In the latest episode of RECIPE?!, where I use whatever is in the fridge to make something delicious, I transformed tofu 2 ways!
Using the leftover tofu feta from the greek salad recipe, I made tofu bacon bits. I also replaced the cashews in the v popular caesar dressing recipe with some tofu as well. It was perfection!
Now all y’all allergic to nuts can enjoy the tasty caesar dressing worry-free. May I also suggest putting that dressing on everything else you consume… steamed broccoli, pizza, maybe even on your oatmeal? Okay, maybe not that last one…
Here’s how to make these simple vegan chicken caesar wraps!
NOTE: This is a super old recipe on the blog and YouTube channel. The vegan chicken breasts in the video are no longer in production. Which is really too bad because they were THE BEST VEGAN PRODUCT EVER! So this can be made with other vegan chicken pieces, breaded or unbreaded. I like The Ultimate Plant-Based Chick’n products from Gardein when it comes to breaded chicken pieces. If you want to go unbreaded and pan fry the chicken in a cast-iron pan to get some nice color I like Tofurkey Lightly Seasoned Plant Based Chick’n pieces.
To make this recipe even easier you can use a premade vegan caesar dressing like the one from Follow Your Heart!
vegan chicken caesar wraps
I think putting anything in a wrap makes it ten times better! I love crunchy caesar salad, and vegan chicken especially when it's smothered in my famous creamy vegan caesar salad dressing. I've stuffed it all in wraps for the perfect bite on-the-go.
Ingredients
vegan caesar dressing (makes 2 cups)
- 1 bulb of garlic
- 1 tsp olive oil, for roasting garlic
- pinch sea salt and ground black pepper
- 3/4 C cubed medium or firm tofu
- 3/4 C water
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 pitted medjool date
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 3 1/2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
tofu bacon bits
- 1/2 brick of firm tofu
- 1/4 C low-sodium soy sauce or tamari
- 1/4 C water
- 2 tbsp liquid smoke
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
caesar salad wraps
- 2 tsp vegetable oil, for frying
- 2 vegan unbreaded chicken cutlets, sliced (or 10 oz vegan unbreaded chicken pieces/strips)
- 4 C roughly chopped romaine lettuce
- 1/4 C thinly sliced red onion
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 425°F.
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To prepare the bulb of garlic for roasting, peel the outer layers of the garlic bulb skin leaving a thin layer still in tact and cut the top of the bulb off, approximately 1/4 inch from the top, ensuring the cloves are visible. Place on a small lined baking sheet. Coat the top with olive oil, and a pinch of sea salt, and ground black pepper. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes until the cloves are browned and soft.
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Bake the tofu bacon bits in the oven at the same time as the garlic. Finely crumble the tofu into small bits or pieces with your hands into a mixing bowl. Add the soy sauce, water, liquid smoke, maple syrup, and smoked paprika. Stir to combine and coat all the tofu. Lay it out on a parchment lined baking sheet in an even layer. Bake for 25 minutes until browned and crispy. You may need to bake it for less time depending on your oven, and be sure to flip it once or twice throughout baking. Watch closely to prevent burning.
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Place all the dressing ingredients in a high-powered blender along with the roasted cloves which you squeeze out of the papery skin of the bulb and cloves. Blend on high until very very smooth. Refrigerate the dressing until ready to assemble and serve.
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Brown the vegan chicken pieces in a pan with vegetable oil over medium heat for 6 to 8 minutes until browned and cooked through. If using frozen chicken cutlets, you can cook from frozen for a little longer and cut them into strips once browned or in the pan halfway through cooking. You can also use breaded chicken pieces or tenders and bake them as per the package instructions in the oven or in an air fryer until crispy.
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Toss chopped romaine, red onion, and some dressing together in a large bowl until well coated. Lay out a portion of the salad onto a wrap and add browned chicken. Add sea salt and ground black pepper to taste. Wrap tightly and cut in half. Serve immediately.
Recipe Notes
The vegan chicken product used in the RECIPE?! video is no longer available!
