Vegan festive party food?

[smogsville]

Any ideas? Got a couple of vegans coming to a party on Sunday.

To give a bit of context - there are far too many people coming, rest of the food is being prepared and bought by friends and my Mum or it's quite assembly-job style rather than anything cooked, hot or to be handed round. Am just going to pop it all on kitchen table and let people help themselves - v relaxed.

I'm 20 wks pregnant with a 3yo, a house to decorate and a birthday party to take the 3yo to on the Saturday, so I'm looking for easy things. I've got a friend bringing some non cows milk cheese for example but can't find anything that's both vegan and festive.

What kinds of foods are people bringing to be assembled? You could offer things like crudités with hummus, guacamole or salsa type dips, tapenade spread on toast points or crackers, bean or rice salads, jacket potatoes.

Thanks for responding it's quite a tricky ask isn't it! I'm getting some smoked salmon/ soda bread thingys from Nigella which can be put together v easily.

The thing is, I really want all the food to be festive rather than tapenade/ guac etc. I think I'm just being unrealistic aren't I?!

Oh well they can always gnaw on a lump of bread!

A big bowl of nuts to crack is festive.

Have you got a health food shop nearby? My local Holland and Barrett sells a really decent vegan party selection in the frozen bit, all sorts of things like samosas, mini pizza things etc inside. In the fridge bit there's also vegan mini-sausages, different dairy free cheeses and cream cheeses, and lots of party bite type things like mini cranberry bites.

If not, you can have a look at the packs of those party selections in supermarkets that have mini spring rolls, samosas, onion bahjis etc which are often fine but watch out for milk hiding in some depending on the brand/supermarket.

And then obviously crisps, nuts, cherry tomatoes, bread sticks, carrot/celery/cucumber sticks with dips etc!

NoMoreDelays - I will get some plain nuts. Going to make Nigella's seasonal spices nuts for everyone else, they have butter in them.

Butter - yes there is an H&B on the high street!

Thanks again all x

Jus roll pastry is vegan (not the butter stuff obvs!) mini tarts with some veg and herbs? Just chuck small cut veg on so cooks well, could do xmassy sage and onion?

Nut roast mixture but formed into little individual "slabs" with a dollop of cranberry sauce on top? Could add a little bit of goats cheese for the non vegans!

This is possibly more involved than you're looking for, but The Post Punk Kitchen has a huge array of vegan recipes, including this page of festive stuff. I can vouch that the recipes are fantastic! She's the queen of stick-to-your-ribs vegan food where animal products are not missed.

Iceland party boxes of 60 mini Indian snacks are vegan. So are Lidl boxes of 60 assorted chinese snacks.

Its going to be hard making vegan 'festive' feeling stuff without starting proper cooking though. You could do some crumbled smoked tofu and cranberry sauce vol-au-vents (most frozen vol-au-vent cases are vegan) or little fillo tartlets, that wouldn't be too taxing.

Oh and Lidl do Christmas shaped pasta - a big bowl of that with toasted seeds and sundried tomatoes would be fairly festive?

Ooooooh if you can get some Spacebars (vegan chorizo style things) you could do puff pastry circles with some caramelised onions and chopped Spacebar on. They are yum.

gnocchi olive stacks

roast root vegetables in a mix of oil and honey (if they eat it, some vegans do) if not roast them in oil and garlic.

Sprout kebabs

Vegan cheese is pretty disgusting - we use it in cooking but you wouldn't want it on crackers or anything.

Surely the vegans will turn up with stuff? My 19 year old DS is vegan and we always make sure we take plenty of stuff along to anything like this.

He would be fine with nice bread, hummus and dippy vegetables, nuts, salad and salady things - bean salad, couscous, lentil salads etc (I just buy them from m and s or waitrose if time is a challenge), olives, veggie samosa/spring roll type things (again m and s).

You could make some sort of nut or lentil loaf in advance and serve cold with pickles etc for festivity. I love this. Tried one out with chestnuts and cranberries in the other week. It was delicious.

Chestnuts and beetroots or butternut squash diced and roasted in olive oil for 20 mins at 200C with chopped parsley on top.

Cashew nuts roasted in oven, mix with olive oil, lemon juice and cracked black pepper. Pop in five minutes after the chestnuts/beetroot. You can faff on making this into a nut loaf, but there's no need really. serve with cranberry sauce.

Some kind of roast potato/roast root vegetables.