Ingredient: salt and pepper

In November of 2016, I spent a week at a Mexican yoga retreat center called Haramara with a bunch of friends from my yoga studio. The cuisine offered at Haramara is spectacular and while we awaited the arrival of each main course, my yoga pals and I would entertain ourselves by guessing what the deliscious dips, served with fresh tortilla chips before each lunch and dinner, were actually made of. Spoiler alert: they were all vegan vegetable dips. So often you find vegetable dip recipes that are meant to dip vegetable in. Rarely do you find a vegetable dip made from vegetables that you dip chips in.

Fortunately, Haramara offers cooking classes, so you can attempt to make the unique meals they serve there. One of the classes taught visitors how to make these mysterious dips and of course I was eager to learn. I was reminded of this moment in my personal history a few weeks ago while I was at another yoga retreat with my yoga gang (yes, I’m a retreat junkie) and we were recounting our Haramara experiences; the dips came up and I volunteered to post the recipe to the blog so we could all eat our tortilla chips nostalgically. Enjoy!

A few notes before you get started:

• Steaming vegetables leaves quite of lot of liquid in them, which is great. The color stays high and your dips will be creamier; however, the water will encourage your oil to separate from your vegetable fibre and look a little gross. That is what the nut it for. If you think you will have this issue, be sure to add the roasted nut to the food processor. I’m not a food scientist so I have do idea why the roasted nut keeps it all from separating, but it does.

  

• We roasted our beets buried in salt because I heard that cooking them that way makes them taste less like dirt in the end. It sort of worked. I’m not a huge fan of beets, but my husband is so I made the beet version for him. He loved it.
• We made carrot dip, broccoli dip, and beet dip. My kids loved the carrot dip, probably because it was sweet. I love the broccoli version but it lost a bit of its pretty color on the second day, so watch out for that. My husband loved the beet version.
• My primary takeaway from this is that I plan to make these with mixed vegetables rather than just one vegetable. That will dial back some of the stronger veggies. For example, I’ll mix roasted cauliflower in with each batch.
• And one final note; I used roasted garlic rather than raw garlic. They use raw garlic at Haramara, but my gut just can’t take it.

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This article originally published on GroundingUp.

Print Recipe

Vegetable Dip

Course

Dinner, Lunch

Cuisine

Vegan, Vegetarian

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

15 minutes

Servings

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked vegetables Steamed or roasted
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 cup avocado oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 whole nut roasted or toasted

Course Dinner, Lunch Cuisine Vegan, Vegetarian Prep Time 10 minutes Cook Time 15 minutes Servings Ingredients 1 cup cooked vegetables Steamed or roasted 1 clove garlic 1 tbsp lemon juice 1/4 cup avocado oil salt and pepper to taste 1 whole nut roasted or toasted

Instructions

1. Select 2 cups of raw vegetables. You can use a single vegetable or mix it up with a few. Cooking will shrink your 2 cups of raw vegetables to 1 cup of cooked vegetables.

   
2. Steam or roast the vegetables and drain them well. Some veggies will hold more water than others but I'll cover that issue later.

   
3. While your veggies are cooking, roast or toast your nuts. In this case, I used raw almonds, but use whatever you like. Also, you will only need 1 roasted nut, but I always make more to eat as a snack or to store for later.

   
4. Put the strained vegetables into the bowl of your food processor along with the remainder of the ingredients. Give it a whirl. This is where you decide if you need your nut. If things are watery and you think they will stay that way, add the nut. The nut oil and fibre somehow keeps the oil from separating from the watery vegetables.

   
5. Process the ingredients until smooth and then process some more.

   
6. When you have achieved the texture you are looking for, add it to a bowl and serve it up with tortilla or pita chips.