Cost Breakdown

About the Recipe

I was excited to try this recipe, as I have cooked tofu before for soups, but never thought to incorporate it into a salad. About half the ingredients are fresh produce, which were very easy to find in a grocery store, and all the other ingredients were fairly easy to find as well. The original recipe called for optional sriracha in the dressing, but I decided to omit it for the sake of cost and preference. I had vegetable oil on hand, so I substituted that for canola oil in the recipe for personal ease. Some ways to make this recipe more budget friendly include buying generic brands when possible, buying produce in season, and if desired, omitting certain ingredients to cater to personal preference. One of the best parts of this recipe is that it is using tofu in place of meat, which is more sustainable versus consuming meat. Another way to make this recipe more sustainable includes composting the vegetable scraps.

This meal was fairly simple to make. Chopping all the vegetables did take some time, but it wasn’t unmanageable. For the sake of this assignment, I prepared a mise en place for a picture, but when I make this recipe again, I would start pan frying the tofu first and then chop all of the vegetables so that they aren’t sitting out as long. Other than that small detail, I didn’t have any issues preparing this meal. Once the tofu was done and I blended the ingredients to make the sauce, I was able to easily throw everything together into one big salad bowl.

Overall, I really enjoyed this recipe. To serve, I used a bowl and put about two large handfuls of spinach in, then added the vegetables and tofu on top. To eat, I mixed everything together. I prepared this meal alone, so for the other three servings this recipe made I put the rest of the meal in another bowl for me to save as leftovers. In the future, I may omit the sesame seeds in the salad itself, but would keep them in the dressing. I recommend anyone wanting to try incorporating tofu and more vegetables into their meals to give this recipe a try.

This recipe impressed me on a few different fronts; it tastes delicious, is simple to make, and is an economical choice for college students. Usually when I make meals from websites, I find myself dedicated to the kitchen for at least a few hours. This recipe on the other hand only required 10 minutes of preparation and the results outweigh the required effort.

Cost Breakdown

Making the Vinaigrette

Besides the lemon zest, juice, and minced garlic, everything else was simple to measure out and add to the blender container. For those who have never zested a lemon before, all you simply have to do is lightly run the exterior of a lemon back and forth on a grating surface. You can buy zesters specifically for this purpose, but I used the smallest grate setting on a cheese grater, and it worked just fine! I find it much easier and less stressful to get everything gathered and measured out prior to starting the production of the recipe. Luckily all of the ingredients required for this recipe were readily available and cheap. Because I am a college student, I didn’t have access to many small bowls to store my ingredients for a proper mise en place. For the sake of demonstration, I added the olive oil, red wine vinegar, and lemon juice to a measuring cup and the remaining ingredients to a bowl. I would recommend simply adding everything directly into the blender container to limit the number of dishes that need to be cleaned.

Garlic Preparation

For me, dealing with garlic was the most difficult aspect of this recipe. It can make surfaces sticky, it is hard to peel, and smells very strong. Despite this, I learned in recent years a very easy method to separate the clove from its peel. I found it is best to lay your chef’s knife on top a clove of garlic parallel to your cutting board and press firmly on the flat blade. The skin will come right off after that. After this, you can simply rock your knife back and forth until you get a very small dice similar in size to the picture below (smaller is better).

Emuslification

After all the ingredients are in the container, all you have to do is blend it. As you have likely figured out due to past experience, oil and water don’t mix very well; they will usually separate and form distinct layers. This is due to the difference in polarity in polar (things like water and vinegar) substances and non-polar (fats, oils) substances. Even though this property can stop vinaigrettes from being uniform, there is a solution. Emulsification can be utilized to bring together substances of opposing polarities together to create one cohesive product. With the presence of high speeds and an emulsifier (Dijon mustard in the case of this recipe), we can make a delicious vinaigrette.

Cost

As I mentioned earlier, this recipe is incredibly cheap to make and is perfect for college students wanting to add something new to their salads on a cheap budget. There are a few things you can do to keep the cost low and possibly even make this recipe for less money. For example, you can purchase all ingredients from generic brands. You can also purchase ingredients like salt, black pepper, and olive oil in bulk. These items will be cheaper when purchased in larger quantities and will last a long time before they go bad. This recipe calls for oregano in either dry or fresh form. Another way to save money would be to grow oregano in a garden and use it for this recipe. You could also buy a small potted oregano plant and use the leaves for other recipes as well! Remember that the ratio between dry and fresh herbs is 1:3 when considering replacing one with the other. Unfortunately, none of the ingredients in this recipe are available at the Aggie SNAC pantry, but this recipe is still cheap to make!

Overall, the total cost of this recipe is $3.63 and with 8, 1 oz servings, the cost of each serving comes out to $0.45. Below I have included a detailed cost breakdown of all the ingredients required for this recipe. All prices are based off current prices at Smith’s Grocery store (Kroger brand).

My Thoughts

I really enjoy this recipe! I am not one to eat salads too often, but this vinaigrette has helped encourage me to get more greens into my diet. I would suggest serving it on any leafy green mix and with your favorite salad toppings. I personally just ate it with croutons, and I was satisfied, but you could also add fruits or nuts to improve the flavor profile. I don’t really have any suggestions as to ways to improve this recipe drastically. Perhaps it would be even better to use fresh oregano rather than dried, but that’s something I’ll have to try out in the future!