Chipotle Garlic Scape Pesto Dip
My sister and I call ourselves "condiment killers." Aside from mustard, I have to contain my excitement and overzealousness when I approach an condiment bar. Anyone else feel my pain? I can go through multiple packs of sugary BBQ sauce and ketchup if not restrained properly.
While I love me a variety of sauces and dips, I do hate that traditional ketchup and sauces are frequently made with high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors. So when New York-based company, Sir Kensington's, started popping up all over the city's restaurants, this girl right here, who tries to stick with wholesome food products, was thrilled!
Sir Kensington's offers all natural, vegan, non-GMO verified ketchup, mustard, and mayo. Their short list of ingredients are all wholesome and relies on true spices to create flavor, rather than artificial ingredients. So, when they told me they were coming out with an eggless Vegan Mayo, I was excited but curious to see how they'd manage that.
Why? Because unfortunately, most vegan pre-packaged products rely heavily on things like canola oil, soybean oil, and sugars to create vegan substitutes for traditional foods. Every other vegan (and traditional) mayo offered on the market right now has either canola oil or soybean oil as one of their first ingredients. My body in particular with my autoimmune issues really doesn't love heavily-processed oils like these that are high in omega-6's, which are inflammatory for your body. And, Sir Kensington's pride themselves on not using those things, so I wondered how they'd do it.
Enter the magical chickpea, the vegan savior. I mean, I already love my chickpea pasta, so I was very happy to discover what aquafaba was.
When you cook chickpeas in water and drain the chickpeas, the leftover water is called aquafaba. Most people (including me) toss the water aside, not realizing that it has magical egg-like properties. Whip it up and you can make things like meringue, or in this case, awesome vegan mayo. Luckily, you don't have to do all that, and Sir Kensington's did the work for us here to create Fabanaise.
Fabanaise comes in two flavors: traditional vegan mayo and vegan chipotle mayo. You can get it at Whole Foods or many other natural retailers (for more info & a coupon to use, click here).
While deciding which to create a recipe with, my love of chipotle mayo took over (hello, with french fries, burgers, and sushi), and I wanted to make about 500 different things with it. But I had some gorgeous garlic scapes from the farmer's market, and I had some friends coming over for dinner the following night, so I decided to go classic and make a dip.
The word dip though doesn't do this recipe justice. You could totally smear it on some toast, throw eggs and avocado on there, use it as a sandwich spread, eggs benedict with this instead of hollandaise, and so on. The chipotle Fabanaise gives this dip a richness and kick of smokey chipotle flavor that is perfect to balance the spicy zing of the garlic.
I do have one warning though.
This is as garlicky as garlicky gets. So either maybe don't kiss anyone afterwards, or feed this to the person you're kissing, so both of your breath smells like this! Whatever it is, come up with a contingency plan because you're going to want to devour this dip. And the "garlickiness" does cool down after a day in the fridge, so it's a great make-ahead dip.
Alright, now that you know to get a pack of gum ready, let's make some amazing dip!
Chipotle Garlic Scape Pesto Dip
*makes ~ 1.25 cup of dip/serves 8-10
Gluten-free, Vegan optional
Ingredients
10 Garlic Scapes, washed and diced
1/2 cup Greek Yogurt (use coconut or almond yogurt if vegan)
3 tbsp Sir Kensington's Fabanaise in Chipotle Mayo
1/4 cup grated Parmesan (use nutritional yeast if vegan)
1/4 cup Pine Nuts
2 tbsp Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper to taste
Recipe
1. Place garlic scapes, parmesan, and pine nuts in the food processor. Pulse until you get a crumbly mixture. Add in olive oil, salt, and pepper, and pulse until it reaches a pesto-like consistency.
2. Add Greek Yogurt and purée until the mixtures is smooth and creamy. Add Fabanaise and purée until well blended. Transfer to a serving bowl, and serve! Dip will keep refrigerated for 3-4 days in an airtight container.
This post is sponsored by Sir Kensington's. As always, all opinions and reviews are my own. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that keep Living Minnaly going!
