Favourite vegan recipes you didn't even know were vegan

MSE_Laura_F

As it's World Vegan Day...

Do you have a favourite vegan recipe you hadn't actually clocked was vegan? Please share your accidental vegan winner with us.

maisie_cat

This made me think, although I prefer to eat food I like and not worry about labels.
Tonight's dinner is vegan, one we have regularly, namely whatever is in the fridge or slightly manky veg curry.
Today is squash, peppers and soybean (for protein) and I always use coconut oil to saute when making curry.
We eat lots of legumes as replacements for more expensive meat anyway so I suspect a lot of meals are accidentally vegan.

joedenise

Similar here:  sweet potato and squash curry but always add whatever veg is in the fridge, usually peppers and mushrooms.

Nonnadiluca

Dal from the Domestic Gothess website, served over roasted cauliflower and butternut squash. Absolutely delicious! 

kiss_me_now9

We do a lot of 'accidentally' vegan recipes as I'm veggie and have plant based leanings. One of our favourites is stuffed peppers - roast a pepper (one per person) in the oven for about 25 minutes, whilst that's going chop veggies of your choice (we normally do mushrooms, onions, courgette, garlic and maybe aubergine or asparagus, can also throw in a can of beans if you're feeling fancy and feeding more than 2). Fry that off, add some cooked rice and a sauce of your choosing (normally a tomato 'pasta' sauce but we've used left over curry sauce, chinese sauce, even just a good rich veggie stock would work too - something to give the rice some flavour!). You then just stuff the pepper, put the rest of the rice around the peppers and roast again for about 10 minutes. You can put cheese on top but you don't need to if you don't have any/don't like vegan cheese and don't want to use dairy cheese. 

We also do a fried rice that's similar but obviously doesn't go into peppers in the oven - all just fried together in one pan. 

There's a really nice vegan carbonara recipe that uses nutritional yeast, which is nice - https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/fast-and-easy-vegan-carbonara/ bit more specialist though. 

Love a bit of tofu, the best tip is to freeze it (unless it's silken tofu which in my opinion is only good for desserts!) and then defrost it outside of the packet, that gets the most moisture out and you don't need to press it for long. Whatever you do with it you must season it generously!

Brie

as a uni student I used to make vegan food before I even knew that was a thing.  mostly because it was so cheap.  So onions  and courgette cooked in olive oil, add tomato paste and herbs and serve over pasta.  I made it for some friends and one said how considerate I was for making something vegetarian - well it wasn't planned and I didn't know he was vegetarian but it's nice the way things work out.

Another favourite dish was chilli non carne - onions, garlic fried adding tomatoes and beans and spice/herbs.  And I would buy something that was known at the time as soy grits which was very cheap.  I guess it was just rough chopped and maybe slightly processed soy beans.  By soaking them you would get a soft ground meat texture to which I'd add soy sauce for a meatier flavour.  Very popular at pot luck suppers we'd have but uni students are normally gannets that will eat most anything as long as it comes with beer.  

I've been trying to up our veg count and have got in the habit of buying loads of any veg that can be roasted and will prep it and sling it in the freezer.  So while we may still be rabid carnivores having a nice selection of veg that can be chucked in the oven to cook and served on rice or cous cous is very handy.  Veg selection normally includes - onion, squash, beets, peppers, courgettes, tomatoes, potatoes, mushrooms, broccoli/cauli stems, carrots.  I would add spinach or rocket if I've got it fresh and would add asparagus if I didn't eat it so quickly it never reaches the freezer.  I'd consider peas or corn too if I had any available as we often had that bought in frozen.  Normal thing is to place the veg in a roasting pan with olive oil and a good shake of herbs de provence maybe adding in the leafy things a bit late in the cooking.  OH has got used to me producing this and has, at last, started to suggest it as a good, tasty and easy dish.

Rosa_Damascena

1st of November and it suddenly feel wintry, a veggie curry sounds just the ticket!

goldfinches

@kiss_me_now9 - I couldn't help noticing your comment about silken tofu and thought that you and others reading this thread might be interested in this recipe for vegan bechamel which I've made and is both easy and tasty as well as being very versatile. There are two versions given by Ixta Belfrage online this one is the curried flavour Ixta Belfrage’s vegan recipe for curried caramelised onion galette | Food | The Guardian and this one is the cumin flavour Ixta Belfrage’s vegan recipe for butter bean gratin, roast tomatoes and salsa fresca | Food | The Guardian. If those flavours didn't go with whatever you were planning to cook then you could swap the cumin or curry powder for something you preferred or omit them altogether.

