Vegetarian
6951 recipes found
Baked Brie and Caramelized Vegetable Pie
A vegetarian centerpiece inspired by baked Brie, this caramelized vegetable pie cuddles creamy, earthy molten cheese with a bevy of autumnal vegetables: roasted butternut squash, seared mushrooms, herbed brussels sprouts and tangy red onions, and enrobes the whole mixture in store-bought puff pastry. It’s significantly less work than this mushroom Wellington, but has a similar ceremonial pomp, with a delightful big reveal. Developed with ease in mind, this savory pie benefits from being prepared in advance: Cook the individual components at your leisure, even a few days in advance, and you’ll need only to assemble the pie and bake it off before dinner. This pie is relatively easy to engineer but it does require some patience. You’ll want to let it rest 30 minutes to 1 hour before cutting, to allow the puff pastry to maintain its structure — and for the cheese to firm up a bit before carving.
Smooth and Creamy Mashed Potatoes
This recipe uses a masher and a mixer instead of a ricer or food mill to make smooth and creamy mashed potatoes. As long as you don’t mix excessively, the potatoes will come out light, not gummy. (Watch Claire make Thanksgiving dinner from start to finish on YouTube.)
Sweet Potato Hash With Tofu
Hash, which comes from the French word for “chop,” can be made of any number of meats and proteins that cook and crisp on the stovetop. One of the most common might be corned beef and potato hash, but this recipe is more hands-off: It cooks on a sheet pan. This vegan hash is sweet, smoky and spicy, with cubes of sweet potato, tofu, peppers and onions. The potatoes and tofu are spunky with chili powder and crisp from cornstarch. Serve the dish for breakfast or dinner, with vinegary red onions for crunch, plus your favorite hash toppings.
Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Galette
This savory galette has a secret layer of herbed goat cheese underneath a pile of sweet butternut squash, savory herbs and smoked paprika. The key is to slice the squash nice and thin, so it has time to bake through as the crust gets golden and crisp. Though you could use store-bought pie crust for this recipe (see Tip), the homemade crust is flakier and tastes much more delicious. If you are making your own crust, make sure to leave some time for it to chill and relax; it will be much easier to roll out and will bake up light and flaky. Serve the galette warm or at room temperature, with a green salad on the side.
Vegetable Stock
Vegetable stock doesn’t need the whole vegetable drawer to be savory and flavorful; browned onions, garlic and mushrooms achieve that here, boosted by caramelized tomato paste. The other key ingredient is salt, which transforms the liquid from flat to well-rounded, so if your stock seems watery, the answer might not be simmering more but rather adding salt. This stock tastes neutral enough to be used in any recipe that calls for vegetable stock, though you can shift its personality with additional ingredients; see Tip for some ideas.
Onion Bhajiya (Spicy Fritters)
On Diwali, people in India light up their homes, say prayers and go door-to-door exchanging boxes of snacks and sweets. In the northern part of the country, some people fry fresh onion bhajiya, or crispy onion fritters, as an appetizer or snack for visiting guests. Palak Patel, the author of “The Chutney Life: 100 Easy-to-Make, Indian-Inspired Recipes” (Abrams, 2023), included her mother’s recipe in her cookbook, which represents Ms. Patel’s life as an Indian American. Her mother is from Raipur, where the street food is dipped in cilantro chutney, but her children and husband like to dip the fritters in ketchup. Depending on the region, bhajiya can also be called pakora or bhaji. They’re often eaten as a snack during monsoons and served with masala chai.
Brown-Butter Mashed Potatoes
The simple act of browning butter takes this holiday mainstay from simple to superb in a matter of minutes. Russet potatoes are the perfect blank canvas for the toasty, nutty notes of the brown butter, which is lifted to a starring role as it permeates the potatoes and pools on top. Mashed potato purists may say that using a ricer or food mill is the only way to achieve a creamy texture, but a hand mixer or potato masher works just as well, as long as you don’t overmix and your potatoes stay hot. Make sure to create divots for the pools of brown butter that sit atop the dish, which make each spoonful feel extra luxe.
Hasselback Potatoes
With their signature accordion-like appearance, Hasselback potatoes are said to have been invented at Hasselbacken restaurant in Stockholm in the 1950s. The potatoes are thinly sliced, but kept intact at the base, making for crispy edges and tender insides. While this technique may look difficult to tackle, it requires only a pair of chopsticks or wooden spoon handles to prevent the knife blade from cutting all the way through the potato. Hasselback potatoes are a canvas for toppings of all kinds: A dollop of sour cream, or a sprinkle of Cheddar, bacon bits or chopped scallions would all be nice additions.
