How to Make Vegan Caviar for Valentine’s Day

|Updated Feb 14, 2022

Vegan caviar is elegant, delicate, and sophisticated, and it’s the perfect special treat to impress your partner on Valentine’s day with.

This vegan delicacy makes a beautiful, and luxurious date night food to share, yet it’s really not hard to prepare. To achieve that classic caviar taste you will infuse your water with algae, then flavor it with soy, and mushroom sauce. To thicken it all you use agar agar. The magic of this recipe happens when you drip this liquid into ice-cold oil - you’ll end up with amazing, bouncy little caviar balls.

If you want to experiment a little more with this recipe, you can try different flavors and colors as well:

Double or triple the amount of algae for an extra ‘fishy’ taste. You can also add a few dried shiitake mushrooms there for extra flavor.
Try different flavors using wasabi paste or powder, garlic powder, hot sauce, lime juice, or carrot juice.
You can add a little bit of activated charcoal to the liquid mix for a deep black result.
Or use a light soy sauce and color your caviar red with extra sriracha, or green with spirulina.
If you skip the soy sauce completely, you can make your caviar pink with beet juice or yellow with turmeric as well.

Vegan caviar can be served on its own over crushed ice, or with blinis or crackers, and cashew cream cheese. Lemon wedges, carrot lox, capers, dill, and red onion are all awesome add-ons as well.

Vegan Caviar can be stored in the fridge for 2 weeks in a jar.

Freezing time: 45 mins
Prep time: 30 mins
Cooking time: 5 mins

Vegan Caviar

Makes 1 small jar

Servings: 4

Ingredients

1.5 cup of vegetable oil
1/4 cup of dry algae, such as nori, dulse, hijiki, kelp, etc
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1/2 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tbsp mushroom sauce
1/2 tsp ginger juice (optional)
1 tsp sriracha (optional)
2 tsp agar agar powder
salt

Instructions

Pour oil into a large glass or jar, and place in the freezer for about 45 minutes. Oil should be very cold, but not frozen.
Meanwhile, place algae in a bowl, and pour 1.5 cups of boiling water on top. Let steep for 15-30 minutes.
Discard algae. Place 1 cup of the infused water in a small pot together with soy sauce, vinegar, mushroom sauce, ginger juice, sriracha, agar agar powder, and a pinch of salt.
Bring to a gentle boil, whisking constantly, and cook for 2-5 minutes, until liquid thickens.
Remove oil from the freezer. Using an eyedropper, drop small pieces of caviar into the cold oil. Continue until all liquid is used up.
Drain caviar gently washes it underwater, and place it into a jar to store. Don’t throw away the oil, it can be used again for cooking.
Store caviar in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Serve it with blinis and vegan cream cheese.

Nutritionals