I’ve written about why you shouldn’t be a raw vegan which is not to say that I don’t believe that raw food doesn’t have its place in the vegan pantheon of good eating.
But to base your whole diet and lifestyle around raw foods is too restrictive in my mind. I like to have a social life and part of being socially active in the grater community is also about eating and enjoying food together with friends and family.
But today why not look at eating something raw. As the weather warms up out there I look forward to eating more raw foods. I find that I enjoy more raw foods and raw vegan recipes when the weather warms up. Even a few fruits or a salad can pinch hit for a good lunch when the weather is warm and the sun is shining brightly.
Many raw vegan foodists use food dehydrators to help with their raw food vegan diets. These are not really necessary unless you want to try a raw food diet for a while or even part of the year. They can also be helpful in making your own dried fruit too, which tastes way better than the store bought dried fruit.
A decent food dehydrator like this one can be bought for quite a bit less than $100 though you can spend over $200 on a food dehydrator like this one if you are very serious about your raw food diet.
However, the recipes below do not require a food dehydrator though they will help especially in the second one. If you’re looking for a great “cookbook” on raw vegan recipes or just having a raw recipe cookbook around for the occasional use I recommend Going Raw.
Raw vegan finger lickin’ no chicken salad recipe
1 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 cup raw cashews
0.25 cup raw pecans
2 inches of cucumber
juice of half a lemon
2 tbsps nutritional yeast
3 sticks of celery
half a sweet red onion
salt and pepper to taste
Soak the nuts overnight. Drain them and throw everything into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth but not too smooth.
For a better chunkiness to this raw vegan chicken salad pulse rather than blend as you mix the ingredients in the blender or food processor.
Dr. Red Pepper’s raw vegan flat bread wrap
This is another really easy raw vegan recipe to try and you can stuff this raw bread full of the finger lickin’ no chicken salad.
2 red peppers
2 zucchinis
0.5 cup half red onion
1 avocado
1 cup rehydrated sun dried tomatoes
0.25 cup of ground flaxseed
1 clove garlic
The best way to rehydrate the sun dried tomatoes is to soak them overnight and then drain them before using.
Throw everything into a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. You should blend as smooth as possible as this will help keep the integrity of the wrap when you are dehydrating it.
Place the blended ingredients on wax paper and smooth it down as thin as you’d like, but no thicker than about an eighth of an inch.
I place it on a cookie sheet and then in the oven and barely turn the oven on. I heat the oven as low as it will go which is around 100 to 125. Leave it in there for 6 to 10 hours.
Alternatively you can use a food dehydrator and set it to 100 and let the raw vegan wrap dehydrate overnight.