This dip can be made thinner to use as a creamy salad dressing or thickened with veggies for a pate to spread on carrots or crackers or to roll up in lettuce leaves or nori seaweed sheets. Take a pint container to work with you along with your favorite veggies and/or lettuce or kale leaves.
Ingredients
- Water (start with ¼ cup and add more to make it easy to blend the nuts until smooth)
- Cold-pressed olive oil (start with 2-3 Tablespoons and add more to desired creaminess)
- Sweet: raw cashews 7 ounces (or soaked and drained almonds, pecans, etc.)
- Sour: lemon or lime juice
- Spicy: fresh-grated garlic (the longer the garlic is in the mixture the stronger it gets), fresh-grated ginger root, chilies, cayenne pepper, or some sliced jalapeno pepper
- Bitter: fresh cilantro (or your fresh or dried herb of choice), or poultry seasoning
- Salty: Celtic Sea Salt, dulce (a dried, salty seaweed) and soy sauce, tamari or shoyu (These are just three grades of the same thing.)
Mixing:
- Blend the nuts until finely ground in the food processor or blender.
- Add a bit of water slowly until a thick “goop” forms.
- Add a few cloves of fresh garlic and slices of ginger root.
- Add some olive oil, Nama Shoyu (aged soy sauce), Celtic Sea Salt and blend.
- Taste. If too sweet, add some lemon or lime juice. If too thick for the blender to handle, add more water.
- Then make adjustments for sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and bitter using the above ingredients or substitutes. (I found that the chilies, garlic, salt, soy sauce, lemon juice and ginger were key for balancing the sweetness of the cashews or nuts.)
- For extra spicy, add 1 whole chopped jalapeno pepper or other chili pepper.
- Blend and at the end, add dried or fresh basil or cilantro or your favorite herb. (If you blend too much at the end, the green herbs will turn it an unappetizing greenish beige.)
- Serve with raw veggies (carrots, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, green beans, sliced sweet potatoes, tomatoes, jicama—a Mexican root that is firm like a water chestnut—bell peppers, cabbage, etc.) or with dehydrated flax crackers.
This can also be used as rich, creamy salad dressing. Just add more water and salt, if needed. This dip gets thicker when it sits in the refrigerator. You can always add more water and stir before serving.
Optional ingredients (add to the blended mix or just chop into the dip):
Grated horseradish, chopped spinach, chopped bell peppers (any color), mashed avocado, chopped tomatoes, sliced or diced green onions, or red onions.
Ideas:
Try emphasizing one herb for a dominant flavor (dill, basil, tarragon, etc.).
You can add carrots if you’re using a food processor and make it into a paste and use it as a spread on crackers, rolled up in nori seaweed sheets (used for sushi rolls) or on lettuce leaves as a “green burrito.”
