into and um since that’s not my big Niche I mean yes I do post that kind of stuff and I do have that stuff on my website like I have a

Website better food guru.com and that’s where like my recipes live um but I’m not posting as much of that stuff but they love tacos the kids are obsessed with beans they would eat beans every day and beans are accidentally oilfree which is like I love it’s oil free in

Vegan and it just is without you know it’s not on purpose so they don’t even know they love to eat corn tortillas with them we make homemade cord and tortillas here um sometimes we buy them too depends on what kind of um time we have on our hands I guess and that’s how

I trick them into eating as many veggies as possible too I throw veggies into the rice because kids like rice and beans they can’t really uh protest that one so I’ll throw corn in there chop up some zucchini otherwise they do really like one of my pasta dishes that I’ve posted

Quite a few times it’s like a six ingredient um vegan pasta and it’s got like a coconut milk and roasted pepper sauce again I’m I’m tricking them into eating that stuff when when you worked at the at restaurants what type of restaurants did you work at and what was your

Position so um I mostly worked at fast casual uh restaurants uh over the years although I did do some stints and some fancier restaurants I did some French and um some tapas and things like that but my favorite is um fast casual where I can make a little bit of everything

And I was the chef um I love to be in charge I like to lead and I like to make new recipes and kind of set the tone for the kitchen and I love teaching people to cook and so being the chef was really fun for me that way uh one of the

Longest stints I ever did in the kitchen at any restaurant was a restaurant called Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe it’s in Emeryville California right around the corner from Pixar they’re still there and I was with them for almost 10 years and one of their owners was Mike D from

Green Day um if anybody’s excited about Green Day which a lot of people seem to be you mean the group Green Day yes yeah oh my God I love their song good riddens they’re they’re they’re great guys and so they used to be hanging around sometimes and um they always like the

Stuff I was doing and uh I got to be on the show Diners Drive-Ins and Dives with that restaurant and ironically I was making Burgers on on the TV so every once in a while I’ll get a message from someone saying hey I just saw your episode of

Diner driving and Dives and it’s it’s literally from like 2009 or 2010 and it was all Burgers I I was like so excited to be on the show and showcase like our really cool menu and they only wanted burgers and now here I am uh 15 years later as a vegan on you

Know and like anybody who sees that is like wait what that is hilarious it is pretty iron you know I was thinking in your salad dressing recipes that you already have like when you say they’re low oil with one one tablespoon I mean somebody could probably just put like a tablespoon of

Tahini in don’t you think agreed yeah yeah I mean I think probably what I’ll start doing um on my recipes is offering an oilfree option you know so that cuz not everybody feels comfortable just making that substitution not everybody’s comfortable not following a recipe I

Mean one of the things that I talk about with my audience is jazz cooking and um you know like improvising with what you have but until people are comfortable with cooking they don’t always feel like they could just Jazz cook it you know and so maybe adding in like an oilfree

Substitution or um you know like something that would likely go well in the recipe might be a great idea rather CU I I mean I literally have hundreds of recipes on the internet and most of them would be really easy to just make oil

Free yep what um do you have like do you like to eat the same thing basically every day or are you more like novelty and eat different things every day oh I’m kind of in the middle I mean I like to make big batches of things and

Then eat it for a few days but then I don’t necessarily make that same thing in a big batch to do again you know what I’m saying so like I don’t don’t every week eat the same thing but each week I’ll eat the same thing a few times does

That make sense I know what you mean do do you have like but a lot of times people eat like the same breakfast every day for example oh breakfast is is a tough one for me uh I’m constantly at a battle with myself about breakfast uh the battle is between

Eating it or not eating it often times I don’t eat breakfast because I’m so busy in the morning getting my kids off to school getting them fed you know getting my day started like I’m just not the best routine person which is something I want to change desperately but um I

Haven’t changed it yet so oh so like three times a week I’ll eat breakfast and then the other days I wait until lunch yeah I get it do have you in influenc any friends or family members to become vegan or more vegan just because of your Channel or just your delicious

Recipes um yes my husband actually went vegan um the year after I did so it took him about a year to do it and he’s a chef as well um so he works in like corporate dining right now so um but we watched the game changers and he kind of

Saw the light and was like okay I’ll do it let’s do it and so he’s been vegan with me I think he probably dabbles when he’s at work somewhat because he has to taste things that he’s serving people but he doesn’t like make himself a meal

That’s not vegan like if if I’m making food for the kids and I’ll ask him if he want something he’ll say no you know he’s not he doesn’t want to keep eating meat he wants to to be vegan um my mother she has not gone vegan but she

Does send me pictures all the time of the things that she’s making that are from my website and she’s tell tells me I’m influencing her to eat more salads and eat more vegetables and much less uh I mean she’s really not eating like meat like she used to I think um she’s

Finally starting to understand which I think a lot of people uh are starting to understand that you don’t need the amount of protein that everybody is constantly pushing on you and that there is protein in vegan food that’s amazing I love that well thank you for

The work you do your channel is amazing your recipes are amazing and I’m so excited and happy you were able to join the bundle me too thank you so much I I really appreciate you having me today and I’m a big fan of yours I bought your

Books oh that’s so thank you yeah I was really excited like I had some people telling me for several months like you really need to connect with Chef AJ you really need to connect with Chef AJ and I did um like a presentation locally recently and they were like you really

Need to get in on this this you know the no oil you’re not using very much oil at all you can just get rid of it especially because you weren’t using very much it it wasn’t such a big leap for you you know yeah I I’m not like the

The batter and fried kind of vegan no I mean no judgment and and that’s one of the things that’s like big on my channel is I’m not judging and I’m not pushing but I trying to make it look easy and delicious to everybody to do this so

That that at least they’ll be bringing some of it into their lives and then hopefully they’ll realize how good they feel well what could be better than that well thank you so much Sarah thank you and thanks all of you for watching another episode of Chef AJ live if you

Want to get the bundle from Sarah just click the link below because this offer will never happen again and when it’s gone it’s gone stay tuned for another great show