Since my commitment to eating more veggies and less meat, there is only one major thing that I really really miss the most.  THE BIG MAC.  I miss the special sauce, the diced onions, the shredded lettuce, the melted cheese- ooey gooey goodness!

I decided to give into my BIG MAC obsession vegetarian style.  However, since McDonald’s doesn’t offer veggie burger patties, I decided to tackle this at home. First, I found a recipe for the “special sauce” which surprising to most people, is NOT Thousand Island dressing, but similar.

Once I mixed up the sauce, the rest is super easy.  A sesame seed bottom bun, a smearing of sauce, shredded lettuce, a slice of American cheese, a veggie patty, diced onions, a second sesame see bottom bun, another smearing of sauce, shredded lettuce, a couple of thinly sliced pickle chips, another veggie patty, more diced onions and a sesame seed top bun.  In that order.

I used vegan American Cheese (I could not tell the difference) and vegan mayonnaise instead of their more higher fat counterparts.  (Interesting to note- a real Big Mac only uses one slice of cheese where I used two.)  The sauce tasted exactly like the real thing- the longer I let it sit the better the flavors blended.  And by making it at home, you are also avoiding all of those preservatives the real thing probably has.  I was impressed.

For me the sauce had to sit overnight because when I had first made it, I had all of my ingredients out ready to assemble the sandwich, only to discover what I thought were veggie patties in my freezer were actually “Chik’n” patties.  So I went ahead and made a “Chik’n” Big Mac.  It was pretty good too but I definitely prefer the veggie “beef” patties.

CHOW!!