Low-fat Vegan Potato Salad Recipe
There are so many different kinds of potato salad out there. With a mayonnaise dressing, oil and vinegar dressing, different ingredients. I’ve actually seen conversations becoming heated over which is the best potato salad.
My mom’s potato salad used to be my all-time favorite. As I found out as an adult, it was made with a store-bought potato salad sauce, pickle water, and some herbs and spices. We didn’t have it often (usually when we barbequed, which wasn’t very often) and since I was a kid, I used to think that making a good potato salad was somehow involved witchcraft. It always looked like a task that took forever. And it was best to make way ahead of time, so it had time to become really tasty.
When we had a barbeque last summer, I wanted to make a potato salad that was actually healthy, meaning low fat, and with minimally processed ingredients. I had an idea in mind for the dressing and it worked out great.
On this starch-based lifestyle, I often cook a lot of potatoes and can’t get through them all in one day. So, a perfect opportunity for a potato salad the next day! I’ve been having this various times in the past couple of weeks, always adding slightly different ingredients. I’m just working with what we have at home. Other than potatoes, things you could add:
Ingredients:
- sweet potatoes
- lettuce or other dark leafy greens
- broccoli (I prefer steamed)
- cauliflower (steamed as well)
- cucumber
- pickles/gherkins
- onion/spring onion
- peppers
- carrots
- mushrooms
- zucchini
- corn
- and the list goes on- basically any veggie that you like!
Directions:
- I trust that you can make a salad. So I won’t go into detail here. Just make sure you make your potatoes ahead of time and use potatoes that are hard boiling and make for making salads.
- Now on to the magical ingredient – the dressing!
- I have to admit, I usually wing it now. It depends on the kind of potato you use, as well as on the tofu. But here are the basics.
Ingredients:
- a small-medium, cooked potato (depending on how much you want to make)
- about the same amount (just eyeball it) of tofu; I prefer smoked tofu to give it an extra kick, but you can use others as well (whatever you like, or are able to get)
- 2 tsp of mustard
- 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast
- pickle/gherkin water
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
- Get yourself a tall bowl. Add the potato, tofu, nutritional yeast, and mustard.
- Then add a couple of tablespoons of pickle water.
- Next, you give it a good whisk with a handheld blender.
- It will become very thick quickly, because of the starch in the potatoes. So add more pickle water.
- Keep doing it, until it has a nice, creamy consistency. I usually end up with about 300ml of dressing.
- Which sounds like a lot, but really, it’s not. You can never have enough yummy, creamy (low fat) dressing ?
Then, just pour that dressing all over the salad and mix well. Voila, low-fat vegan potato salad! Dig in! Or: prepare ahead of time for even more flavor. But trust me, it’s also amazing right after you made it!
