Vegetarian Recipes

A list of starter vegetarian recipes
N/A dinner side list vegetarian

Entrees (in preference order)

The top 7 of this list will possibly become family staples. The rest didn’t gain widespread – if any – support and probably won’t be made again.

  1. Mejadra
    • Major ingredients: Lentils, Rice
    • Preparation notes: Frying onions may splatter => use splatter protection (e.g., wok w/ frywall)
  2. Cauliflower General Tso’s
  3. Falafel
    • Major ingredients: Chickpeas, Cilantro/Parsley/Mint mixture
    • Preparation notes: Requires soaking chickpeas
    • Deep frying
  4. Ricotta Gnocchi
  5. Anda Bhurji – Spicy Indian Scrambled Eggs
  6. Curried Lentils with Coconut Milk – need to thicken better (maybe use coconut cream?) and increase spices (turmeric to ~1T, double cumin & coriander)
  7. Chickpea, Potato, and Spinach Jalfrezi (“dry” curry)
  8. Black Bean Burgers
  9. Shakshuka (2/3 liked this, the other was not a fan)
    • Major ingredients: Peppers (mild), Onion, Tomato
  10. Channa Masala (or my previous post)
    • Preparation notes: Requires soaking chickpeas
  11. Butter Sauce – Either this or this – I imagine, with a good sauce base, you could add potatoes, chickpeas, paneer, tofu, etc. (and potentially end up making one or the other of the linked recipes)
  12. Chickpea, Cashew, and Coconut Curry (the other 2 seemed to like it fine, though they didn’t eat the leftovers. I did not like it…)

Untried

  • Menemen – Turkish variant of Shakshuka
    • Major ingredients: Peppers (mild), Tomato, Egg

Sides

  1. Hummus – I’ve made this a bunch of times, it’s awesome
  2. Potato Cakes (Rösti) (3/3 really liked this)
  3. Tortilla Española (3/3 really liked this)
  4. French Fries (3/3)
  5. Roasted Cabbage (3/3 thought it was better than they expected – i.e., it was pretty decent, but it didn’t all get eaten…)
  6. Onion Rings
    • Excellent crunch
    • Needs salt. Either incorporate into batter or sprinkle better over cooling rings. I used table salt, maybe just switching to kosher would have helped.
    • Need to make sure and fry at an appropriate temperature. Fried a little too cool and they ended up pretty greasy (at least the theory is that they would be less greasy at a higher temperature).
    • A lot of work that creates a lot of mess. Probably not worth the effort, TBH.

Untried

Soups (in preference order)

The top 6 have pretty widespread support in the house. The Soondubu Jjigae only really appeals to one or two of us, but that’s enough for it to be acceptable every once in a while. The Black Bean Soup just didn’t turn out great.

  1. Vegan Ramen – this stuff is really good, but it requires a time investment and a long grocery list, mostly to make the variety of add-ons necessary to make it a proper bowl of ramen. Sun ramen noodles are highly recommended over dried substitutes.
  2. Potato-Leek Soup – very good, but a little thinner than we’d like. Try 1.5 lb. potato with the 1 qt. stock. 1.25 lb. potato with just over 1 qt. stock was still too thin. Honestly, as written it’s appropriate, but I think for our taste, thicker is better.
  3. French Onion Soup – from the Food Lab
  4. Lentil soup - oh yeah, this is very good. Sort of a staple around the house now. Using homegrown parsely takes it up a notch.
  5. Gazpacho – very good, even though we didn’t have really ripe tomatoes (they were late January, not-so-ripe tomatoes) and the 30 minutes in the freezer wasn’t enough to actually freeze the vegetables
  6. Broccoli Cheese Soup – minor tweak on Kenji’s that’s a small improvement on the nutrition of our house recipe with a nice little incorporation of cheddar flavor. Pairs very well with Mama Star garlic chili oil.
  7. Tofu Tortilla Soup
  8. Spicy Ginger and Carrot Soup
  9. Soondubu Jjigae – Good for when the one person in the house that doesn’t like it, is away - See below for some sides I want to include next time I make this (from https://www.koreanbapsang.com/15-korean-vegetable-side-dishes/)
    1. Gamja Jorim (Korean Braised Potatoes)
    2. Sigeumchi Namul (Blanched Seasoned Spinach) – this is a real winner. Made with ~5 oz. and we really wished we had more (so I bought a good pound of spinach for a remake).
      • Excellent candidate for cryoblanching. Did the original ~5 oz. with traditional blanch and the other 3 oz. of the package cryoblanched. No discernable difference.
    3. Dubu Jorim (Braised Tofu)
    4. Gyeranjjim (Korean Steamed Eggs)
    5. Sesame Broccoli
    6. Korean Pickled Garlic (Maneul Jangajji)
  10. Black Bean Soup – this seems to have a little spice to it (jalapeno or serrano plus chipotle chili packed in adobo sauce)

Untried