Vegan Caesar Salad

5 from 5 votes

A simple but flavorful Vegan Caesar Salad. Air fryer chickpeas and chewy tempeh cubes dot leafy romaine lettuce. Drizzled on top of it all is a creamy, authentic-tasting but very Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing. Try it and you will agree it is the best Vegan Caesar Salad you ever ate.

Prep Time10

Blending the salad dressing5

Total Time15

Course: Main/Salad

Cuisine: Mexican

Diet: Gluten Free, Vegan, Vegetarian

Servings: servings

Calories: 388kcal

Author: Vaishali · Holy Cow Vegan

Equipment

Ingredients

For the salad

2 large heads romaine lettuce (torn into bite-size pieces by hand)
1 batch air fryer chickpeas (or any roasted or air fried chickpeas of your choice. You can also use plain canned chickpeas)
12 oz tempeh "bacon" (use any seasoned tempeh of your choice, or mix tempeh with your favorite seasonings and air fry. See the ingredients list above to see how I make mine. You can also use seasoned, baked or air-fried tofu, or skip these and use more chickpeas)
¼ cup vegan parmesan

For the Caesar salad dressing

2 large cloves garlic
½ cup raw cashews
1 sheet nori (torn into small pieces or powdered in a spice blender.)
1 tablespoon tamari (or soy sauce. Skip if soy-free)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon maple syrup
½ cup water (you might not need all of it, or you might need more for a thinner dressing)

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Make the Vegan Caesar Salad dressing

Place all dressing ingredients except water in the blender. Powdering the nori before adding it to the blender will make the process quicker, as the nori takes a bit of time to break down in the blender. If you have a high powered blender it should be fine.
With the blender running, pour the water through the feed tube until you have a very smooth and creamy dressing. Scrape down the sides of the blender a couple of times, if necessary. You can add more or less water depending on how creamy you want the dressing to be.

Make the Vegan Caesar Salad

Tear off bite-size pieces of the romaine lettuce by hand and place them in a large salad bowl.
Add the salad dressing and toss to mix.
Stir in the chickpeas and tempeh.
Sprinkle on vegan parmesan before serving.

Notes

You get a whole cup of dressing from this recipe and you don't need to add all of it to the salad as it's quite a lot. Reducing the amount of dressing you use would also reduce the calories in the salad.
This Caesar salad dressing is perfect for a classic Caesar salad but you can use it with any salad and it would be delicious. I use it with all kinds of leafies, including baby spinach, kale and arugula. Or drizzle it over steamed veggies like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, carrots and more. I love it with roasted root veggies as well -- it tastes amazing.

Make the salad and dressing nut-free or soy-free:

To make this Vegan Caesar Salad Dressing nut-free replace the cashews in the recipe with an equal quantity of raw pumpkin seeds and skip the tamari.
To make the salad soy-free skip the tempeh. You can just use more chickpeas.

Store the salad dressing:

The dressing can be stored in an airtight jar or bottle. It will last a week in the refrigerator.

Nutrition