My favourite accidentally vegan recipe is this one Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes for slow-cooked vegetables | Food | The Guardian for portobello mushrooms with chilli oil which is the first of the three recipes on that page. I usually make it with about 150 ml of olive oil and have cooked it in my slow cooker to reduce the cost. I also use M & S tinned butter beans for the mash which is delicious.

My other tip is that a vegan friend told me that bourbon biscuits are usually vegan which I wouldn't otherwise have noticed.

thriftyswift

The BBC Good Food bean and pepper chilli recipe is a good one, and technically one time I had a load of potatoes to use up and I got fed up of how many results for "potato recipes" had cheese, which I hate, and I googled "vegan potato recipes"  but it's one that day to day I tend to forget is vegan, lol, it's a potato and chickpea curry I feel like when people are trying to give up meat they often get stuck looking at meat alternatives whereas there are so many cuisines with recipes that are just veggie or vegan without the need for fake meat!

kiss_me_now9

goldfinches said:

@kiss_me_now9 - I couldn't help noticing your comment about silken tofu and thought that you and others reading this thread might be interested in this recipe for vegan bechamel which I've made and is both easy and tasty as well as being very versatile. There are two versions given by Ixta Belfrage online this one is the curried flavour Ixta Belfrage’s vegan recipe for curried caramelised onion galette | Food | The Guardian and this one is the cumin flavour Ixta Belfrage’s vegan recipe for butter bean gratin, roast tomatoes and salsa fresca | Food | The Guardian. If those flavours didn't go with whatever you were planning to cook then you could swap the cumin or curry powder for something you preferred or omit them altogether.

My favourite accidentally vegan recipe is this one Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes for slow-cooked vegetables | Food | The Guardian for portobello mushrooms with chilli oil which is the first of the three recipes on that page. I usually make it with about 150 ml of olive oil and have cooked it in my slow cooker to reduce the cost. I also use M & S tinned butter beans for the mash which is delicious.

My other tip is that a vegan friend told me that bourbon biscuits are usually vegan which I wouldn't otherwise have noticed.

Wow, that sounds beautiful! I might have to try that tomorrow - we've got a vegan friend coming round  

shandyclover

thriftyswift said:

The BBC Good Food bean and pepper chilli recipe is a good one, and technically one time I had a load of potatoes to use up and I got fed up of how many results for "potato recipes" had cheese, which I hate, and I googled "vegan potato recipes"  but it's one that day to day I tend to forget is vegan, lol, it's a potato and chickpea curry I feel like when people are trying to give up meat they often get stuck looking at meat alternatives whereas there are so many cuisines with recipes that are just veggie or vegan without the need for fake meat!

Our family cooks predominately vegan. I learned years ago not to fall into the fake meat rut - it can get expensive and supposedly not all that good for you.

I researched different legumes and cuisines where they were used in traditional cooking. A lot of very traditional food comes from peasant recipes using lentils and beans. I did a fair amount of experimenting, these were the recipes that scored praise with the family - both vegan and non vegan:-

Chickpeas

Asian
https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/sweet-potato-chickpea-amp-spinach-curry/

Moroccan
https://www.seriouseats.com/moroccan-spinach-and-chickpeas-recipe


Kidney Beans

Jamaican
https://www.bigoven.com/recipe/slow-cooker-jamaican-red-bean-stew/200583

Any chilli no carne recipe

Red Lentils

Bengali
https://kalynskitchen.com/bengali-red-dal-curry-from-jake/

Turkish
https://www.unicornsinthekitchen.com/turkish-red-lentil-soup-mercimek-corbasi/

Ethiopian
https://holycowvegan.net/misir-wot-ethiopian-red-lentils/

Green lentils

French
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu1DqmzQQzk


Butter beans

Spanish
https://veggiedesserts.com/spanish-beans-tomatoes/

Cannoli beans

Italian
https://www.feastingathome.com/ribollita-recipe/

Black lentils

Punjabi
https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/amritsari-dal/

and on it goes. This is just to show lentils and beans do not need to be boring. They are cheap and nutritious and you honestly can tour the world via recipes on which they are based.