Kai and The Kitchen

Recipes and Musings of Food and Life

137 Brunch

New Yolk City {whole 30 creamy tahini egg salad with herbs}

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I didn’t really grow up eating egg salad. In fact, I don’t remember if I ever actually liked it. I feel like it was one of those foods that my 6 year old self held a grudge against for no reason and refused to eat. Silly me. Sure, I’d eat it occasionally, but I don’t come from a family with an amazing egg salad recipe that’s been handed down for generations or anything.

My desire to make an egg salad recipe came from the fact that almost every egg salad I’ve had in my life tastes the same. While most are creamy and eggy and pretty good, they all just taste a little flat to me. I wanted to make an egg salad that didn’t taste or feel like every other one I’ve tasted in my life.  I didn’t want it to feel and taste heavy or loaded with mayo. I wanted it to be lighter, fresher, and have more flavor than the egg salad that we’ve all had before. And so I used tahini and my whole 30 mayo and white wine vinegar as the dressing to make a more interesting egg salad.Welcome to New Yolk CITY!!!

If you want a little insight into how I do my cooking and recipe development, this egg salad is the perfect way to not only show you how I cook, but also show you how I taste as I cook. If you start by mixing the ingredients one by one and tasting as you go, you will see how each ingredient makes the egg salad taste more balanced, more interesting, and more like what we are looking for. For example, if you only mix the eggs, tahini, and mayonnaise and taste it, it will probably taste too nutty with an overpowering tahini flavor. In order to balance out and lighten up that nutty flavor I knew that I needed to add a little acid. I knew I loved the flavor of vinegar and hard boiled eggs because of how delicious it is in my magic salad recipe, so I added white wine vinegar.

Now, if you taste the egg salad with just the eggs, tahini, mayonnaise, and white wine vinegar it will be tasty but still seem a little flat. Now add the dill, green onions, basil, and some salt and pepper. TA DA! We are there! This egg salad finally has got it all!

Mix up a batch and keep it in your fridge. And get ready to throw it on everything: 

Piled on a slice of avocado toast

Scooped on a big green salad 

With some sesame crackers as a snack 

Wedged into on a sandwich 

Rolled into lettuce cups

      Or….in a bowl with a spoon 

Let’s get started. 

Step 1: Bubble Bubble Toil & Trouble. Hard boil your eggs. My favorite method for easy peel hard boiled eggs is to bring water to boil, then submerge your eggs into the water. Once the eggs are in the water lower the heat so that the water is at a gentle simmer. Cook for 13 minutes. Remove eggs to an ice bath for 3-5 minutes. Then peel.

Step 2: Chopaholic. We’re chopping everything out here. Chop ya eggs. Chop ya green onion. Chop ya dill. Chop ya basil. I like to chop my eggs in pretty small pieces. The size of your chopped eggs is completely up to you. Add eggs to a medium sized mixing bowl.

Step 3: Mix-a-lot. Combine tahini (I use Trader Joe’s brand Tahini which is pretty creamy, if you are working with a very thick pastey tahini sauce mix it with a tablespoon of water in a separate bowl before adding) and mayo with eggs and mix. Add white wine vinegar. Add salt and pepper. Throw in all your herbs. Mix.

 

 

 

 

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