Vegan Watermelon "Tuna" Tartare

Okay, I don’t know what kind of vegan voodoo this is but I finally tried my hand at making #watermelontuna and holy avocado did is turn out...amazing! Not only did it LOOK like tuna but the taste and texture were shockingly similar!

I decided to use my tuna to make a kind of tuna tartare or deconstructed sushi and it did not disappoint. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how this actually worked…but it totally did, and spoiler: it was actually really easy!

What you are going to need to buy:

To make the Tuna:

Watermelon - I used the pre-cubed watermelon that you can get in your local produce section. It ended up being about 12 chuncks of Watermelon

3 tablespoons Sesame Oil

2 tablespoon Soy Sauce

1/2 teaspoon Liquid Smoke

1/2 teaspoon each Salt and Pepper

Splash of Vinegar

Ingredients for the Tartare/Poke Bowl:

2 tablespoons Vegan Mayo

Hot Sauce, to taste

Rice

Edamame

Diced Mango

Sliced Avocado

(whatever else yo love in your sushi or poke bowl)

What you are going to need to do:

This recipe made 1 serving and you can scale it up, if you like. Don't worry too much about the measurements. As long as you have enough marinade to get each piece of watermelon coated, you should be good!

Start by preheating your oven to 375

The key to this recipe is having enough salt in the marinade when you are baking your watermelon that it balances the sweetness of the fruit.

Dunk all of the watermelon into the marinade until well coated. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Take your watermelon cubes (about 1.5” square”) and place them on a cookie sheet lined with a non-stick baking sheet, like a silpat mat OR onto parchment paper.

Bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, turn the watermelon over on the baking sheet and rotate the sheet in the over 180 degrees. Brush the turned tops of the watermelon with any marinade that is left over.

Bake for another 30 minutes.

At the 1 hour mark yo should see something that really, really looks like tuna. It’s remarkable, really. I was shocked.

Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes.

And, that’s really all there is to it! See, told you it was easy! Now that you have your watermelon tuna, you can use it just lie you would use any tuna.

I diced mine into small pieces, mixed it with some vegan mayo, a splash of vinegar, a dash of hot sauce, more salt and pepper, to taste, and served it on top of rice, topped with diced mango, edamame, and spicy mayo.

This is where you can get creative? Did someone say vegan sushi?

Enjoy!