Best vegetarian dinner party recipes

[ZsaZsaMc]

Serving 6 - 2 vegetarians. So we’d all eat vegetarian ideally or something with the meat as a bonus side dish!

Ideally something you can make in advance / serve up on the table for people to help themselves. Not curry though! Any ideas? For some reason I hate cooking for vegetarians as I find it hard to do anything slightly fancier!

A bake-in-the-oven paella? Can do a large vegetable one and a variety of sides tapas style?x

Mushroom stroganoff (although it’s another dish served with rice perhaps too similar to curry) www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/mushroom-recipes/mushroom-stroganoff/
Chickpea tagine and couscous www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/recipes/vegetable-and-chickpea-tagine
Moussaka www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/red_lentil_and_aubergine_33187

Bean chilli with tortilla chips, cheese, sour cream, jalapenos, salsa, guacamole etc?

A really good roasted vegetable lasagne, with lashings of cheese sauce (gruyère)? Salad on the side.

I like a 5 cheese and tomato lasagne with a rich tomato sauce - don't put a vegetable anywhere near it - serve with a green salad. I'm sure you can find interesting veggie cheeses - we always have mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan (you'll need to find the veggie version) and a couple of others depending what's at the deli counter.
A very easy recipe, that everyone loves - choose a fresh lemony type goats cheese - that's light on goat flavour - Rosary goat is good. Serve with new potatoes and salad.

What kind of thing are you cooking for the meateaters? How fancy do you want to get - the trend is not get fancy anymore - too 1970s parent's dinner party, personally I'm all for this new trend...if you want fancy eat in a restaurant!

Spanakopita with a few sides:
Cous cous salad
Flatbreads
Hummus
Tzatziki

Indian feast with daals, curries, bhajis, naan, pickles etc etc etc. The bonus with curry is it’s best made in advance and reheated.

Not fancy fancy but something that you’ve made a bit more of an effort - we would eat vegetable curry, chili etc. as a midweek meal but that said I like the idea of an Indian feast - or indeed a Greek feast (after I had googled spanakopita!)

We often do fajitas. I do a meat version in the oven, and a roasted veg tray also. Both work well in wraps with all the same trimmings - home made guacamole, salsa etc. Served with a big green salad.

Starters, goats cheese filo parcel. Google those, they’re soooo easy and gorgeous!!

Let us know how it goes

Greek feast sounds gorgeous - vine leaves, spanakopita (or feta parcels), veg moussaka etc. Mmmm.

Mezze

I would probably do tapas, or as others have suggested a Greek mezze. Or fajitas. Or a mushroom wellington. Or a Guinness and mushroom pie. Or puff pastry tartlets.

You could also look up the vegetarian menus on some fancy restaurant websites for ideas.

Cauliflower steaks are quite special looking a taste better than they sound. Something like this? realfood.tesco.com/recipes/spiced-cauliflower-steaks.html

We did aubergine pasta in the end - but in an Italian feast way, with really nice bread, a caprese salad, meats for meat eaters, artichokes, sundries tomatoes etc. I find it so much easier to put everything on the table and the people serve themselves.

Definitely going to experiment with Greek food next time

What did you do in terms of the aubergine pasta?? It sounds lovely