Vegetarian Christmas Day Stuffing

[likeridingabike]

I'm getting very excited about having Christmas Day lunch at home this year for the first time (very long story involving in-laws, a long marriage and a divorce), I'm looking for a stuffing recipe that will go down well with meat eaters and vegetarians.

Does anyone have a tried and tested recipe? No allergies involved and no vegans so nuts, eggs, dairy etc. all fine. Preferable suitable for making at least a day beforehand, two days if possible.

I've cooked this :-

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pork_tenderloin_stuffed_50738

The stuffing would certainly keep in the fridge for at least a day. I had some left over, & it froze well.
I'm think the stuffing would work with any meat, but what are you planning to give the veggies?

I’m vegetarian and I never have stuffing with my Christmas dinner. I can’t imagine it would go with what I’d serve.

I'm one of the veggies and I'm always disappointed if the stuffing has meat in it.

I've not decided on a veggie main course yet, possibly a mushroom and blue cheese wellington.

I haven't made it yet, but this is on my 'to try' list:

www.aldi.co.uk/apple-%26-walnut-stuffing/p/000000190052000

I did make this one, and it was yummy, although it may be more of a 'main' dish than a stuffing. Froze well too.
www.aldi.co.uk/nut-%26-linseed-roast/p/000000190051900

This one's also on my 'to try' list. Annoyingly I bookmarked it when it was on Deliciously Ella's website, but it's now been removed.
I found it on another site, but it only has the ingredients and not the method:
www.copymethat.com/r/57WdBTh/sage-and-apricot-nut-roast/

(Can you tell I had some flaxseed that needed using!)

I just make my own with breadcrumbs, egg substitute and finely chopped onion and lots of herbs . Thyme and grated lemon peel is good too.It depends what my Vegan daughter has decided on eating so I make something that complements it. We have mad puff pastry filled stars and things like that to make it more festive.

Notnow that nut roast sounds delicious I think I will make that over Christmas DD is celebrating in New Zealand this year.

Save up dry bread between now and then and freeze.

Get it out the freezer, and whizz it into breadcrumbs.

Get an onion, some sage, an egg, salt and pepper and whizz that up in the same blender and tip it into the breadcrumbs.

Add milk until you can form balls.

Freeze in balls, and then tip them into the oil when the roast spuds go in.

I use a tweaked version of my gran’s stuffing and I love it - dc love it so much they are happy to eat it by the bucketload regardless of what else is being served. I prefer it to turkey...

If I’m making it out of the bird and just in a tin in the oven, I use the following recipe. It’s more of an approximation than a recipe though - done to taste (it’s good ‘raw’ too so always needs plenty of testing

For a big tin (approx 7x10-8x12 inches)

• finely chop a couple of red onions
• soften the onions in approx 250g butter (I do this gently in the microwave while blitzing breadcrumbs - 2 mins and stir repeated 3-5 times usually)
• meanwhile make breadcrumbs from about half a big loaf of bread. I like nice white bread, and have a strong blitzed so throw the crusts in too. But you don’t have to. Sometimes I use brown bread or whatever oddments I have that need using up. If it’s all looking very neat and uniform it’s just called stuffing. If the crumbs are uneven and/or there’s lots of obvious bigger bits of crust or nuts or different colours then I call it special rustic stuffing to make it sound like a deliberate feature and disguise the haphazard nature, should anyone dare to complain that it’s not looking the way they think it should do!
• tip the crumbs into a big bowl.
• sprinkle salt (approx 1 teaspoon) across crumbs.
• sprinkle thyme across crumbs. If dried then start with a tablespoon. Fresh thyme you might want more.
• mix salt and thyme evenly through bread crumbs
• add softened onions and butter mix to herb and crumb mix and combine.
• taste
• taste again
• add more herbs or salt as required
• taste
• taste again
• when happy with it put into a foil lined tin
• pop a few more blobs of butter across the top, put more foil across the top and bake for about 20 mins
• take foil off and pop back for 5 minutes to crisp up the top if you like a crispy top.
• serve and eat...

The ‘recipe’ is incredibly flexible. Depending on what’s around I might add a handful of finely chopped parsley. Or add garlic or lemon juice to the butter or just use tarragon or basil or oregano. Or finely chopped roasted red peppers or sun dried tomatoes or olives, even a bit of crumbled feta or grated Parmesan - whatever to fancy and have to hand and that will go with your main dish.

The two things I never use are chilli or black/white pepper but that’s because I loathe them. My mother adds lots more salt and black pepper which she thinks improves it but I obviously know that this ruins it!

Now thinking I might have to knock up a dish of stuffing for lunchl (if you have leftovers it works very well with a fried egg and ‘English breakfast’ type accompaniments - either veggie or meat eater!

My basic stuffing is mushrooms onions breadcrumbs and herbs and spices. If I want to make it into a vegan nut roast then I'll add chopped nuts some dried fruit and either lentils or chickpeas( which have to be whizzed up in the food processor so husband can't identify them and pick out) it doesn't need an egg to hold it together. you could also add chopped up Linda sausages