stories:
The Ten
10 Vegetarian Thanksgiving Dishes
Dishes that satisfy without the need for meat
By Aida Mollenkamp
1. Roasted Acorn Squash with Wild Rice Stuffing. Wild rice, cranberries, and pecans combine in an autumnal stuffing that’s tasty all on its own. But put it inside a roasted acorn squash, and you have a dish hearty enough to step in as a main.
Make-ahead tip: Make the stuffing up to two days ahead and keep it covered in the refrigerator. Roast the squash and fill it with the stuffing no more than two hours before you plan to eat.
2. Savory Onion and Leek Tart. Imagine French Onion soup turned into a tart, and you’ll have an idea of what you’re in for with this dish. With a buttery crust filled with caramelized onions, sautéed leeks, crème fraîche, and herbs, it’s a welcome change at the holiday table.
Make-ahead tip: Bake the tart up to two days ahead and bring it to room temperature or warm it up when you’re ready to eat.
3. Mushroom and Fennel Bread Pudding. Swap out your boring old stuffing with this hearty bread pudding. With fennel, mushrooms, sage, and cheese, this recipe goes well beyond the Thanksgiving table; serve leftovers with soup and a green salad.
Make-ahead tip: The bread pudding can be baked up to a day ahead. To serve, either allow it to come to room temperature or throw it in the oven after the turkey comes out to warm it through.
4. Savory Egg Pudding. This delicate egg dish—like a crustless quiche with potatoes and herbs—is a fair swap for the turkey. The lemon zest and tarragon give it a springtime slant; consider leaving out the lemon zest and using sage or thyme in place of the tarragon for a more autumnal version.
Make-ahead tip: Bake the pudding up to two days ahead. To serve, either allow it to come to room temperature or throw it in the oven after the turkey comes out to warm it through.
5. Roasted Delicata Squash Salad. Salads often get lost amid the typical Thanksgiving bounty of starch and meat. But the roasted squash in this salad—with ricotta salata cheese, toasted pumpkin seeds, and spinach—gives it a holiday-ish air. Plus, it’s delicious.
Make-ahead tip: Wash the greens up to three days ahead and keep them wrapped in damp paper towels in a resealable plastic bag in your vegetable drawer.
6. Winter Greens Lasagne. If you have enough vegetarians coming over, you may want to make a big pasta dish. This kale-and-Swiss-chard lasagne will fill up the most voracious eater, yet the flavors are sedate enough not to overwhelm the other options on the Thanksgiving table.
Make-ahead tip: Bake the lasagne up to two days ahead and throw it in the oven after the turkey comes out to warm it through before serving.
7. Smoked Cheddar Soufflé. This recipe tames the normally savage, finicky soufflé so you can toss it in the oven while you’re carving the turkey and not think about it until it’s time to eat.
Make-ahead tip: Grate the cheese up to three days ahead and keep it stored in the refrigerator. Let the soufflé cook in the oven while the turkey is being carved, and it will be ready by the time you’re sitting down to eat.
8. Winter Greens Soup. Make a big pot of this nurturing, nourishing, nutritional soup. Its hearty, comforting flavors—from the kale, farro, garbanzo beans, and plenty more vegetables it’s filled with—complement the Thanksgiving table nicely.
Make-ahead tip: Make the soup up to three days ahead and simply warm it through before serving.
9. Celery Root and Squash Gratin with Walnut-Thyme Streusel. Liven up your sides and make something hearty enough for the veggies-only crew with this gratin. With layers of earthy celery root, sweet squash, and nutty streusel, it will offer the turkey some stiff competition for the holiday spotlight.
Make-ahead tip: Bake the gratin up to a day ahead and rewarm it in the oven after the turkey comes out.
10. Broccoli, Mushroom, and Gouda Quiche. Yes, it’s a quiche, and no, you don’t often see quiche as part of a traditional Turkey Day feast. But this sweet, earthy, cheesy quiche is different, and the vegetarians will thank you.
Make-ahead tip: The quiche can be baked up to two days before. To serve, either allow it to come to room temperature or throw it in the oven after the turkey comes out to warm it through.
CHOW’s The Ten column appears every Tuesday.
Aïda Mollenkamp is a food editor at CHOW.
I'm no vegetarian, but damn, do these sound superb. I'm sorry they weren't posted in time for Canadian Thanksgiving, but I'll certainly be bookmarking them for a future date. Thanks!
Not to be a wet blanket, because some these recipes sound really good, but I thought anything with eggs in it, such as the quiche, cannot be considered vegetarian. I guess I'm not up on my vegetarian rules.
eggs and cheese are part of a vegetarian diet. You are thinking of vegans who eat no dairy, eggs, or in some cases even honey. All derived from animals.
mwliechty - That's vegan.
While I believe having a thanksgiving without meat is sacriligious, I have been pondering what do to about my vegetarian friend for thanksgiving. This certainly helps.
These all do look good but they mostly rely on a fair bit of cheese for heft and protein. I'm not a vegan, but this year I'm cooking for one vegetarian and one guest who doesn't eat dairy, so my menu is going vegan. I think I am going to have a white bean and roasted tomato soup as a first course, mushroom galettes (from D. Madison; I'm thickening the mushroom juices with cornstarch rather than butter) as a main course and lots of good roasted veggies with maybe a dandelion salad (also from the immortal Miss Madison). I'd be interested in hearing about other vegan menus for Thanksgiving.
