I know, I know, I promised a tempeh salad recipe last night and didn’t deliver. My bad. My excuse was that I was teaching people about yummy vegan food…. good enough? 🙂 For this class, the room was evenly divided, which was nice – there were a few vegans, a few vegetarians, and some omnivores. We had great discussions, and people involved in the meal preparation, and eventually ended up with this:
We had soy-free and gluten-free people in the room, so for this class we made corn chowder, quinoa salad with sun-dried tomatoes and olives, and kale salad with tahini dressing. It was really fun ~ there’s nothing like sharing the knowledge we have of great vegan food with others…..
So here we go with one of my other favorite easy things to make – tempeh salad. I just love creamy salad-y things with lots of veggies tossed in.
Sometimes I serve this stuffed into fresh tomatoes, but yesterday I decided to shake things up a little and I served it with marinated kale and roasted tomatoes.
The kale was easy: chopped and massaged with a little olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and nutritional yeast. And the tomatoes, even easier: sliced and topped with a little salt and pepper, roasted under the broiler until they start to get soft and slightly browned.
And for perfectly textured tempeh salad, you really need to start with perfectly textured tempeh. The solution: pulse it in the food processor for about 30 seconds. Really, that’s all it takes, and it falls into these perfect crumbles.
And once you’ve got the perfect crumbles, you’re ready to go….
Creamy Tempeh Salad
- 1 package tempeh, crumbled
- 1/3 red pepper, diced
- 1/2 carrot, diced
- 2 T red onion, minced
- 2 dashes cayenne
- 1/4 cup cilantro, minced
And for the cashew cream, blend together:
- 1 cup cashews
- 1 cup water
- 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- salt & pepper to taste
I don’t use the whole batch of sauce with 1 package of tempeh, but it ensures there’s enough to make it the exact creaminess that you want…
Mix it all together and enjoy the creamy deliciousness with bread, on top of salad, or stuffed inside your favorite veggies!
Kelli's Vegan Kitchen 
this looks so good!! i think i’ll make it this weekend,
Thanks, Sumanasa! It is so good, light and creamy with lots of texture….
Looks beautiful, Kelli! I’ve never put tempeh into salad, what an interesting idea.
Thanks Susmitha! It’s perfect with salad, the blend of the creamy tempeh and sauce with the crunchy salad veggies… yum!
This sounds great. I’m a bit obsessed with tempeh lately and they don’t sell it in any of my local shops so I have to drive quite far to get it. Which means I tend to go crazy and buy a crap tonne of it at once. Anyway I’m rambling. I love tempeh.
Oh, that’s too bad that it’s hard to come by. I’d definitely stock up too! This is one of my favorite recipes with it….
Wow! I’m not normally a huge fan of tempeh with the exception of tempeh bacon, but the creaminess of this dish has me rethinking that! It looks so good.