Happy New Year! It’s been a minute since I posted a recipe, so one of my New Years’ resolutions is to get more up recipes here. And apparently it’s ‘Veganuary’. Veganuary is an annual challenge run by a UK nonprofit organisation that promotes and educates about veganism by encouraging people to follow a vegan lifestyle for the month of January. But whether we’re in January or any month of the year, including some plant based meals in your meal plan isn’t a bad a idea. We could all use a little less meat in our diets.
With the huge trend towards plant based meals, there are a lot of options for more interesting meals out there and we’ve moved way past pasta primavera as the vegan option. There are also tons of great plant based products, so that makes things a bit easier.
Personally, I’ve been doing a lot of vegan recipe development for my clients and it’s been a fun learning experience for me so stay tuned for more vegan recipes to come. I know I’ve got a winning vegan recipe when the carnivores in my family will happily eat it for dinner.
I developed this recipe for Flora Plant Butter. It’s an amazing plant based butter that looks, acts and tastes like butter. I’ve definitely moved towards using more plant based butters in my personal life since they’ve come such in a long way in taste, performance and quality.
My recipe for Vegan Paella is super easy to throw together. It uses ingredients that are readily available in your supermarket. I used cauliflower and mushrooms for the primary veggies, but use whatever you like. If you’re a mushroom lover, go for a blend of wild mushrooms. They give it a great meaty texture.
There are plenty of vegan chorizo’s out there and don’t skip this ingredient. I used El Burrito Organic Soyrizo and it gives this dish so much flavor.
Paella always seemed a bit intimidating to me. But like most foods and recipes, it’s not that hard, you just have to know the right technique. The secret to perfect paella…Use the right rice and don’t stir.
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1/2 teaspoon saffron threads
- 2 tablespoons Flora™ Plant Butter Salted
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 small red bell pepper, chopped
- 6 ounces soy chorizo or vegan chorizo-style sausages, removed from casing
- 2 plum tomatoes, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 1/2 cups paella rice, Bomba rice or arborio rice
- 3 cups small cauliflower florets
- 5 ounces sliced mushrooms, about 3 cups (we used shiitake, trumpet and baby portobello mushrooms)
- 1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
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Heat broth and saffron in medium saucepan.
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In large deep skillet or paella pan, melt Flora Plant Butter over medium high heat and cook onion and pepper 3 minutes or until softened.
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Add soy chorizo and cook 5 minutes or until beginning to brown. Add tomato and garlic and cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
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Add cauliflower and mushrooms and cook 3 minutes. Add rice and smoked paprika and stir to coat rice.
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Slowly pour in broth and bring to a boil. Stir gently. Simmer uncovered 25 minutes without stirring. Cover and simmer 10 minutes. Sprinkle peas over paella. Cover and let stand 10 minutes or until rice is tender.
