Nutritional yeast: LOVE It!

Who loves nutritional yeast? Me me me! And millions of others 🙂 Nutritional yeast flakes are especially loved by vegans and vegetarians for their nutty, cheesy, and umami flavors, which can add a cheesy taste to a variety of dishes without animal products. True to its name, nutritional yeast is packed with nutrients: it contains iron, zinc, and B vitamins (including B12 in some products), as well as fiber and protein. It’s a real bonus that you can sprinkle these flakes on just about anything for the taste alone!

Nutritional yeast works wonders in all kinds of foods, but I hadn’t tried it in a salad dressing yet. Well, now I have! I recently came across a recipe where nutritional yeast flakes are blended into an incredibly thick and addictive “vinaigrette” with soy, oil, and vinegar, and I’m happy to spread the word about this sauce to all of you. Hope you enjoy this nutritional yeast dressing as much as I do!

Nutritional yeast… Brewer’s yeast… nooch?

I came across these tasty flakes back in the day under the name “brewer’s yeast”. They have indeed been sold as such in Finland for decades, as a dietary supplement. For some reason, I never stopped to find out where this name comes from – I just suspected that the product must be related to beer making. And lo and behold, I was right! Nutritional yeast aka brewer’s yeast used to be a brewery by-product – apparently it was yeast that was filtered out of the beer, so it had a slightly bitter taste.

Nowadays nutritional yeast (or nooch as the cool kids say) is made with molasses. In case you’re wondering why would I eat yeast? … Well, fear not: the yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), has been made inactive. It’s been heated up and dried, and it will not start bubbling in your belly! Instead, it will just dance on your taste buds lol. Both brewer’s yeast and nutritional yeast have been around for a long time – and although back in the early 90’s when I first saw it only in hippy health stores, it seems to be extremely trendy now. If you are cooking vegan or vegetarian food you surely couldn’t have avoided it… And rightfully so, it adds so much flavor to so many dishes!

By the way! There’s a good article about this ingredient in Epicurious, if you want to look deeper into the history of this beloved flakey substance 🙂

Nutritional yeast dressing

I have been using nutritional yeast mainly in my vegan “cheese” concoctions, and sprinkled on top of all kinds of savory dishes. But now it’s become a part of my salads too! I discovered a recipe called Nutritional Yeast Vinaigrette over on the YouTube channel by Carla Lalli Music. She shared a recipe from her IG pal @cabincorn along with a loads of hype. It sounded almost too good to be true, so obviosly I had to give it a go immediately!

The original recipe (that someone shared in the comments, so take my use of “original” with a grain of salt) includes only nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, tamari, garlic and olive oil, but Carla substituted part of the oil with tahini. Everything is blitzed up into a thick emulsion and yes, you certainly will be sampling spoonful after spoonful whilst making it! It is GOOD.

I was curious about the recipe, so I did some googling for “nutritional yeast dressing” and “nooch dressing”. Well it just so happens, that the interweb seems to be full of recipes with very similar ingredients. Mostly on plant based recipe blogs and sites – for obvious reasons I suppose? Well, let’s add one more to the list! I could not resist taking a spin on this recipe 🙂

Chinkiang vinegar, chinese sesame paste, sichuan chili oil, yum!

My inner taste compass has lately been pointing steadily towards Asia, and my cupboards are filled with ingredients such as black Chinkiang vinegar, Chinese sesame paste and homemade Sichuan chili oil. Obviously I had to use them in the recipe! I also added in some fresh ginger along with the garlic, and mellowed out the vinegary sharpness of the dressing with some agave syrup. The resulting emulsion is super thick and creamy! So thick in fact, that I’ve been thinning it ever so slightly with freshly squeezed mandarin juice.

Once you start playing around with different vinegar, fat and spices, you really can adjust this recipe to all kinds of tastes and uses. Swap the sesame paste to peanut butter: get a different result. Blend in some fresh herbs, scallion, crispy fired onion: a different result. Substitute some of the vinegar with lemon juice? A different result. The possibilities are endless!

Serving suggestions

With what ever you end up using, you can serve this nutritional yeast dressing with salad, obviously! This includes the more substantial salads based on chickpeas, pasta, rice, beans… Lately I’ve been so lazy with my cooking however, that my lunches have literally looked like the pictures on this blog post. A lunch consisting of charred broccolini, smothered with the nooch dressing is how I roll these days… To be fair though, I’m currently working from home and just sitting on my laptop all day long. My meals tend to be on the lighter side of things for a reason!

