Top Chef’s Padma Cooks Vegan Cuisine with Ellen

On Tuesday, Padma Lakshmi of Bravo’s wildly popular Top Chef series dropped by Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show and shared plant-based recipes with the host and her audience. Although much of the cuisine on Top Chef is meat-heavy, Lakshmi says that most of her family is vegetarian and that between filmings of the show, she detoxes by eating light but nutrient-rich meals. She also demonstrated the preparation of a Pondicherry Lentil Salad with coconut, apple, bell pepper, and ginger, as well as “fairy water,” which is water flavored with tea, fruit, and flowers to make an enticing beverage that replaces soda or other sweetened beverages. The recipe for Lakshmi’s signature salad is available on Ellen’s website.