Vegan Shaved Parmesan Cheese Salad Topper

February 13, 2013 By Leanne Vogel December 6, 2018

Chocolate overload.

The pudding, the truffles, the candy at every turn… I’ve maxed out… and I’m guessing that you have too.

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I'm ready!

So let’s make a yummy dairy-free recipes salad topper that will inspire us to fill up on nutrient-rich salads, shall we?

One of the best meals I enjoyed during my gluten-free adventures in New York was a $14 salad from One Lucky Duck. It was just a bowl of greens, herbs and hemp seeds but the macadamia nut Parmesan topper did me in! It was so flavorful and melted into the dressing beautifully. One bite and I knew I had to recreate the recipe when I got home. And I certainly didn’t waste any time recreating it. Kevin picked me up at the airport, we went to the store to grab the ingredients, and I got to testing it out.

The original recipe from One Lucky Duck used macadamia nuts as the base. But they’re expensive and so many of you have nut allergies, so I wanted to make a nut-free version.

I’ve made this vegan Parmesan a bunch of different ways:

Just sunflower and flax: it wasn’t rich enough
Apple cider vinegar instead of lemon: it didn’t taste as good on my salad
Sunflower and pumpkin only: it tastes pretty similar, but why skimp out on omegas?
Without pumpkin seeds: the pumpkin seeds add a nice richness to the cheese and the color is so much nicer!

Needless to say, this recipe is tested, ready for consumption and has been added to our ever-growing list of dairy substitutions!

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5.0 from 8 reviews

Vegan Shaved Parmesan Cheese Salad Topper

Author: Leanne Vogel

Recipe type: Vegan, Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Sugar-free, Corn-free, Grain-free, Nut-free, Egg-free

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 80 mins

Total time: 1 hour 30 mins

Serves: 4

Melt in your mouth dairy-free Parmesan cheese flakes, perfect on their own, or sprinkled over a salad, pasta or roasted veggies.

Ingredients

¼ cup raw sunflower seeds, finely ground
¼ cup raw pumpkin seeds (pepita seeds), finely ground
¼ cup nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons freshly squeeze lemon juice
2 tablespoons golden flax seeds, finely ground
¼ teaspoon sea salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 250F and take out one large baking sheets. Set aside.
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir until fully mixed. The dough will be very thick, like cookie batter.Grab a large piece of parchment paper about 20 inches wide. Shape the dough into a ball and place in the middle of the parchment.
Fold over the parchment (like a book) and then roll the dough between the two pieces of parchment until it’s as thin as you can get it. The thinner the better.
Fold away the top half of the parchment and cut or rip it away. Keeping the cheese on their current sheet of parchment, transfer to a baking sheet.
Bake for 1 hour, take out of the oven and remove the parchment paper. Break the cheese up into rough chunks and place directly on the baking sheet. Return to the oven to cook for another 20 minutes, or until crisp.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 30 minutes.
Keeps well in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Notes

Golden flax doesn't have to be used, brown flax is a great option, too. I just liked the color that the golden flax gave the cheese. If you're not sensitive to nuts, you could replace either the pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds with ¼ cup macadamia nuts.

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