We are serving a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. BTW Captainspirou, we think eating meat IS sacriligious. The centerpiece of our dinner will be what we call a field roast. Really it is a wheat gluten roast that is cooked in the oven with seasonal vegetables, herbs and a savory broth. So delicious even the meat eaters are back for seconds and thirds! It will be served sliced topped with mushroom gravy.
katydid, the vegancooking community at livejournal is filled with tons of great vegan cooks. here's a link to our thanksgiving index to help you get more ideas and recipes. but so-far your vegan menu sounds great! all that looks like you need now is a bread of some sort, and you'll be golden.
http://community.livejournal.com/vega...
Thanks, supercarrot! that is exactly the kind of site I was looking for.
How can these recipes be considered vegetarian when half of them have eggs( to be developed chickens) in them?Although there are different types of vegetarians i.e. lacto(dairy),ovo(eggs),vegan(no animal products),I personally found the egg recipes a turn off.Having said that ,I made the Roasted Delicata Squash Salad for a Halloween dinner,which was delicious.I wiil try the Celery Root and Squash Gratin for Thanksgiving or fall season.
My standard alternative for vegan guests is to do baked acorn squash with a bread celery , onion and mushroom stuffing seasoned with the usual turkey stufffing herbs like sage thyme. Coat with olive oil, baste with a fresh vegtable stock (carrot peels and celery trim and onions )
I've been a vegetarian for quite a few years and I LOVE Thanksgiving. It's "my" holiday, and both my husband's family and mine descend on our house for a turkey-free feast. (I've never had any complaints.) For a main dish I've served:
Vegetarian Shepard's Pie: Fall vegetables, lentils, and a little fake meat, in a mushroom gravy (not cream based) topped with roasted garlic mashed potatoes (I make mine with butter and yogurt)
Stuffed Pumpkin: Hollow-out a small one, stuffed with Apples, walnuts, onions, turnips, dried cranberries, fresh sage, and a little bit of vegetable broth and butter. Then stick it in the oven for an hour. Cut, and serve on a bowl-like dish (or it goes everywhere) but it makes for an impressive centerpiece (which people sometimes miss when you don't have turkey)
Squash Lasagna: A butternut squash cream sauce with romano cheese, layered with whole wheat lasagna noodles, kale, and butternut and acorn squash pieces.
Potpie: Cream sauce with peas, pearl onions, carrots, celery, turnips, potatoes, and small, cut-up pieces of Morningstar farms fake buffalo chicken wing-a-ling things. Topped with a pastry crust with fall cut-outs, brushed with egg to give it that lovely "varnished" look. This was a great hit--I made it in a big casserole, and even the dedicated carnivores really liked it. Those wing-a-ling things are just awesome to cook with. They're spicy and have just enough texture to feel like you're eating something that's not a vegetable.
I have also done quiche and souffle, but I find quiche is a better side dish, it just doesn't look as impressive as a centerpiece. I have also tried to make the vegetarian substitute for meatloaf- otherwise known as "the dinner loaf" in the Adventist community--the nut loaf (I served mine with white pepper gravy). I didn't get the recipe quite right and it was too dry. I think it was also too weird for most of the non-vegetarians. I had a lot leftover :(
But all in all, I think that a vegetarian Thanksgiving is a fun thing to do. We always have WAY too much food, and I have a fun time trying to think up new main dishes every year. I always try to use something "in season" as much as possible. There are so many great fall vegetables that can be shown off at Thanksgiving.
I think its funny that vegetarians eat fake meat.
Cookie,
Vegetarians don't care what you think.
I'm not a strict vegetarian, but I am a vegetarian sympathizer. I make a loaf most years that's based on a tofu-nut-mushroom-onion pate wrapped around pretty traditional thanksgiving stuffing. I make about a gallon of duxelle on Thanksgiving to use for loaf, gravy, stuffing, etc. The loaf goes great with cranberry sauce and makes nice leftover sandwiches too. It's usually enriched with butter and/or cream, but this year, because of the venue, I'll need to make it vegan. We can accomodate.
I gave up eating birds and animals 21 years ago and Thanksgiving was a dilemma. I tried Tofurkey and didn't like it - but several years ago i tried a "turkey" made from mushroom protein that tasted so much like real turkey, that I buy it year round now. It is made Quorn - and now I make a whole vegetarian thanksgiving with gravy for the Quorn turkey, sage stuffing, mashed potatoes, and salad. NO animals suffer for my dinner.
PS - Whole Foods sells it!
I'm not a vegetarian but I've had vegetarian guests.
The pumpkin stuffed with a bread sage stuffing is great.
Another dish I like is parboiled then roasted chesnuts and brussel sprouts.
My other favorite thanksgiving dishes are parsnips, peeled, boiled, pureed and thickened by reducing with heavy cream, piped and browned . Too rich for everyday, but amazingly earthy and sweet.
Finally there's a no cook cranbery sauce;
quarter two navel oranges leaving on peel, pull out obvious seeds, pulse and add a bag of raw cranberries, a lot of sugar, enough orange juice to coarsely chop the berries and rind to hash
Finally there's a no cook cranbery sauce;
quarter two navel oranges leaving on peel, pull out obvious seeds, pulse and add a bag of raw cranberries, a lot of sugar, enough orange juice to coarsely chop the berries and rind to hashe.
Add a very generous slug of grand marnier or triple sec and adjust sugar. Refrigerate over night or longer. Add more sugar as needed. It's fresh and tart and goes even better a day later with leftovers. It is alcoholic so small condiment portions are best.
Wish I was going to aladams house for Thanksgiving!
Since becoming a vegetarian, I've never missed the turkey. The years that the family has come to our house, I've made sure to have so many "holiday" sides that no one even notices! No complaints, just compliments on the awesome stuffings, squashes, gratins, salads, sauces, desserts, etc.
thank you
i am making these for Christmas
since out Canadian thanksgiving is over