In August I moved into my first apartment after transferring to a new university, after spending two previous years living in a dorm at my old school. Dorm-living isn’t very vegan friendly, especially when you don’t have a kitchen in the building and your campus isn’t particularly concerned with providing nutritious vegan meals. I ended up eating a lot of tofu “mock” salads, styled after the chicken, egg, and tuna salads of my pre-veggie days. I rarely used a recipe, since I had grown up watching my mother whip all three salads together. When I make them I simply add vegan equivalents of her ingredients.
You can certainly argue that vegan mock chicken and egg salads are pretty much the same thing. However, I recently bought some black salt from Cosmo’s, and I was dying to use it. I’d heard that black salt provided an “eggy” flavor to tofu scrambles, but I’d never tasted it before. As soon as I pulled it out of the box, I opened the little bag and was amazed at the egg smell I encountered. After I tried a little on my finger, I was stunned. It tasted and smelled like real egg!
Here is my recipe for egg salad. The trick to a good mock egg (or chicken) salad is to measure everything to taste – I adore dill pickles, so I always add twice as much as normal people would. Use this recipe more as a guideline, and measure ingredients as you see fit. Just be careful not to add too much black salt – I have a feeling that too much would overpower any other tastes.
Almost-Authentic Egg Salad (serves 1-2)
1/2 package extra-firm tofu, crumbled
1/4 cup vegan mayonnaise (I used fat-free Nayonaise)
2 tsp Dijon or spicy brown mustard
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 dill pickle, chopped, or pickle relish to taste
2 Tbs yellow onion, minced
1/2 tsp turmeric
Dash black salt (about 1/8 tsp)
1/8 tsp paprika
Black pepper, to taste
Mix all ingredients together – season to taste. Great on a sandwich or in a pita, over a bed of greens, or just by itself! I had mine between two slices of really good whole-wheat bread, with baby spinach and a thin slice of Follow Your Heart Mozzarella cheese.
Ahimsa 