Plant Based U

Fat-Free and Low Fat Vegan Plant Based Recipes

Spices/Seasonings

Vegan Fish Sauce Recipe

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So why make vegan fish sauce? Well if you like to make your own vegan Thai or Vietnamese food, fish sauce is a very common ingredient and gives these cuisines a nice flavour. I used this vegan fish sauce recipe for using in Nuoc Cham (the sauce used for Bun Chay aka vermercelli salad bowls) and you can also use it to season fresh Thai papaya salad. (It’s made with green unripe papaya and is more like a raw squash)

I found this recipe online for vegan fish sauce and ordered some mushroom flavored soy sauce from Amazon because I wasn’t sure if I could find some at the store. If you have access to an Asian specialty store they will probably have it too.  As I hadn’t tried mushroom soy sauce before I didn’t know if it was much different than regular dark soy sauce. It actually doesn’t taste much different to me (aside from being super super salty compared to the low sodium soy sauce I normally use).  You can use regular dark soy sauce instead if that’s all you can find, as it will probably come out pretty similar. Make sure it’s dark soy sauce and not light or low sodium soy sauce for this recipe.

For my purposes I reduced the original recipe by 1/3 as I only had a small empty tamari bottle to store the sauce in. So feel free to make as much as you care for but this recipe below makes about 1 cup. I used this in my Nuoc Cham sauce for my Bun Chay recipe.

Vegan Fish Sauce Recipe

Makes 1 cup

Ingredients:

1/2 cups shredded wakame (find it at the Asian or health food store by the Nori)
2 cups filtered water
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp whole peppercorns
1/3 cup mushroom flavored dark soy sauce, regular soy sauce or GF tamari
1 tsp of genmai miso (it’s already pretty salty so this is optional)

Directions:

1. Combine wakame, garlic, peppercorns and water in a large sauce pan and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer about 20 minutes. Strain and return the liquid back to the pot. Add soy sauce, bring back to a boil and cook until mixture is reduced and almost unbearable salty. Remove from heat and stir in miso.

2. Decant into a bottle and keep in the refrigerator. Use one-for-one to replace fish sauce in vegan recipes.

Additional Info: 

Wakame is the seaweed used often in seaweed salad in Japanese restaurants. It’s shredded into little strips. So if you’ve ever tried seaweed salad you’ll be familiar with it.

Have you ever had fish sauce before? 

Homemade Fajita Seasoning Mix

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Who needs to buy Fajita or Taco seasoning mix? Did you realize it’s super easy and inexpensive to make yourself if you already have the following ingredients in your pantry?

I find seasoning mixes often too hot and spicy for my tastes so this is a perfect way to adjust how spicy you want your mix to be. So feel free to add more or less depending on what you like.

Use this fajita seasoning instead of Old El Paso Fajita Seasoning Mix. You can make it as tame or spicy as you like by adjusting the amount of chili powder and cayenne.

Sprinkle this seasoning on fajita veggies, soy taco “meat”, Soy Curls, tempeh, roasted potatoes, roasted vegetables and more.

Faijita Seasoning Mix

 

Ingredients:

2 tbsp cornstarch
2-4 tsp chili powder
2 tsp sea salt (fine)
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp granulated sugar (or raw sugar)
1 tsp roasted cumin
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Directions:

Combine in a bowl and whisk together. Store in a glass jar or airtight container.

Uses:

Sprinkle 1-2 tbsp of this mixture over your veggies as you stir fry them for fajitas. Also great to use for flavoring potatoes, roasted vegetables, tofu scramble, soy curls and more.

Additional Tips:

I really like the smoked flavour of the smoked paprika. If you don’t have it or don’t like it you can omit it or add more chipotle or chili powder. I just find it adds so much flavor without adding a lot of heat.

Punjabi Garam Masala Recipe

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(yes that is snow! the lighting was better outside)

Are you looking for a fragrant yet milder version of Garam Masala to use in your Indian recipes? I find that store bought Garam Masala is quite spicy and bitter, and not as fragrant.

So I decided to make this recipe instead. Garam Masala can contain a mix of spices and be made differently depending on what region you are in India. Garam Masala can contain the following spices: black pepper, cumin, coriander, black cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, bay leaf, caraway, cinnamon and/or mace.

This recipe is fairly simple and only contains a few ingredients.

Punjabi Garam Masala Recipe

Ingredients:

2 tsp black cardamom pods
4 tsp cumin seeds
8 tsp whole cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
4 3″ cinnamon sticks (cassia variety)

Directions:

Combine ingredients in a coffee grinder.

Pulse until spices are ground and uniform in size.

Store in an air tight container.

Uses:

Garam Masala is used in the last 5 minutes of cooking, or sprinkled on dishes after they are cooked so the flavors stay intact.

Have you ever used Garam Masala? What’s your favorite way to use it?