Vegan Honey - (Dressing Recipes)

Hey guys!

Green Bee Honey make an organic, vegan alternative to natural honey and for some vegans it’s important to find something that has no connection with bees. For me, it’s always been about health when it comes to honey, because my main incentive to eat a plant based lifestyle was food intolerance. If I had been someone who was educated on the ethics of animal rights early on I would have had more of a militant approach and I get it. The problem is, I don’t think that militant approaches make much long term change for yourself or for others around you.

I want to be the person who can show an old lady who lives in a rural village and has never eaten a vegan alternative before, that there is absolutely nothing difference in taste between eating a vegetarian meal or a full plate of meat. But the differences that you will see are in the health benefits, because you are creating meals from scratch that you can vet out all the nasties. Being less cruel is the effect of the change, not the focus, because a lot of people have learnt as children a method that you physically cannot alter when they’re older, peoples brains change and the more you challenge them the less they listen. You gotta apply love and let the product do the talking. And I would like people to move towards less cruel diets and focus on ways to be more healthy in all walks of life, so I’d rather not shame people for what they were taught 60 years ago and instead inspire people to be healthy.

With honey, I grew up eating honey and I think real honey is a natural elixir, we do have bee hives in France. They’re not currently full of bees, but at some point I hope to have our own bees there and I think that when there is a way to learn about the process and create it in a sustainable way that helps bees, it would be a consideration. Certainly as a cosmetics creator, honey has absurd benefits. Maybe some plants do the same! But we shall learn together.

For the mean time, this rich and delicious honey is just amazing, it’s made from 100% brown rice and has no connection with living animals, so for everyone that wants to follow my plant based recipes, when I use honey, this is the one I’m using. We’ll keep it to the brief, and it’s absolutely delicious. It has a warm, sticky, runny texture like clear honey. It does not have the floral components, so if you are used to eating your favourite honey from your local area and you have a specific honey taste in mind, you could synthesise that by adding pollen or an essence. In the South Downs where I grew up, there are a few farmers who have hives which produce the honey here, and the overwhelming taste is yellow gorse. Lavender and yellow gorse. And the bees love the lavender in my mums garden so I’ve seen their collection of the pollen.

For the dressing above, I wanted to create something simple to go with rocket. I love rocket, it’s an Italian thing and I’m more Italian than anything else hahaha. I wanted to do a sticky, sweet and tangy recipe that you could have with a salad nicoise or an accompaniment with some stir fried chicken replacements and some sweet oranges, maybe throw in some cashews. Something yummy!

So it’s simple, it’s equal parts balsamic vinegar and olive oil, two tsp full of sesame, one of parsley, one of salt, one of lemon pepper, and two of the vegan honey. mix to your hearts content and drizzle over your favourite salad. Below I added it to some fresh olive break I baked When I was cooking live for Veganuary. I mean it’s perfect on a warm bread, it just brings life to the recipe and I rarely use sugars in savoury cooking, so sometimes it needs that sweetness.

Let me know what you think!