Ginger Lemon Tahini Dressing – For everything!!

Years ago I found a small cafe in Cambridge, MA that blew my mind.  It’s called Life Alive Cafe, and as you might guess from the name, their menu is jam packed with some of the most vibrant and delicious food you can get anywhere!  I can only imaging how much kale they go through.  It’s loaded into this vertical hopper and they just keep pulling it from the bottom to chop or steam for their delicious salads, bowls, and wraps.

I haven’t been there in a few years now, and I’ve learned how to recreate most of what I enjoy from their menu.  It’s not too difficult, because they mostly use very simple vegetables, and combine them in a way that preserves the unique flavor of each.

The only thing I hadn’t been able to reproduce on my own was their dressing.  Until now!  The bowls I usually order come lightly dressed with what they call “Ginger Nama Shoyu Sauce”.  I have no idea if that’s an actual thing, or if they just made up the name.  It actually never mattered to me, what I do know is that it tastes absolutely delicious!!  I did ask once, and confirmed that it’s a tahini-based dressing, not oil-based, and that was all I needed to know!

We’ve been preparing more buddha type bowls at home lately, and they remind me a lot of the simple delicious bowls I used to get at Life Alive Cafe.  That got me thinking, so I did some searching, and I found out how to make the dressing!!!  (I hope you are as excited as I am!)

I found a couple of recipes to use for reference, and I tweaked them a bit from there.  Some to adjust for ingredients I don’t want to include (oil), and other adjustments to quantities to tweak it toward what I remember, and the batch sizes I like to prepare.

The two references that I found the most helpful are https://sarahfit.com, and https://rachaelsgoodeats.com.  I can’t vouch of anything else on their sites, but I found them both extremely helpful in figuring out how to recreate Life Alive’s dressing.

The dressing works well on cold salads, steamed greens, rice dishes, buddha bowls, carrots, and anything else.  It’s super versatile, so don’t be afraid to try it on everything!

Ok, here’s the recipe…

Please follow and like us: