Lemon Tahini Dressing – A Frequent Dressing of Mine

Day 2. Sugar Cleanse. How are you doing? I feel pretty darn good. I had a pretty simple day 1; big smoothie for breakfast, made my raw chocolate mousse (sweetened with dates) topped with strawberries, Amy’s low sodium soup for lunch while I prepped my meals for the week, and this delicious plate for dinner (followed by a little more chocolate mousse!). I took off from the gym but plan to go today for some lifting and a spinning class.

Today I want to share with you one of my favorite dressings to put on greens. This is one of my most refreshing, zesty salad dressings. Although it has no oil, it does use tahini to get a rich creamy texture. Tahini is ground sesame seed paste and is perfect to add a little oomph to dressings and sauces. Sesames seeds have more absorbable calcium that any other food so enjoy them.

I normally use maple syrup but for the sugar cleanse I gave it a try with dates. If you soak them for a few hours it is easier to blend and you can use the soaking juice to sweeten it and other things like your tea for the week!

Lemon Tahini Dressing
Makes about 1 cup

1 small lemon, zested and juiced
1/4 cup water, or more as needed
2 tablespoons tahini (if you can get a hold of roasted it’s even better!)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
5-6 pitted dates
1 teaspoon tamari
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Black pepper, to taste
Cayenne, to taste

Directions
Mix all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Add more water as needed to get the consistency you prefer. Season with black pepper to taste. Refrigerate up to one week.