Two Salad Recipes I’ve Been Making All Summer | Plant-based, Healthy, Meal Prep Friendly

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Recipes:
Tofu “Chicken” Salad
1.5 blocks super-firm or fava bean tofu
2 celery ribs, finely diced
1/3 cup red onion, finely diced
1/2 medium green bell pepper, diced
1/2 jalapeño pepper, seeds and membranes removed, finely minced
2 green onions, green parts only, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon fresh dill, roughly chopped

Dressing:
1/2 – 2/3 cup vegan mayonnaise (adjust to taste)
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar OR 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoon onion powder
Salt and black pepper (or to taste)

Mediterranean Inspired Chickpea Salad
1-2 cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 small cucumbers
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 red onion
1-2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tbsps olive oil
4 tbsps red wine vinegar
2 tsp Garlic powder
2 tsp Onion Powder
2 tsp Italian seasoning
1/3 cup dairy free feta
1/3 cup olives, halved
Salt and black pepper to taste

Links:
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#saladrecipes #plantbasedcooking #saladideas #mealprep #guthealth #healthyfood

[Music] Hello and welcome back to a new weekly video. In this week’s video, I wanted to keep things on the theme of summer. So, in this video, I wanted to share two salads that I’ve been making pretty consistently for meal prep, which my husband and I both enjoy. And if you are new here, my husband’s diet and my diet are very different, but these are salads that I found that the both of us can enjoy. But we’re going to go ahead and get into the first salad that I want to put together. This is my take on a Mediterranean inspired chickpea salad. So, I’m going to be using some cucumbers. Also going to be using a red onion, two different type of bell peppers. I have a red bell pepper as well as a green bell pepper and then a whole bunch of cherry tomatoes. I’ve made this salad so many times and each time I make it a little bit different just depending on what ingredients I already have on hand. So, if you don’t have everything that I’m using for this salad, feel free to adjust based off of what you actually have. And one of the things I love about both of these salads that I’m prepping in this video is that they could be paired with any additional protein that you want to use, which makes it really easy for my husband to enjoy it as well. So again, if you have family or friends or a partner who doesn’t eat the same diet as you, they can always pair whatever it is that they want to include with the salad. All right, going to go ahead and add those to our bowl. This salad is just so good. Oh my gosh. Next up is the red onion. And if you’re not a fan of using as much red onion or any ingredient that I’m sharing in this video, like be sure to just adjust based off of your personal preference. Going to add the red onions with the cucumbers. Next up are our bell peppers. And I’m only going to use half of the bell pepper. We’re just going to dice this. This is pretty much a chopped salad. Now, moving on to our red bell pepper. Same for this one. going to go in with half. Now I’m going to move on to my cherry tomatoes. And I just like to cut these in half. And then I cut those halves in half again. And that’s just to make sure they’re small enough to again fit on the fork with everything else. Going to add that to the bowl as well. Okay. And I’m going to be using some drain and ranch chickpeas. You could also do this with cantalini beans or honestly any type of bean you want. And as we know, the dressing is just as important as a salad. So, we’re about to go ahead and doctor this up with a few more ingredients. So, I’m going to go in with avocado oil, but feel free to use whatever you prefer. I’m going to go in with about 4 tablespoons of red wine vinegar. I like a lot of tang in this salad, so that’s why I’m doing four tablespoons, but again, feel free to adjust based off of your personal preference. And then this I’m kind of just seasoning with my eye, I guess. But I’m going to go in with some garlic powder. I have some onion powder, some Italian seasonings, some salt, and black pepper. I like to go in with a little bit of dairyfree feta. The last time I made this, my husband really enjoyed it with the dairyfree feta. So feel free to add it if you are dairyf free. But if you do enjoy dairy, you could also just use dairy based feta. Normally I would add olives to this. I do have some and I’m planning to add them later. My husband does not like olives, so I leave it out of the batch when I make it, but when I go to split this up, I’ll have my portion with my olives and he’ll have his portion without the olives. And this is definitely one of those salads that gets better and better as it sits. So, I recommend prepping it ahead and letting it sit in the fridge for about a minimum of I would say 30 minutes minimum. The next day is always going to be better. And the very last thing I want to add in here is some fresh parsley. And you can see how large of a salad I was able to get from just one can of chickpeas. This will probably stretch over four meals. So, two for me, two for my husband. and we’ll just either enjoy it as is or with some additional protein. The last time I made this, I stuffed it inside of a pita pocket and I added some tofu to it and it was so delicious. So that’s a way that you could enjoy it or again you can just enjoy it as is. And one last thing, this will keep in the fridge for about up to a week, but it’s so good. So I’m pretty sure you’ll probably enjoy it before then. And now it’s time for salad number two. So, I originally planned to share a completely different recipe, but it also would have included beans. And I already used beans in the first recipe, so I wanted to kind of switch this one up. And this is one that I’ve shared over on my Instagram and Tik Tok account, and so many people have tried it and have loved it. But I realized that this is a recipe that I’ve not shared over on my YouTube. I’m not sure if your algorithm is set up like mine is, but probably about a month ago, I was just seeing so many people make chicken salad. And so I immediately thought to create a plant-based version of a chicken salad recipe with tofu instead. And I prep it in probably one of my favorite ways to cook with tofu. And I’m really excited to show you how I do it. But let’s go ahead and start prepping everything. So, as mentioned in this recipe, I’m going to be using tofu as a chicken replacement. And typically, you would just cube tofu. However, for this recipe, I like to shred my tofu. I’ve been loving shredded tofu lately, and I love the texture. It works really well in the salad. Currently, I’m using a fava bean tofu, which is a tofu alternative. It’s a soy-free tofu. But I’ve also done this with a soybased tofu. And when I do use a soybased tofu, I typically go with a super firm tofu. And then another question that I tend to get whenever I am shredding my tofu is, do you have to freeze it? I say no. The other side, I’m just going to use the larger grater and just brush it down like this. If you try to do this with extra firm tofu, it will likely crumble. So, I don’t know if I would recommend that. In my experience, it’ll just crumble. And I’ve seen a lot of people comment that as well that they tried this with extra firm and it did not work. Then, I just go in with some avocado oil. You can use olive oil if that’s what you have. And we season it up. So, I’m going in with some onion powder, garlic powder. Then, I have some poultry seasoning, some black pepper, and salt. Now, I’m just going to go ahead and mix this up. And feel free to add more seasonings if needed. Typically, I do use about a block and a half of tofu, but I don’t want to make that large of a serving, so I just stuck with one block of tofu, but my recipe does call for about 1 and 1/2 blocks. And I just press this into the baking sheet. And I’m just going to spray this with some oil. And if you don’t use oil or you don’t want to use as much oil, feel free to customize this recipe to your liking. I haven’t tried making this oil free. I honestly don’t have the desire to, but if that’s something you’re interested in, please do and let me know in the comments how it turns out. I’m going to pop this in the oven on 400° for about 25 to 30 minutes. Just keep a close eye on it because sometimes the tofu can and will burn, just depending on what type of oven you have. But while the tofu is cooking up, that gives me enough time to prep the rest of the ingredients. Starting with this bell pepper, and I use about half of the bell pepper. And then I just dice it up. Next, I’m going to go in with a red onion. Next, I’m going in with some celery. Also have a jalapeno. You can use however much you prefer. Next, I’m going to cut up the green part of this green onion. Okay. And the last thing that we have to cut up are these fresh herbs. So, I have some fresh parsley as well as fresh dill. Now, I’m going to move on to put together the dressing. And I’m using plant-based mayo as the base. Some apple cider vinegar, some dijon mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, some black pepper, and salt. This salad is seriously so good. So many people have made it. I posted this probably a month ago, and I’m still getting comments from people making it. Now, I have about oo 5 more minutes. Let me check on my tofu. Okay, the tofu is looking good. Let’s go ahead and combine this. Once the tofu comes out, I’ll let it cool and then we’ll pop it in here with everything else. Going to throw these in there. So, the tofu is all done. Someone asked if this tastes like chicken. No, it does not taste like chicken at all, but it does taste like all the seasonings that we included, which is really good. I cannot wait for you to try this. So, this should be really good. It’s looking good already. Mhm. And at this point, you can give it a taste test and see if there’s anything you want to change. Maybe you want more salt, more dill, some more red onions, or you want a little bit more tang. So, you could squeeze some lemon juice or apple cider vinegar on here as well. Mhm. Oh my gosh, this is delicious. And though it did require a lot of chopping because of all the fresh ingredients, it was so easy to put together. And the way that I typically will eat this, I’ve had it on a sandwich. I’ve used it in wraps. I’ve added it to a bed of arugula and enjoyed it as an actual salad on a salad or even just with crackers. It is so so delicious. Oh my gosh. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Though you can prep both of these salads for the week, if I had to recommend one that you try first, it would probably be this tofu salad. The flavor is just 10 out of 10. And don’t get me wrong, the chickpea salad is really good, too. But this one, chef’s kiss. This is actually going to be my lunch for today. So, I’m really glad I was able to make it. I hope that you enjoyed this video. You can find the recipes for both of these salads in the description box in case you want to give them a try. And if you’re like me and you love salads, please share some ideas in the comments because I want to hear from you and I want to make some of your recipes, too. I need all the inspiration. So, please send it my way. But again, thank you so much for watching this video. I hope that you enjoyed it and I’ll see you next week. Bye.