Easy Vegetarian Recipes

Archive for the ‘Easy Vegetarian Party Food’ Category

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Easy Vegetarian Pecan Crusted Medjool Dates

by April’s Recipe Winner: LISA S.! This is her first guest blog post with many more to come. Feel free to email any recipes questions to her at Lisa (at) easyvegetarianrecipesblog.com.

Hello All!

I am so excited to be the winner of April’s Easy Vegetarian Recipes Contest! I simplified my “Veggie Shrimp Creole” to make it as quick and easy and possible, without sacrificing flavor. I hope you will all like it as much as my family and friends do, and now would like to share an easy, easy recipe that tastes just like candy. It is a great dish for vegetarians, diabetics, or anyone who just loves good food.

Enjoy!!

Pecan Crusted Medjool Dates

Ingredients:

• 4 large, fresh, in season Medjool dates for each plate served
• Mixture of coarsely and finely chopped pecans

Directions:

Place pecans in a shallow dish. With a sharp paring knife, slice halfway around the pit of each date, remove the pits, and flatten the dates. Press each date firmly into the pecan mixture, shaking off the excess if necessary.

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Easy Vegetarian Boston Market Dill Potato Wedges Recipe

Somewhere along the way, regular old french fries stopped working for me.  Since then I’ve just made up variations of my own fries and here’s an easy vegetarian Boston Market Dill Potato Wedges recipe that’s got a nice kick.

Ingredients:

• 7 or 8 new red potatoes
• 2 cloves garlic, minced fine
• 1/4 pound butter
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. celery salt
• 2 tsp. dried dill weed

Directions:

Wash potatoes well and boil until barely soft. Drain, and cut potatoes in wedges. Melt 1 stick of butter, in large frying pan (use only real butter) and saute garlic for about one minute. Add potatoes and the rest of the seasonings. Pan−fry the potatoes until they are lightly brown.

These are great with a nice dinner, but this is also great in bulk for parties.

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Easy Vegetarian Benihana’s Ginger Salad Dressing Recipe

I love that so many of Benihana’s recipes are easy vegetarian based. This next recipe, the easy vegetarian Benihana’s ginger salad dressing recipe looks like it’s got tons of ingredients, but really, it’s simple after you pull the ingredients together.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup minced onion
• 1/2 cup peanut oil
• 1/3 cup rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons minced celery
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 4 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend on high speed for about 30 seconds or until all of the ginger is well−pureed.

Makes 1 3/4 cups.

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Easy Vegetarian A&W Onion Rings Recipe

Who doesn’t LOVE onion rings?

DeLonghi Deep Fryer

First off, to make this easy vegetarian A&W Onion Rings Recipe even easier, you should have a deep fryer. If you don’t have one, I suggest this DeLonghi brand (I’ve had mine for 3+ years and can’t imagine life without it!). It’s affordable and easy to clean  up. If  you want something more extensive, here’s the one I bought for my mother because she kept saying how much she wanted a deep fryer. Well, once I got it for her, she was pretty upset because it wasn’t exactly like my DeLonghi. So I gave my baby sister this awesome Presto Stainless Steel Deep Fryer instead. We just used it again last night at a birthday party for my mother no less.

Anyways, it will make life so much easier, cleaner and tastier.

So here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup McCormick Golden Dipt Tempura batter mix
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup beer
• 1 extra large white onion, sliced 3/8″ thick
• 6 cups vegetable oil in your deep fryer

Directions:

Preheat the deep fryer to 375F

Combine the tempura mix with the spices and liquid to make a
batter using a fork. There will be some small lumps; don’t worry
about those.

Slice the onion, and separate all of the rings.
Dip the individual rings in the batter, and drop into the
preheated oil. Deep fry 3−5 minutes until golden brown. Remove
to a paper towel lined plate, salt lightly, and serve hot.

*Note: I use my deep fryer for this and realized I needed to test out a few rings first to get the timing right. But it was worth the testing!

Easy Vegetarian Stuffed French-Bread Pizza

• 1 2-foot-long French-bread loaf
• 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 pkg. Tofurky vegan Italian sausage, crumbled
• 1/2 pkg. veggie pepperoni, chopped
• 1 small red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 large garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 pkg. frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed dry, and chopped
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 1 tub Tofutti plain cream cheese
• 1 block Italian-style seasoned tofu, crumbled
• 1/2 cup grated vegan parmesan
• 1 block vegan mozzarella, grated
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Split the bread lengthwise, hollow each piece out, and cut in half horizontally, making 4 shells for the pizzas. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over a medium-to-high flame and brown the Tofurky sausage and the veggie pepperoni. Add the red bell pepper, onion, and garlic. Cook for 3 minutes and then add the spinach.

Remove from the heat, season with the salt and pepper, and transfer to a bowl. Combine with the Tofutti cream cheese, the seasoned tofu, and the vegan parmesan and mix thoroughly.
Spread the mixture into the bread shells.

Top each pizza with the vegan mozzarella. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the “cheese” melts and the bread is super-crisp.
Remove from the oven. Top with the oregano and the hot pepper flakes and serve.

March Madness is all around us and I came across this very timely article that from the Chicago Vegetarian Examiner that’s got a couple of tasty easy vegetarian recipes that your pals will love to snack on. You know how important it is for me to be able to throw some of this stuff together quickly especially because entertaining for me is so time consuming with having to scrub my entire house before I let the first guest walk over my threshold!

This is a yummy mix of ingredients that is I will definitely categorize under the ‘easy vegetarian recipes’ section.

Louisville Cardinals Red Roasted Tomato Dip

Ingredients:
1/4 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 cloves garlic, minced
hot pepper sauce to taste
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup fresh basil

Directions:
In a food processor, mix the sun-dried tomatoes, cream cheese, sour cream, mayonnaise, garlic, hot pepper sauce, salt, and pepper. Process until well blended. Add basil, and continue processing until smooth. Chill at least 1 hour in the refrigerator before serving with UConn pita chips and fresh cut veggies.

And of course you can’t have dip without some chips to dig it up with! Here’s an easy vegetarian recipe for homemade pita chips.

University of Connecticut Huskies Homemade Pita Chips

Ingredients:
3 Pita Bread Slices
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
Pepper to taste
1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
1/4 tsp Dried Rosemary Powder
1/4 cup dried parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions:
Place aluminum foil on a cookie sheet and then apply a light coat of olive oil on top of the foil. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the slices of pocket pita bread into small triangles and arrange them on the sheet. Make sure that the inner portion of pita triangles is facing up. Mix olive oil, garlic powder, pepper and kosher salt in a small bowl. Apply a thin layer of the mixture on the upper portion of each triangle with a small pastry brush. Sprinkle the rosemary and parmesan cheese over the pita slices. Bake the pita triangles in the preheated oven for about 5 minutes. You may increase the baking time, depending on the thickness of the pita bread. Take the pita triangles out of the oven when they have been evenly baked from inside and are golden-brown in color and crispy. Let the chips cool down to room temperature before serving.

This combo will be the hit of your party and you won’t have to slave away for hours either.

Click here for the original story and for more of the Chicago Vegetarian Examiner.