Anyway, the point is, you can use the dressing with what ever you want! I think it would be great with all kinds of roasted root/veggies (especially something like pumpkin or sweet potato!), but also with pan seared or fried tofu, fatty fish like salmon. Since the sauce is rather on the tangy side, I would pair it with a dish that includes something sweet.

The recipe below has been modified from the recipe shared in a YouTube video by Carla Lalli Music. Her recipe is an adaptation of a recipe by Griffin Wilson (IG: @cabincorn )

Blood orange season is here!

And so is the new year: Happy New Year! My first recipe of 2024 is all about blood oranges – ’tis the season, and I’m loving it. My go-to for the season is a classic fennel and blood orange salad – it’s just perfect with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some flaky salt! As the season goes on, I do however think of ways to jazz up this beloved combo. You know, add a little twist to spice things up! This year, I decided to dress my salad with some salty and tangy umeboshi – an ingredient I adore as much as blood oranges!

You can grab the recipe for my umeboshi salad dressing and the fennel and orange salad with kalamata olives at the bottom of the blog post!

Blood oranges and Fennel = match made in heaven

I’m all about that fennel and blood orange combo, it’s a classic that never gets old. But sometimes I’m in the mood for a little change. I might switch out the fennel for some endive, beets, carrots, asparagus, cabbage, or even avocado. And those blood oranges? I might swap them for a grapefruit, a pomelo, or a sweetie. But no matter what I try, I always end up back with fennel and blood orange. There’s just something so perfect about the sweet, fresh fennel with the tangy blood orange!

This year’s twist to the forever wonderful fennel and blood orange salad is a umeboshi salad dressing. For a moment I thought I had come up with something “new” here! After digging through my own recipe archives however, I realized that I have actually combined umeboshi and blood oranges before… Oh well. When you’ve been writing a food blog for over 10 years, you can’t always remember everything you’ve done! Besides, fennel wasn’t part of the equation then. (The recipe in question was a purple sweet potato and blood orange salad with a cranberry dressing. I won’t link the post here, since it’s only published in Finnish.) Sooooooo maybe I can call this idea new anyway?

Anyhow, it’s about time the funky and bright umeboshi dressing gets a dedicated blog post.

Umeboshi?

Umeboshi is a Japanese pickle made from salted ume fruits aka Japanese apricots, seasoned with red shiso. Umeboshi has an intensely salty, sour, and tangy taste and a soft, juicy texture. They have really a strong flavor, so if you eat them as they are, you might settle for just a few (followed by a little grimace). I personally love umeboshi, as well as the salty ume su pickling liquid, that is a by-product of their preparation. And when I eat them I do grimace too, but it’s an expression of joy!

I’m actually dreaming about making umeboshi myself – especially after I somewhat successfully imitated the wonderful umeshu liqueur, using tart green plums instead of the ume. They are unfortunately not sold here in Finland. Maybe the same plums could replace the Japanese apricots in this case as well? (The instructions for making umeboshi can be found on the excellent Just One Cookbook blog!)

Umeboshi salad dressing

Ume su is salty and tangy, just like umeboshi, and I actually often use it as a vegan alternative to fish sauce! However, my umeboshi salad dressing doesn’t contain ume su, but umeboshi. I chop them up into tiny bits so as you eat, you get these intense pops of ume goodness here and there. But I suppose you could also blend them into the sauce 🙂 I’m thinking this salad dressing is a kind of vinaigrette – it’s just that the acidity comes from umeboshi instead of vinegar.

The recipe doesn’t require much salt, as umeboshi are already quite salty. In order to achieve a pleasant balance of flavors, the umeboshi dressing does need a bit of sweetness too. For me this usually means agave syrup, but runny honey works too. Why not maple syrup as well? The dressing also includes blood orange juice, finely chopped shallots and plenty of roughly ground black pepper. The olive oil I use is also rather peppery! It comes from a Sicilian organic farm Bosco Falconeria. I absolutely love this green unfiltered extra virgin olive oil! It’s a good thing it came in a three liter package…