You can go back to sleep once you realize you’ve gotten ready two hours too early for work, but you’re completely dressed and adorable and ready to go. No dice. (You look so cute today, ps.)

You can watch tv, but you’ve seen enough episodes of the Today Show to kill lesser women.

So what’s left? Nothing? So close.

You can always make some (vegan) Spicy Eggless Tofu Salad*.

Since moving to Brooklyn, I have fallen in love with this brand called Nature Boy, fine purveyors of vegan deli salads, sandwiches and other foods with I think they’re lying copious amounts of vegan protein and I think they’re lying low carbs. But that stuff is crazy expensive and I’m rapidly descending into Broke-lyn (oof). This is my take on a combination of their eggless salad and faux tuna salad.

Wrap this Spicy Eggless Tofu Salad in a leaf of cabbage and you have a low-carb, low-cal snack that definitely fills the vegan deli salad sandwich void. Or make 2 and you have a low carb + some protein-y lunch that will keep you full and happy. Even when you eat one you feel like you’re eating a lot, the wraps are so stuffed. Plus they are pretty. That’s important.

So let’s get to making the most out of the hours we could have been sleeping…

Spicy Eggless Tofu Salad

Enough for 7 very stuffed cabbage leaf wraps

Let’s gather these vegan goodies:

12 oz extra firm tofu

1 1 ⁄ 4 teaspoon onion powder

⁄ teaspoon onion powder 1 1 ⁄ 4 teaspoon garlic powder

⁄ teaspoon garlic powder 28g blanched slivered almonds

85g celery, diced

75g radishes, diced

3 tablespoons veganaise

1 ½ tablespoon relish

1 tablespoon sriracha (adjust for your own spicyness desires)

1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce

½ teaspoon salt

dash of cayenne

2 green onions, sliced thin for garnish

For wrapping

red cabbage leaves, raw or lightly boiled

sprouts

spinach

tomatoes

anything

super long chives

Let’s the-opposite-of-harm-animals now:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drain and pat dry your block of tofu. After it’s as dry as you think it could possibly get, crumble it onto your parchment paper lined baking sheet. Spread it out so it’s not overlapping. Toss with your garlic and onion powders. Place in the oven for at least 30 minutes (I had to get going to work and stuff or I would have baked it a little longer than 30 minutes), tossing from time to time for even baking.

While your tofu is baking, prepare your veggies. In a food processor/ninja/magic bullet, pulse the almonds a few times to break them up only a little. Don’t turn them into dust! Add the celery, radishes, veganaise, relish, sriracha, chili garlic sauce, salt, cayenne, and pulse a while longer until the consistency is full combined but still crunchy.

Combine the cooled crumbled tofu with the spicy veganaise goodness. Top with green onions.

For the wrap: Scoop a serving (I ended up with 7 servings, reflected as so in the nutrition info) of salad in a red cabbage leaf with whatever else you want to toss in there – spinach, sprouts, and tomatoes are my jam – and tie closed with a chive or two. Enjoy!

So spicy! And crunchy! And I want to keep eating you forever! Of course the chili oil, sriracha and cayenne pack some heat but the radishes also add an awesome crunchy natural spiciness that I think should be in every deli salad ever. There, I said it.

Real egg salad grosses me out. So soft and yucky. Soft on soft on soft is not my idea of appetizing. So the addition of almonds and celery really make me happy and makes the texture a little more reminiscent of tuna salad. It’s why I added so much crunch and I baked the crumbled tofu. Girlfriend loves her variety of textures. Plus relish. Relish is amazing. Sweet and spicy and crunchy and baked tofu-y. Handheld. Love.

Plus I’m pretty excited to have another quick and easy meal option to add to my lunch break repertoire. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than the $12 salads I can get in Manhattan. HIGHWAY CONGESTED CITY STREET ROBBERY.

(This recipe made way more cabbage-leaf-filling-goodness than I thought it would so I’ve been eating these wraps with some straight up gusto. Like twice a day. At least. This is where the term “Two-A-Days” comes from. I coined that. About vegan salad cabbage wraps. Yep. Shh.)

*I’ve been struggling with publishing this post for one single reason: I cannot decide if this is more of a vegan egg salad or a vegan tuna salad. This is really, really troubling. So I’m just going to call it a Spicy Eggless Tofu Salad. A damn tasty one at that. Yeah. It’s pretty delish. (I. Slay. Me.) And if you have an opinion on which it is (my heart say egg salad?) please let me know!