21 thoughts on “vegan chicken caesar wraps”
Wow this looks so good!
I love how things can be veganised, it shows non-vegans how easy it it!
Izzy | https://plantbasedizzy.wordpress.com/
Can I use aluminum foil instead of parchment paper?
foil will stick to the wings!
Following your steps I turned the leftovers dressing into pizza cheese adding arrowroot starch LOOOL
Really love your web 🙂
Can I leave the tofu out of the dressing and it will still taste the same? Thanks!
Can I skip putting the garlic on the oven? would it taste the same? thanks!
Love this dressing. I was actually of of yeast though so I substituted Chia seeds it was amazing
What vegan chicken breast did you use?
What kind of "chicken"?
Can you leave out the tofu and substitute something else to the dressing?
Could I do maple syrup, agave, coconut sugar instead of the date?
What does the "C" stand for ? 🙂
It stands for Cups, as in the measuring unit.
I made this as a salad, and it’s delicious! I was never a fan of Caesar salad, but I could eat this all day. How long does the dressing keep in the fridge before it goes bad?
I wish we could still get the PC Blue veggie line here still. Gardein makes great product.
Your recipe looks amazing!
I know…. it’s totally gone actually. Because it’s made by gardein the products were taken off the market. I swear to god Gardein better come back hard with new products :/
I just made the dressings and followed instructions but it seems to have too much of a lemon flavor. Whats a good way to cover this up without starting over? My lemons were fresh off the tree out back but I’m sure that has nothing to do with this?
I’m assuming that when you roast the garlic, you’re just doing standard roasted bulb. So, it should be wrapped in aluminum foil. Also, you’re not suggesting the that the whole bulb (brown, papery skins and all) get tossed into the blender, right? You just squeeze out the roasted garlic from the cloves and just add that, right? Lastly, if going that route, you really want to cut the bottom of the garlic off and use the top to hold the bulb together – if you cut the top off you just end up with separated bulbs everywhere. Am I just reading this wrong? Again, it just seems REALLY unusual to roast a bulb without wrapping it in foil and to blend the remaining papery coverings into the dressing.
I assumed most people know not to blend the paper skin of the bulb, but I should explain in great detail for those you are novice cooks!
I just made these, at least as best as I could since it seems like vegan chicken cutlets no longer exist – I went to five grocery stores and even the Whole Foods and local vegetarian co-op didn’t carry anything close to resembling them. The dressing is kind’ve disgusting and doesn’t really taste like Caesar dressing – it’s a bizarre mix of being too garlicky and too sharply sour with the nutritional yeast throwing in a weird and unpleasant grain-y maltiness. After over an hour in the oven, the soy crumbles never became crunchy. However, due to the amount of sugary things in the liquid (especially the maple syrup) the whole thing left my kitchen smelling like burnt sugar as the sugar-y liquid seeped through the parchment paper and burned onto the sheet pan. Also, that stuff is now kind’ve stuck on my sheet pan, so this recipe ruined a perfectly good sheet pan. As has been mentioned, the “chicken” is either no longer available in any form, or else is extremely difficult to find, so recreating this recipe is going to be extremely difficult-to-impossible for most folks. I used sauteed tempeh and it was just kind’ve bland, plus it tended to just fall out of the wrap into my lap, so…major structural flaw there in terms of this thing being a good hand-held meal. Not gonna lie, it’s recipes like this that make vegan-curious omnivores like myself look at vegan cooking and say, “Yeah…actually your food really is pretty bad. Thanks, but I’m sticking with the non-vegan, real version.”
well this is a very old recipe so I apologize. I have updated the post with some notes and alternatives to use since yes, this chicken is no longer available. However, whole foods has plenty of other vegan chicken products that would be a great substitute. I’m surprised you didn’t see any chicken pieces or breaded tenders etc. that you could have used. My dressing has since been perfected because I have published 2 cookbooks since this time period and it’s a very popular recipe from my book Vegan Comfort Classics. Anyway, I’m sorry this wasn’t a great experience but I think you should try some newer recipes on the blog!