The Fish Substitute To Try For Delicious Vegan Ceviche

Vegan substitutes are now a dime a dozen, with plant-based meat, dairy, egg, and fish products that make vegan diets as diverse as omnivorous ones. Fish substitutes are great frozen food options to heat up at a moment's notice. But for the delicate, tender, and juicy raw fish used to make ceviche, the substitute to try is a single-ingredient canned staple. Hearts of palm are canned vegetables with the perfect texture and a versatile flavor that'll make the most delicious vegan ceviche.

A widely available, shelf-stable canned ingredient, hearts of palm are white tubular vegetables harvested from the core of various types of palm trees from peach to coconut. Described as a cross between canned artichoke hearts and canned white asparagus, hearts of palm are firm yet tender and flakey when you bite into them. They're canned in a salty, acidic brine, bringing a delicate salty and sour complement to their subtle vegetal flavor. Hearts of palm assume the same flaky and gently chewy texture of diced fish or shellfish commonly found in ceviche. Tasting Table uses hearts of palm as a lobster substitute in this vegan lobster roll recipe, demonstrating just how easy it is to impart classic seafood seasonings for a fish-like taste as well as a fish-like texture. Whereas with lobster rolls it's Old Bay seasoning and celery seed, fresh aromatics, herbs, and copious amounts of lime juice will do the trick for vegan ceviche.

Hearts of palm are the best fish substitute that you can swap into any conventional ceviche recipe with a few tweaks. Because hearts of palm are pre-cooked and thus edible right out of the can, you don't need to soak them in citrus juice for an hour in the fridge. Instead, you can simply add diced or half-inch disks of hearts of palm to the rest of your diced vegetables and herbs before tossing them in lime juice. It'll take a mere 15 minutes to marinate the vegan ceviche.

Swap shrimp for discs of hearts of palm in this recipe for coconut-lime shrimp ceviche, by adding the hearts of palm and half a cup of lime juice directly to the coconut milk mixture with diced chilies, cilantro, and aromatics. Roughly chop hearts of palm into chunks to imitate the diced tilapia in this classic ceviche recipe to combine with lime juice, red onion, avocado bell pepper, and jalapeno.

If you want to instill an oceanic umami flavor to assimilate that fishy or briny taste, a teaspoon or two of nori flakes is all you need. You can try these nori sheets from Gimme Seaweed, crumbling a single sheet into your ceviche. While the red onion and fresh chilies bring a crunch, diced cucumber and jicama are other ingredients that'll give the tender and flakey hearts of palm and creamy avocado a crunchy contrast.