Sometimes you just feel like something crispy and savory. These zucchini chips will satisfy your need for a crunchy snack, but without any of the fats and super-saltiness of your regular potato chips. It only takes a few minutes to whip these chips up, so they make for easy as well as great snacking. There’s no reason why munchies can’t be healthy!
Serves 2-3
Basil Alfredo Sauce
Rich creamy Alfredo sauce over a bed of perfectly squishy noodles. Yes, of course we’re talking raw!
If you haven’t already discovered the awesome magic of zucchini noodles, prepare to have your mind blown. Those noodles in that image up there are fresh raw zucchini! But before you get too excited about that, keep in mind we’re only getting started: this recipe is all about the sauce.
A rich creamy Alfredo sauce is a real comfort food for many of us. But it’s not something which screams raw vegan — or so it would seem! With a little bit of ingenuity and some cashews there’s nothing you can’t do. Throw in some basil and some garlic, and you’re on your way to a happy evening indeed. And you can do it all in under 20 minutes.
Buffalo Cauliflower Wings With Avo Ranch Sauce
Did you know that eating spicy food might just be really good for you? As if we needed another reason to feel the burn!
Cauliflower may not have wings, but neither does a buffalo. You don’t need to eat a chicken if you’re looking to get your spice on. All you need is some crispy cauliflower, a handful of spices, and a tall glass of water (just in case!).
As any spice junky can tell you, no buffalo “wing” is complete without an equally tasty dip. And since we’re talking buffalo, it might as well be a ranch dip! Creamy and tangy with avocado and lemon, it provides a great contrast to the hot hot heat of the cauliflower.
These buffalo “wings” are a great party snack. If you’ve got a few friends coming round, you can easily scale the recipe up.
Mango Peach Matcha Layered Smoothie
Don’t be fooled by the name of this smoothie! Mango and peach might be the two central ingredients, but there’s a lot more going on here than just those two wonderful fruits! We’ve got bananas, we’ve got celery, we’ve got chia and coconut water. We’ve even got some turmeric.
And that’s just for the base layer! Some of the really fun stuff comes in on the next layer. Here we’ve got our spirulina, our hemp seeds, and of course, our matcha powder. All these high-energy, protein and nutrient rich foods make this an excellent smoothie to enjoy after a good workout.
Of course, you should feel free to throw on any extras you might want. Blueberries and pomegranates make for a fine topping!
Spicy Corn Chowder
Corn chowder, with a kick! Corn gets a bit of a bad reputation these days what with all the weird stuff we do with it now. But there’s all kinds of wonderful, wholesome healthy stuff we can do with it, too! Here’s one of them.
Spicy and sweet is one of life’s most pleasant and complex combinations. With some creamy almond milk bringing in the texture, this raw take on corn chowder will have you channeling your inner East Coaster.
To properly enjoy this delectable meal, be sure to loudly exclaim the words “corn chowder”, but make sure you pronounce it chow-dah!
Pitaya Parfait Smoothie
Pitaya is a cool exotic fruit! And like all other fruits, it belongs in smoothies.
This smoothie is actually a bit more than a regular smoothie. This is a pitaya parfait! The term ‘parfait’ comes from the French word for perfect, and that’s exactly what this raw vegan layered fruit medley is!
This recipe does call for some slightly off-the-beaten path ingredients. The pitaya comes in the form of Pitaya Plus, though I’m sure you can substitute fresh pitaya if you’re so inclined. Lucuma powder is a low-glycemic sweetener, which you could also substitute for a more common alternative if you feel the need.
Pitaya is also known as dragon fruit. This parfait might look super adorable and pretty, but this thing is packed with the superlative power of these mythic beings! You will feel as limber as a lizard and as daring as a drake with all the goodness in this pitaya parfait!
Carrot and Cauliflower Rainbow Wraps
There’s nothing as refreshing as a fresh, crispy veggie wrap. With such a diversity of ingredients, these rainbow wraps are light and yummy, but also super nutritious and healthful.
You can make any sorts of substitutions you like with this highly flexible recipe. Fill your wraps with whatever veggies you’ve got handy. The currants make a particularly nice sweet and tart addition, but you can substitute for raisins or even other dried fruits if you choose.
These wraps are a bit different than most, in that the veggies take the form of a kind of cous cous. The texture of raw veggie cous cous is pretty unique, and is well suited to wraps (or rolls). The tahini helps to tie the “cous cous” together and adds that peculiar sesame flavor the way only tahini can. And then it all gets laid onto a bed of creamy avocado and your favorite deep greens. Mm.
An awesome finger food to invigorate yourself on a warm summer day!
Raw Vegan Chorizo Lettuce Tacos
If you were setting out to make a raw vegan meal of some sort, chorizo tacos might seem to be just about the least likely candidate you could find, aside maybe from haggis. But these tacos go beyond any mere imitation of meat! These yummy nummies are overflowing with rich, spicy flavor which stands on its own feet. It’s not your grandmother’s chorizo!
Lettuce makes for a surprisingly awesome shell for tacos. Often used in South Asian cuisine for wraps, it’s an interesting sort of fusion to see them here in chorizo tacos. And speaking of that chorizo, it’s amazing what you can do with nuts and some spices!
Chinese Style Cauliflower with Orange Sauce
This interesting recipe was inspired by an unlikely source: mall food-court style “Chinese” food. It seems weird to think so now, but so many of us grew up loving the sweet taste of that orange sauce. I remember growing up thinking that deep fried chicken balls in orange sauce was a classic of Chinese cuisine.
Now we all know better, and aren’t liable to be found snacking on the fast-food variety of Asian cooking. But there is still something magical about the sweet and savory mix of that orange sauce. With this great guilt-free recipe, you can enjoy that incomparable taste without all the added sugars and other weirdness.
