Vegetarian recipe ideas

'Veg Everyday' by High Fearnley Whittingstall. Some good stuff in there.

 

Having thought about this a bit overnight, are a lot of the things you're making 'one pot' kind of things? A lot of vegetarian recipes you find online fall into this category, and it could be a reason why you're finding the meals incomplete.

Throwing everything into a pan and cooking it is great but if I had the time I'd usually try and cook a few different things with various textures and flavours, as I would a meat dish.

So (off the top of my head) maybe roast some cauliflower with herbs and lemon (or za'atar, which I love), and separately prepare something like a dish of simply cooked green beans with some toasted almonds and a drizzle of oil, then maybe chuck some cubed potatoes in a frying pan or the air fryer, or do something like a pilaf. It's obviously more work, but I find doing it like this makes it feel more like a meal, rather than just a bunch of ingredients that I've thrown together!

 

Not sure how this happens. But your reply came to my Alerts. Happened a few times lately. Not an issue but the actual reply may not be seen by those intended for.
One for Paul to look at maybe. As I say a blip. Nowt massive in the scheme of things.
Btw Yorks pudding and veggie curry lol.

 

Nope, that was my fault - I had half a reply to your post about vegetarian roast dinners which accidentally went into that one!

For the record, it was that we often do a big roast for a mixed group of vegetarians and meat eaters - it consists of 'all the trimmings' for everybody and then just a tray of pigs in blankets for those that want a bit of meat on their plate (like me). Works really well.

 

The one I've enjoyed most so far was a baked lemon orzo with roasted tenderstem on top. That was finished off with crushed hazelnuts and copious amounts of parmesan. And that had lots of flavour and texture.

I'd say typically, we eat a very wide range of types of food and cuisines. Some are onepot, some are pan fried but have multiple elements. We tend to have more rice, noodles and pasta than potatoes though. Its pretty rare we'll do say a piece of meat and then prepare essentially side accompaniments.

I was thinking too about recipes we already do that could just remove the meat. There's a squash and sage risotto recipe that we actually added chicken and chestnuts to. I like chestnuts in autumn and winter, been known to forage some, so I think that should convert fine just removing the chicken. And a Laksa (Jamie Oliver recipe) which has spiced chicken on it, but it has asparagus, squash and green pepper in, so we could try that without the meat.

The missus (annoyingly) can often not fancy mushrooms, so we have to factor that in. And I really like cauliflower, but shes not so fussed. Years ago I had a whole baked cauliflower at an Indian restaurant and really enjoyed it, though the spicing made it quite bitter. So I've thought of something similar and maybe make something like pakoras with it. I often make flat breads and focaccias too.

Thinking aloud too... I wonder if part of the issue is quite often, we'll add a lot of flavour to meat. So we'll generally marinade or season meat to enhance flavour, even if just smoked salt, and I'd say meat tends to take flavour really well. Or we'd use lardons, Parma ham, nduja or chorizo for spikes of intense flavour.

I'm determined to continue and I suppose we're just weeks in, whereas we've been having many other dishes and recipes for 25 years together.

Thanks for your thoughts and ideas, same to everyone else too. I certainly didn't expect the thread to go beyond the first page to be honest.

 

Maybe an idea to consider could be expanding it to more than one day a week but letting yourself use things like a few lardons or a really nice stock if you're craving that little edge? Like my braised lettuce (can you tell I'm proud of them?). If we ever have chicken then I always take the time to make a stock, and then don't feel guilty using it on my non-meat nights. I'm eating way less meat nowadays by just really thinking about where and when I really want it.

Good luck!

 

I'd say we're eating less meat than we used to. I'd say 60% (sometimes more) of lunches are completely vegetarian, the remaining 40% is usually fish (we have mackerel salads or fishcake salad, and we do have haddock in a frittata. For midweek dinners, I'd say 2 are usually fish, one veggie and just 2 meat based.

I suspect in time, we're likely to push it to 2 dinners a week meat free. Or maybe we'll follow your lead if we braise lettuce and become addicted to it! ;-)

 

I eat meat and my wife is a vegan. I love to cook so initially I thought it would be a huge ******, but if anything it hasn’t made any difference and made me FAR better at cooking.

You can make vegetarian foods taste as equally flavourful as its meat counterpart, right across the board. It’s just tastes more time and diligence.

The easiest two are pastas and curry’s - right off the bat there are literally thousands of recipes that don’t include meat. Try any of Rick Steins series based in Asia, there’s always at least 3 or 4, and of course the Italian episodes.

I personally very rarely follow a recipe, my own personal tips for better vegetarian foods are -

time, especially when cooking sauces. You’re really going to want to reduce and let the flavours develop over time for more depth.
**Caramelisation** - especially if you’re starting with onion and garlic, take your time and really get some depth of flavour from there. This is the key - you really have to look to squeeze every bit of flavour out of each element of a vegetarian dish. Colour = depth of flavour.
Good vegetable stock. if you get this right you could orettty much eat this as a light soup, it makes sense that adding various flavours to this (from whatever cuisine) will give you a good chance of making a great meal.
Aim for ingredients that give a deep ‘umami’ flavour, this will help give you that body you miss from not including meat juices - miso paste/soy sauce etc etc

Give me a shout if you want me to reccomend any dishes!