It’s no secret that I love to experiment in the kitchen and when I see a recipe online that isn’t vegan, and I really want it to be, I’ll try to make it so.
So it should come as no surprise that I was scrolling one social media site or another and I came upon this feta & olive roll that seemed, to be honest, just incredible. My mouth watered at the idea of what this recipe could be and my mind started to work.
Feta
There’s always vegan feta, isn’t there? It’s probably the most popular/famous of all vegan cheese products. Or maybe that’s just true here in Europe, either way that was an option.
But also a little too obvious.
So I switched it up and went with a tofu and vegan feta mixture and by mixture I mean about 150 grams of tofu to 30 grams of vegan feta. Pop them both into a food processor with lemon zest, lemon juice and a garlic clove and let it run until smooth.
Taste it and add more seasoning if needed.
Olives
This is the real flavor king of this delicious vegan recipe and the part that’s easiest to swap out. I used castelvetrano olives and plain ol’ black olives because those are my favorites, but you can also use Spanish olives, kalamata olives or whatever flavors make your mouth water.
I sliced them because that was how the original recipe was presented but with some hindsight I’d probably go with a rough chop so that you get a better olives to tofu ratio.
Cheese
Yeah, this recipe had even more cheese on top, which just explains non-vegan recipes to a tee, doesn’t it? I mean, really, who needs that much cheese on anything? With the olives it gets kind of lost anyway so I just added a pinch of shredded vegan emmentaler on top for the photos. I put cheese on 2 vegan tofu rolls and left the others naked.
I’d probably just add a sprinkle of chili flakes next time.
The Rolls
The original recipe creator made their own rolls and they looked marvelous. Puffy and pillowy and easy to mold, and I knew there was no way I was about to do that. Bread isn’t my strong suit but honestly I regret not even trying.
What did I use instead? Refrigerated biscuit dough and…it was a mistake.
The dough is meant to be one thing so it didn’t stretch enough and trying to turn it into anything other than a biscuit was honestly a headache. I wanted to make a well in the middle of each roll and fill it with the tofu mixture but the well was more like the little thumbprint in thumbprint cookies.
I’d probably use pizza dough or puff pastry if I went the lazy route for a second time, but honestly you might be better off making these yourself.
Verdict?
Delicious. They were ugly but they were also really, really good. The whipped tofu gave the idea of cheese without all the cheese, and the olives added much needed saltiness to cut through the creaminess .
My hubs is a cheese lover and even he said he preferred the vegan tofu rolls that had no extra cheese on top.
Would I make it again? Probably.
I think these could be really good for a party because they’re small, they can be eaten while standing and with one hand and it’s something everyone will love.
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Tell me what you think about this!