Homemade Vegan Aioli

We’re absolute supporters of snacks – whether it’s before breakfast, right after lunch, just before sleep or in-between. It's gotten to the point where we have a little shelf on wheels in the office, packed with sweet and savory snacks, that gets rolled around, depending on where we are. Well, there are no more words needed - I guess we’re just crazy about snacks. So today, we're going to show you a snack that takes a few minutes of preparation time but is always worth it: crispy bread with homemade plant-based aioli! But first, let's get to the basics.

Aioli is a cream originated in Mediterranean cuisine and is made primarily from garlic, olive oil, and salt. There are many different approaches to preparing it. For example, you can use only garlic and oil by crushing the garlic cloves in a mortar and adding oil very, very slowly. However, with this option, you need a certain instinct as the mixture can also quickly curdle instead of emulsifying. Therefore, we wouldn’t recommend this method if your guests are about to come. But it's definitely worth a try (in a quieter moment)! Instead, to make this recipe a little easier, we add ingredients that ensure that an emulsion will work in any case. You could add milk, eggs, or cooked potatoes, but since we want to make it as easy as possible for you, we decided to use plant-based milk. However, we definitely want to try the variant with potatoes one day. Nevertheless, there are still some other things to consider when emulsifying oil and (plant-based) milk, so we will focus on this today and test which combination we like the best. (source)

Classically, olive oil is used for an aioli. So we started by emulsifying plant-based milk with olive oil, much like preparing mayonnaise. Since olive oil has a pretty strong flavor of its own, we also tried out canola oil, which tastes much more neutral and finally convinced us more. In the end, we decided on a mix of both types of oil. You can also use only one type of oil, of course. If you want to use olive oil, we recommend tasting the oil first. If it's a mild one, it might end up tasting good, but if it's a very intense one, your aioli may taste a little too much like the olive oil you used. So feel your way slowly. For those who prefer not to take any risk, we recommend canola oil. But again, make sure it's a very neutral and thin-running one. There are also canola oils with a rather strong flavor and a relatively thick consistency which wouldn’t work well for this recipe.

We seasoned our vegan aioli with salt, lemon juice, and mustard – the latter is optional, depending on how spiced you like your garlic dip. In addition, we’ve added three ideas to the recipe below on how to adjust your aioli. The dip is perfect for barbecues, picnics, served with potatoes and vegetables, or as a snack. We served the Rosemary & Sea Salt Crisps from WASA with it.They are much thinner than crispbread and super crunchy. We think they’re perfectly flavored with rosemary and salt, and we really have to stop ourselves from snacking them all away just like that. By the way, they’re also the more conscious choice because they contain much less fat than chips, crackers, and co. They definitely have a place on our snack shelf! One last piece of info to wrap up: WASA is a 100% CO₂-neutral brand (CO2 neutrality according to standard PAS 2060/2014.), which we think is top-notch. Just one more reason to try WASA's wide range of snacks!