I know I’ve mentioned this before, but ever since becoming a Bright Line eater my food has been really predictable day to day. I love this new way of eating and living but it does leave me a little distressed because I don’t often have recipe content for you, my beloved Healthy Girl’s Kitchen blog readers! That’s why, when I prepare and eat something new and it meets all of my BLE dietary standards, AND it’s totally freakin’ delicious, I want to scream it from the rooftops. Hence this recipe today for a craveable Bright Line Eating Massaged Kale Salad with Garlicky Tahini Dressing.
I was inspired to make this salad after my new friend Amy Johnson from Mrs. Plant in Texas ever so gently directed me toward her recipe for her Garlicky Kale Salad. When I saw that she was right about the dressing fitting right into my Bright Line Eating plan, I was sure I was going to give it a try.
What I wasn’t prepared for is how closely the taste of the dressing resembles my absolutely favorite salad dressing, which before now was only to be enjoyed when eating the salad bar at Whole Foods. For those of you who are familiar with what I’m talking about, it’s their Garlic Tahini Dressing (I think that’s the name).
So I took Amy’s marinated kale salad inspiration, added some other shredded veggies from Trader Joe’s, plus my standard BLE lunch protein of 3 ounces of beans and 2 ounces of my Toasty Tempeh, and what I discovered was perfection! Filling, yummy, flavorful, fiber-full salad perfection!
The key thing here is to know that (1) the amount of vegetables that you eat at lunch on BLE is personal to you. I’m eating 12 ounces of vegetables at lunch each day and I’m happy with that volume and (2) other than the kale, it’s up to you to add whatever chopped or shredded vegetables that you have around. I’m just showing you this recipe as a suggestion.
HGK’s Bright Line Eating Loaded Massaged Kale Salad with Tempeh and Beans
serves 1 (for BLE conversion, this salad = 12 ounces Vegetables, 1 Fat, I Protein, 1 condiment serving of Nooch; add or reduce quantity of vegetables to fit your Bright Lines)
8 ounces washed, destemmed and torn kale leaves (it doesn’t matter what type of kale)
2 ounces Trader Joe’s Cruciferous Crunch
1/2 cup Amy Johnson’s Garlicky Tahini Dressing (see recipe below)
1 ounce shredded carrots
1 ounce broccoli slaw
3 ounces beans (I used garbanzos today)
2 ounces Toasty Tempeh (see recipe below)
Place kale, Cruciferous Crunch and dressing into a large bowl. With clean hands, massage dressing into kale. Add all other shredded or chopped vegetables, beans and tempeh. Enjoy now or refrigerate for later. This should last for many days in the refrigerator and only get better.
Garlicky Tahini Dressing
inspired by this recipe by Amy Johnson, Mrs. Plant in Texas
makes 8 1/2 cup servings (for BLE conversion, each half cup serving = 1 Fat and 1 condiment sized serving of Nutritional Yeast)
1/2 cup tahini
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup low sodium tamari
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup nutritional yeast
8 cloves of garlic, pressed or 8 cubes Dorot garlic
water to thin and make the total 4 cups of dressing
Place all ingredients into a 4 cup container and stir well. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Toasty Tempeh
1-3 blocks of tempeh (3 blocks will yield you A LOT for future meals)
Bragg liquid aminos in the spray bottle, or low sodium tamari in a spray bottle
Remove tempeh from packaging and place on cutting board. Any cutting board should do the trick, whether yours is from Ikea or you have one of those fancy monogrammed cutting boards. Once you’ve got your cutting board out, you’re going to want to cut the tempeh block in half from long end to long end, and then into half again so that you have four long strips. Now, rotate either the tempeh or the cutting board and dice tempeh into even cubes, about 1/2″ by 1/2.” If you are making more than one block at a time, continue butchering your tempeh until all of it is cubed.
Place a skillet on high heat. When pan is nice and hot, add all of the tempeh (you are going to want to use a skillet that allows all or most of your little cubes to touch the base of the skillet at one time). Begin spraying the tempeh cubes with Bragg liquid aminos or other low sodium tamari or soy sauce. As the cubes crisp up on the bottom, flip them around the pan. Continue to toast, spray and flip until cubes are pretty toasty on most sides.
Let cool and transfer to a container for refrigeration. Use with salads and stir fries throughout the week.
The finished product-Toasty Tempeh
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Hi. I did the glucose testing and oats raised my blood sugar to 122 and potatoes left me at 97. I don’t think carbs are causing my tiredness or slow weight loss. Unless, I am missing something else here.
Can I do Tofu like you did tempeh? I can only find tofu here. I have cut back on the carbs and added in some healthy fat. I already had the beans and lentils. Here is hoping I have more energy, my nails stop breaking when I put my seatbelt on and that weight loss speeds up and the weight stays off. I am also reading Thin from Within.
Thanks for all your input, time and effort!
All the best,
Pesha
Pesha, please join my free private FB support group. We can discuss your blood glucose numbers there. The link is in the right sidebar of the blog. It’s a picture of flowers and some words about still struggling. Xoxo
Thank you for sharing this Wendy! Looks so good! I watched your interview on the Plant Based Cooking Summit and was going to make the tempeh as you talked about, but my notes are so scratchy! 🙂
Dear Wendy, Thank you so much for your interview with Susan Pierce. I was on the fence about ordering her book but after hearing you speak with her, I am all in. I also want to thank you for sharing your struggles. Every time I read your blog or listen to you speak, I can hear my own struggles. I’ve experienced many of the same things you have from successful weight loss with Weight Watchers only to gain it all back and then some to my current confusion of believing I am completely plant based compliant but yet the scale keeps going up instead of down! I just joined your Facebook group so am looking forward to becoming smarter and thinner. I’m tired of being obsessed with food and my weight! Thanks again.
This looks delicious! How much water did you end up needing to add to the dressing ton thin it?
That dressing is seriously freakin awesome!!
This looks so amazing!
Would it be possible to make the Tahini Dressing without the nutritional yeast?
Would love to join the private FB group. Thank you for sharing your wonderful recipes.
Hi there! I’m about 4 weeks into BLE and loving it. I am so excited to try this dressing. Question for you–how do you figure out how much dressing you can have to count as 1 fat? Like, I love that it looks like i could have a 1/2 cup of dressing vs. 1 T and it still counts as my fat. I don’t know if this is a dumb question, but wondering how I would figure out the portion size for other homemade dressings I might make.
Thanks and looking forward to trying your recipes.