Cabbage Soup
Cabbage soup has been a staple in Eastern European cuisines as far back as the Middle Ages, when cabbage was one of the most readily available fresh vegetables. Even today, there is something undeniably comforting and restorative about this brothy yet hearty soup. While some variations call for chicken broth, this one is entirely vegan (though chicken broth certainly works if that’s what you have on hand). Cook the recipe as written, or make it your own by adding other vegetables from your fridge, or a can of rinsed white beans to make it more filling.
Tortellini Soup
Store-bought cheese tortellini make this easy vegetarian soup a breeze to put together at home. The stuffed pasta cooks in minutes and floats in a creamy, tomato-y broth that’s loaded with vegetables. A splash of vinegar enhances the tomato flavor and provides a bit more acidity, and chopped herbs, added at the end, offer some freshness. This soup works well with substitutions like swapping kale or other hearty greens for the spinach, for instance, so feel free to use whatever produce you have on hand. Whatever you do, don’t skimp on the grated Parmesan at the table.
Spicy Carrot-Ginger Soup
Let’s proceed on the theory that everyone likes soup, and some soups are better than others. You might think of squash for an autumn soup, but this bright soup of carrots, stewed with ginger and jalapeño and finished with a good squeeze of lime and a handful of chopped cilantro, is an example of how not to make the all-too familiar stodgy too-thick purée. Still, feel free to try it with kabocha or butternut squash. If the soup is not to be served immediately, cool after puréeing, and reheat just before serving — it will taste fresher.
Mushroom Galbi
This vegan twist on traditional galbi swaps meaty mixed mushrooms in place of the meat. The garlicky soy-and-sesame-oil sauce deepens the flavor of earthy mushrooms, which get roasted alongside scallions and green bell pepper until tender and golden. A final broil imparts a nice char and smoky flavor that mimics the grill. Leftovers turn into a fantastic fried rice the next day, topped with a fried egg.
Crispy Green Bean and Potato Sabzi
Indian cooking is filled with one-pan sabzis that come together fast and deliver big, complex flavor. This variation on a potato and green bean sabzi has a twist: almond butter, which gives the vegetables a nutty, almost tempura-like coating, made fragrant with warm spices, ginger and garlic. The green bean and potato combination makes for a nice contrast of textures, but you can easily make swaps: potatoes for sweet potatoes, green beans for broccoli. Chaat masala — a salty, tart and delightfully funky spice blend — is widely available in South Asian grocery stores or online and is well worth having in your pantry to give sabzis like this one some extra sparkle.
Akara (Crispy Bean Fritters)
Traditionally, àkàrà is a celebration food. The plump rounds should be cakelike and fluffy on the inside with a golden exterior, as they are in this recipe from “My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora” by Yewande Komolafe (Ten Speed Press, 2023). Popular in Yorùbá cuisine, it’s a simple dish that requires a careful hand when prepared. Each step from puréeing the ingredients, mixing the batter and frying is critical to developing layers of flavor and texture. Àkàrà is best served warm as a meal when paired with ògi (a fermented cornstarch paste), as a small chop enjoyed by itself or as a sandwich filling between pillowy soft slices of agége bread.
Jammy Tomato Breakfast Eggs
Over the nearly two decades that Yewande Komolafe was unable to visit Nigeria, where she grew up, she was fortunate enough to have her parents visit at least once a year, she writes in her cookbook,“My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora” (Ten Speed Press, 2023). She and her brother Seeni would host them and attempt to rekindle some sense of Lagosian tranquility through cooking together. Their mother would typically make breakfast: a skillet full of tomatoey Naija eggs served with thick slices of yam or whatever sweet American white bread they could find that most closely resembled agége bread. The scent of her dried herb seasoning blend, mixed and packed right before her trip, would hang in the air as she cooked. In those moments, she knew that even if she couldn’t visit home, a weekend tradition of home had come to her.
Ricotta Pasta Bake
Thanks to a whole lot of ricotta, this baked pasta is so creamy and milky that it’s nearly as fluffy as pudding. The dish has a sweet tang from roasted lemon and tomatoes, plus a crisp bread crumb topping to contrast all that plushness. Because the sauce is mostly cheese, it’s worth seeking out ricotta that doesn’t have gum or stabilizers; you’ll get the best results from ricotta that is made of just milk, salt and perhaps a vinegar or natural culture.
Djon-Djon Rice (Black Mushroom Rice)
Throughout Haiti, djon-djon mushrooms grow in rotting wood during the island’s rainy seasons. They’re picked and dried to make this intensely flavorful black mushroom rice — called diri djon-djon by some — that is typically served on holidays and for special occasions. (In a pinch, some people also use mushroom-flavored bouillon cubes by Maggi to season their rice.) This recipe, from Natacha Gomez-Dupuy, the author of “Bak Fritay: Haitian Street Foods,” starts with soaking the mushrooms to create a broth, blending together a verdant, clove-scented epis seasoning, then cooking parboiled rice in both to make this dish, which is meaty and full of umami. Add seafood like blue crab, lobster or shrimp, or serve the rice with something saucy, like a Haitian chicken stew or these epis-braised short ribs.
