Best vegan dishes

[Summertimedancing]

In desperate need of ideas..

I've got vegan friends coming to dinner.. what's a good dish or dishes to cook? Something super tasty.

Plus puddings.

What would you normally cook?

Curries are easy to make vegan and delicious. You could do a spread with bhajis, samosas, rice, chapatti, poppadums and pickles.

Vegan tacos are nice.

I found a recipe online which was roast sweet potato and beans. It had loads of lime Joyce and coriander and it was lovely.

Vegan cheese is gross though. Smells of sick.

It would depend on their tastes and how well you can cook. But if it were me I’d probably make something supereasy and that you can prep ahead that also doesn’t require much last minute pot watching. From that perspective something like lasagna with a white sauce made with olive oil & soy milk and a big salad. Nibbles with wine. Keep pudding simple - vegan icecream with lashings of syrups and nuts is always lovely.

Some vegan cheeses are better than others. It’s very personal taste though. I’d stay away from them (and other meat substitutes).

It might be worth posting on the vegan board for favourite recipes.

Curry is a really good one, chickpea curry is nice but I prefer to put butter beans in mine.

Vegetable & cashew nut stir fry

Jacket potatoes with various fillings

Pizza - lots of great vegan ones in supermarkets.

Roast with shop bought vegan mains like nut roast, pies etc or make a mushroom Wellington.

Sausage & mash. Richmond meat free sausages are vegan, get some vegan butter (flora plant butter in a block, it's great in mash, on toast, in jacket potatoes etc) if you can't find that then vitalite is pretty good too.

Greek Briam - look it up. Dead easy too.

Don't bother with fake meat, yuk.

Pizza - lots of great vegan ones in supermarkets.

Which ones are you meaning? Most of the ones I’ve had have been a bit rubbish. I mostly make my own these days.

Google burnt aubergine chilli from BBC good food. Best. Chilli. Ever. Serve with rice, tortilla chips, guacamole and vegan cheese if you want.

Thinking about it, a Greek mezze would be nice and not too arduous. You could have a mix of bought and homemade stuff. Lots is naturally vegan.

Tabbouleh, greek salad (just omit feta), dolmades, posh olives, tapenade, gigantes beans, spanakopita made with a tofu feta substitute, houmous, favs dip, fasolakia, something aubergine and pitta.

You can do baklava without honey for an for an impressive but easy pudding.

We had this vegan chilli recently with fake Nando's spicy rice. Alternatively you could serve it with sweet potato wedges.

Vegan chocolate brownie is also pretty easy to make. Served with ice cream of course.

Mezze - hummus, falafel, tabouleu, baba ganoush, pittas

Or mix of curries with rice and naans, plus samosas etc.

Or Mexican like PPs suggest.

Most of all the above are naturally vegan without needing any weird meat substitutes or horrible vegan cheese.

For dessert you could do chocolate pots with fruit. Loads of ideas with dark chocolate and creamed coconut. Or there's a Nigella recipe for a chocolate cake that's vegan.

Peanut butter currys or stir frys are delish. Maybe with tofu, or chickpeas. The peanut butter makes up for the lack of meant and dairy.

Ottelenghi has some brilliant really interesting vegan recipes too.

A website called 'easy cheesy vegetarian' (she does vegan too), is great, tasty and really simple recipes