Rainbow Juice
A simple rule of thumb to make sure you’re getting a broad range of healthy nutrients is to make sure you’re eating lots of fruits and veggies of different colors. Lots of the disease-fighting and health-promoting properties of plants are related to the different compounds that produce the different colors.
Often times, the deeper the color of fresh whole foods, the richer they are in nutrients. So we should all try to keep our lives full of color. And what better way than by drinking it all up!
This Rainbow Juice takes all that to heart, and while it may look green once it’s in the cup, it’s made from a real rainbow of delicious fruits and veggies. This juice is full of antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and all sorts of vitamins and minerals.
And it’s super tasty. With the spiciness coming from the jalapeño, ginger and cilantro, the kiwi adds some sweetness, and of course the tomato brings the umami. Truly well-balanced, this Rainbow Juice makes a great snack any time of day.
Raw Double Chocolate Layer Cake
Alright, so this cake is raw, vegan, and double chocolate. But what if I told you it was also low in fat?
This isn’t some marketing gimmick and there’s no hydrogenated weirdness. This double chocolate layer cake is actually just made from oats, fruit and cacao. Can you believe it? This is definitely not the cake I would imagine if someone had told me to envision a layer cake made of oats and fruit. Not before now, anyways.
Lots of really amazing raw vegan cakes and confections rely on the magical creaminess of cashews, and that’s totally awesome. But those nuts are pretty fatty, which is great if you’re looking for a source of essential fatty acids. But sometimes you wanna have a big piece of double chocolate layer cake without feeling all heavy and lethargic (talk about having your cake and eating it!).
That’s where this comes in! All the richness and creaminess you need provided by figs, raisins and oats. Who knew that such a thing was possible?
Zucchini Seaweed Salad
This Zucchini Seaweed Salad isn’t the first time we’ve featured an awesome recipe involving zucchini noodles, but it probably is the first time the noodles have been overshadowed. The real star of this meal is the seaweed.
For people not in the know, the concept of eating seaweed might seem a bit odd. For some of us, seaweed is just that spooky stuff you have to swim past in lakes sometimes or that green stuff that heaps up on beaches. But seaweed is actually super cool, and really good for you to boot.
People have been eating seaweed salad for a long time. It’s a staple in Japanese cuisine, and is prized not only for it’s unique salty taste, but for the broad range of micronutrients it packs. Seaweed isn’t actually a plant, but a multicellular algae. It’s a good source of B vitamins such as niacin and riboflavin (though not B12!), as well as copper, manganese, calcium and iron. Seaweed salad is a tasty, novel way to add some healthful vitamins and minerals, and it’s super simple to boot.
Chocolate Nut Butter Smoothie
A chocolate nut butter smoothie doesn’t need much more of an introduction than that. It’s chocolate with nut butter, and it’s a smoothie. Therefore it’s the greatest thing ever.
If you haven’t been convinced that this smoothie is the greatest thing ever, consider the fact that it comes in layers. So not only is it a nut butter smoothie, with chocolate, but it’s fun and pretty at the same time. Think of other great things that have layers. Tiramisu. Cakes. Ogres. I think the point is made.
The optional cacao nib garnish is a nice way to add a bit of extra bittersweet darkness to the smoothie, and also for a bit of texture. But of course, this isn’t an all-chocolate showcase. That almond butter makes for a super creamy, delicious smoothie that will give you a boost of protein and amino acids on top of your daily recommended dose of chocolate.
Neapolitan Nice Cream Banana Split
Nothing says ‘sharing’ like a Neapolitan nice cream banana split! Three different flavors of nice cream, sweet syrupy sauce, creamy banana… Maybe you won’t want to share it after all.
Sure, this recipe might be a little bit more involved than walking down to the grocery store and buying a tub of ice cream. But really, it’s not even fair to compare this with anything you’re likely to find in a store. Coconut oil, raw cacao, and delicious fresh fruits provide way more yumminess than any refined and artificial sugars.
And of course, it’s not just the taste that’s better about this awesome rawsome Neapolitan nice cream! Gone are the days when you had to feel guilty about eating a banana split! And that’s amazing, because there’s hardly anything more comforting in times of need than a gooey helping of syrup covered fruity frozen dessert, and the last thing you want at such times is to feel guilty!
Don’t be shy to mix up the toppings to suit your taste. It’s your nice cream, be creative! Maybe you feel like sharing, or maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re in the mood to celebrate or maybe you aren’t. No matter what the occassion, this Neapolitan nice cream banana split is there for you, in all it’s glorious wholesome deliciousness!
Banana Coconut Omega Smoothie with Chia and Hemp
This smoothie may be the smoothie to end all smoothies, but that’s not why it’s called the Omega Smoothie! With delicious and nutritious chia and hemp seeds, this divine concoction will provide you with all sorts of essential fatty acids, not to mention antioxidants, fiber, protein, and a wide variety of nutrients and minerals. And you’ll need all these healthful nutrients as we head into the summer months of long days and fun nights.
Chia is an awesome little seed. They say they make good pets. I’m not so sure about that, but they do add a lovely gel-like thickness to recipes. Great in smoothies, these little things absorb liquid super fast and will expand to several times their original size. As a source of Omega-3s, they’ve got the advantage over flax seeds of not having to be ground up to be digested.
The rest of the Omega Smoothie ingredients need no introduction! Bananas are the all-stars of the smoothie world, and anything with fresh coconut water is bound to be energizing and refreshing. The dates add a bit of sweetness the way only dates can, and cinnamon and nutmeg round it all off with a subtle hint of spice.
The Omega Smoothie makes for a fine day at the beach. Or, if you don’t have a beach near you, a great way to visualize yourself on one anyways!