Fast and Easy Focaccia
This is possibly the fastest start-to-finish yeasted bread you can make. Fluffy and rich with olive oil, this tender focaccia is great on its own or swiped through soups, stews and sauces, and it’s especially wonderful with delicate sandwich fillings, like mortadella and ricotta. Because it’s soft on the inside, a touch crackly on top and crisp on the bottom, it doesn’t squish or squeeze out fillings when you bite into it. Instead, it cradles them like bubble wrap, keeping the ribboned meat in distinct layers. This bread gets its airiness from a very wet dough, which bubbles in the rising and in the oven. Bread flour bakes into a slightly sturdier focaccia, but all-purpose flour works as well. The dough comes together in a minute in a food processor, but if you don’t have that machine, you can mix the dough in a mixer or by hand. The bread will end up a little less chewy, but is still delicious. It’s amazing the day it’s made, but still good the next day too. Stale leftovers can be toasted into croutons.
Vegetable Soup
This simple, one-pot soup is chock full of vegetables and can be customized as you wish. Think of this recipe as a template and feel free to swap in whatever happens to be in your fridge or freezer, adding vegetables according to their cooking times. Diced fennel, zucchini or even broccoli would be particularly nice additions. Try fresh rosemary or your favorite Italian seasoning mix in place of the oregano and thyme, or a pinch of cumin for a subtle, smoky flavor. Hearty greens, such as kale and Swiss chard, can be substituted for the spinach. Add a 15-ounce can of drained, rinsed white beans for a more filling soup. Serve as-is, or finish with a sprinkle of Parmesan, thinly sliced scallions and torn fresh basil to take things up a notch.
Roasted Broccoli
While many vegetables benefit from roasting, broccoli is an ideal candidate. After just 15 minutes in the oven, the florets come out crisp and browned at the edges with tender stems. Roasted broccoli makes a great weeknight side served on its own, but this cooking method also works well if you’re adding it to a grain bowl or simple pasta dish. Make as written with minced garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice, or add a pinch of crushed red pepper and a sprinkle of Parmesan before serving for a crave-worthy vegetable dish.
Arroz con Maiz y Crema (Cheesy Rice Casserole With Corn)
Sandra A. Gutierrez, the author of “Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the 21 Countries of Latin America” (Knopf, 2023), was born in Philadelphia and raised by her Guatemalan parents in their home country. This recipe, a classic from Guatemala City where she lived, has been made since the 1950s, when mayonnaise started gaining popularity in Latin America as it became available in grocery stores. Ms. Gutierrez says the dish is typically enjoyed alongside buffet dinners with roast chicken or beef tenderloin. A satisfyingly easy side dish that is rich, cheesy and tangy, this casserole can be prepared and assembled in advance, or easily halved for a smaller crowd.
Pasta con Palta (Creamy Avocado Pesto Pasta)
In 2016, Sandra A. Gutierrez began to narrow down a list of 9,000 recipes to about 500 for her encyclopedic Latin American cookbook called “Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the 21 Countries of Latin America” (Knopf, 2023). She wanted to focus on the dishes people made at home for a readership of novice cooks. This easy, weeknight recipe from Chile emulates that spirit with the use of Hass avocados –– the main variety produced in the country –– to make a rich and silky sauce that comes together in a blender as the pasta cooks. For best results, sauce and eat the dish immediately to enjoy its velvety texture.
Herby Sweet Potato Soup With Peanuts
This sweet potato soup is both fresh and hearty, with layers of flavors and textures throughout. The sweet potato brings an autumnal warmth, brightened by handfuls of fresh herbs and a squeeze of lemon juice added just before serving. Feel free to swap the sweet potato for pumpkin or any winter squash — this soup is versatile — and use small pasta shapes like orzo if you don’t have bulgur on hand. The topping and soup can be cooked a day in advance, but you’ll want to add the herbs and lemon juice when ready to serve in order to optimize their bright notes.
Roasted Vegetables With Creamy Coconut Dressing
A creamy, tangy dressing enlivens a warm vegetable salad of roast carrots, beets and fennel. Coconut cream adds a lovely richness to the vinaigrette while ginger brings a bite and the acidity of rice vinegar and limes deliver a slight pucker. To achieve a nice golden brown caramelization while roasting your vegetables, make sure the cut pieces are dry and spread evenly on the sheet pan. And those fennel fronds — save them! They add a nice licorice flavor to tingle your palate ever so slightly once chopped and tossed over the finished dish.