I should probably point out that I do not earn money from this blog, and so this endorsement is my actual opinion and does not include a mercenary bias. I got the idea for this salad/side dressing from Cafe Yumm! which has locations in Oregon and Washington, but not elsewhere. It’s a thick, pungent sauce for jazzing up salads & beans & rice & quinoa & suchlike. Cafe Yumm! sells the sauce in large bottles so you can make versions of their ‘bowls’ at home, but since they don’t appear to sell the sauce online at the moment, if you don’t happen to live in either of those states, you’ll have to make your own!
This sauce is strongly flavored! The dominant flavors are lemon juice, thyme, nutritional yeast, and probably more lemon juice. The original appears to be almost an emulsion made with oil, which does make it taste gorgeous, but without the oil, this stuff looks like health food, so that’s what I aimed for, to start off with, until my youngest convinced me to try it with oil, and it really is better that way. The sauce is also not smooth, so you may want to only partially blend the chickpeas/garbanzo beans. However, I should point out that this doesn’t seem to have much punch if it’s turned into mayonnaise by blending the oil into the other ingredients, and the texture isn’t right, so I very briefly stir in the oil at the end.
I don’t know how long this sauce would last, but I’ve managed to keep a bowl of it in the fridge for a week without anything untoward happening.
One last point, make sure your oil is neutral flavored. I made the mistake of using olive oil once, and ended up pouring the whole lot away as it tasted far too strong.
1/2 cup almonds (or almond flour)
1/2 cup (8 tbsp) lemon juice
1/2 cup water or plain, unsweetened, soy milk
1 tsp dried thyme (I’m sure fresh thyme would be even better)
6 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 – 1 cup (1/2 can) cooked chickpeas/garbanzo beans
1/2 cup neutral flavored oil
Put the almonds in the blender with the water/milk, lemon juice, thyme, nutritional yeast, garlic, and salt, and process until it’s as smooth as you can get it.
Add the chickpeas/garbanzo beans, and process until almost smooth.
Add the oil and process only long enough to combine (about 5 seconds on lowest setting, if that).
Chill before serving to thicken.
No Meat, No Wheat, No Dairy 