Vegan Caviar—A Pain-Free Recipe

Last Updated on April 13, 2024 by Candice Landau

What I remember of caviar has more to do with the emotions of childhood—joy and carefree abandon, playing at sophistication—than anything related to taste.

Though I no longer eat fish or anything derived from them (there are vegan options for everything today), I still associate caviar with those happy childhood memories. Delicate salt crackers arranged on a copper tray with capers, thin slices of cheese, cucumber, olives, gherkins, pickled onions and yes, sometimes even caviar. Though this wasn’t the norm, it was novel enough that I remember it and still associate it with childhood.

Years later, not too long after I first decided to cut meat out of my diet, I wondered about the ethics of eating caviar. The video I watched was enough to make me never want to touch the stuff again. Fish sliced open still alive, eggs squeezed out of them. Other videos simply killed the fish to harvest the eggs. It was barbaric.

The vaguely fishy, salty taste of caviar that I recall wasn’t enough to entice me back to trying even a vegan version of it until recently when I decided more out of curiosity than anything to give it a go. In all honesty, though vegan caviar looks like some form of wizardry—tiny umami-flavored agar agar balls that hover in oil—it’s really easy to make.

Many of the recipes you’ll find for vegan caviar include seaweed and activated charcoal to make it black. I’ve found both unnecessary. The amount of fish flavor the seaweed adds is almost non-existent and certainly not worth the bother it takes to cook it and the black dye…well, not all caviar is black. Use it as you see fit.

The utensils you’ll need:

Saucepan
Freezer-safe container/glass
Small pipette
Mixing spoon
Colander/something to use as a sieve
Container for storing vegan caviar

The ingredients:

1 cup of olive oil (you’ll have left overs)
½ cup of vegetable stock (I prefer the Not-Beef bouillon cubes for their quality and flavor)
½ tbsp caper brine / pickle juice
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
½ tsp soy sauce
½ tsp agar agar powder
Optional: a few drops of liquid smoke
Optional: salt for garnish, crackers and whatever else you like on crackers!

A note: you can make any flavor you like really. If there’s a stock or sauce flavor you’d prefer in small balls, simply keep the agar agar powder measurement the same and sub out the rest of the ingredients. Other things I’ve considered subbing in include miso soup and flavored broths. I have tried adding seaweed as mentioned above but don’t find it makes much difference to the flavor. If you’d like to change the color of the caviar, use activated (food-safe) charcoal or food dyes.

Method:

Place olive oil in the freezer in a freezer-safe glass for about half an hour. It needs to be cold but not have ice chunks in it.
While the olive oil is getting cold, mix the rest of the ingredients together in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil and stir consistently for 3 minutes to activate the agar agar. It needs to be hot. It’s very important that the oil is cold and the broth mixture hot.
Once the mix is boiling and 30 minutes of time has passed, take the olive oil out of the freezer and immediately begin dripping the boiling broth (removed from the heat) into the olive oil. Use the pipette to do this.
Small balls will form and slowly start descending to the bottom. If the olive oil is too warm or the mixture too cold, the balls will sit at the top of the surface. Heat the mixture as needed (once it gels) and cool the oil as needed too. I find a couple of drops on the same spot is enough to make a ball heavy enough to sink. You can experiment with the size of caviar you prefer too.

This is a somewhat messy and time-consuming process though very easy to make. Combine it with crackers, a little cream cheese, thin slices of cherry tomatoes and you have yourself a gorgeous appetizer that even non vegans will love!