Passed Down, Made Our Own: Chef Highlight (Heritage-Inspired: Latino Heritage Month)

Recipe Highlight: Chef Claire Risoli's Vegan Ceviche

September 15, 2025

It's Latino Heritage Month, a month-long celebration of culture, heritage, and our beautiful community. To us, this month is all about honoring our roots, reflecting on the ways heritage shapes and inspires us, and telling our stories as a community. We're honored to highlight chefs in our Latino community, starting with Chef Claire Risoli who is sharing her heritage-inspired recipe for Vegan Ceviche. By honoring our past, we hope to spark the future—together.

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Chef Claire Risoli

Claire Risoli is a Los Angeles–based chef, teen boy mom, and entrepreneur passionate about celebrating Mexican flavors through a modern, health-conscious lens. As the founder of Pocha LA Modern Mexicana Kitchen (@pocha_losangeles), Claire has built a reputation for creating dishes that honor tradition while embracing wellness, inclusivity, and balance. Whether preparing for a catering or playing in her own kitchen, her mission is to bring people together with food that feels vibrant, nourishing, and joyful.

Chef Claire's Vegan Ceviche

Directions:

1.Prep the veggies: Dice the cauliflower, cucumbers, mango, jalapeños, red onion, and tomato.

2. Mix it up: In a large bowl, combine cauliflower, cucumber, mango, jalapeños, cilantro, onion, and tomato.

3. Season: Add salt, white pepper, lemon juice, and lime juice. Toss gently to coat everything evenly.

4. Add seaweed: Crumble the roasted seaweed into the bowl and mix again.

5. Optional flavor twist: Drizzle sesame oil for an Asian fusion touch and toss lightly.

6. Garnish and serve: Spoon into a serving dish, fan avocado slices on top, sprinkle a pinch of sea salt, and serve with lime or lemon wedges.

How does your heritage inspire your craft?

My Mexican heritage is the heartbeat of everything I create. Food was always the center of our gatherings — a way to celebrate, connect, and carry culture forward. What inspires me most is the soulfulness of Mexican cooking: it’s layered, resourceful, and rooted in love. I try to capture that spirit in every recipe, while also weaving in a modern, wellness-driven approach that reflects how I grew up.

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What’s the significance of this recipe to you? How have you made it your own?

Ceviche has always been one of my favorite dishes because it’s light, bright, and refreshing — it just feels like a celebration on the table. I grew up at the beach, and seafood was always fresh and plentiful.

This vegan version is my way of making the dish more inclusive, so everyone can enjoy it no matter their dietary choices. I swap the traditional seafood for hearty, plant-based ingredients that still give you that satisfying texture and flavor. The roasted seaweed adds a little "del mar" essence — that taste of the ocean — without the seafood. And sometimes I like to mix it up with a splash of sesame oil or by creating a shrimp version, little twists that nod to the multicultural neighborhood I grew up in, where Asian and Latin flavors often mingled together. For me, this recipe represents creativity, comunidad, and fun.

Who passed it down to you?

Technically, this recipe wasn't passed down to me — it’s more like it was inspired by the way I was raised. My mom was always ahead of her time when it came to wellness. We ate whole foods like carob and fresh fruits and veggies, and we even made our own yogurt and granola! So even though this ceviche isn’t directly inherited, it’s rooted in the kind of fresh, thoughtful eating I grew up with. In a way, it’s my familia's lifestyle that “passed down” the inspiration for this recipe.

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