Gluten and Dairy Free meal ideas for Christmas visitors

[HappyAsASandboy]

I will have several days of feeding 11 people over Christmas, including one Gluten & Dairy Free 11 year old. I am comfortable cooking for this number of people as have hosted them before, and I'm good with GF variations of my staple foods, but the addition of Dairy Free this year has me a bit worried about what I'll cook.

Christmas dinner should be fine, but my other winter staples are things like lasagne, beef casserole with mash/crusty bread, sausages with mash, baked potatoes with cheese/beans/tuna, pancakes with bacon.

Does mash still taste good with an alternative milk and butter? Which milk and butter?

Is there a reasonable dairy free cheese for lasagne, jacket potatoes etc?

Any amazing meals to try that are GF and DF and would feed fairly bland eaters ranging from 3 years to 80 years?!

I have mash with oat milk and a vegan butter and it tastes good. A lot of vegan cheeses absolutely stink but I really like the vegan cheese from Aldi, doesn’t stink and tastes creamy

I am quite a fan of pourable oat cream (small black carton made by an oatmilk manufacturer, usually in the fridges). Tastes good in cookery, I've made things like cream of various soups using it, and it also is much less likely to split (unless you use other things alongside it that could increase this happening). It should make a nice mash.

Look up a dish called briam as a recipe. The 11 year old would need to like veg, but whenever I have made it to feed lots of people it has been gorgeous. Can also be had cold, if it gets that far. Not bubble and squeak, not ratatouille, not quite a bake... could be had with meats and pickles or all sorts, really.

I've just made a g-f & dairy free macaroni cheese with ingredients from Asda. It's good with green beans and roasted tomatoes.

It keeps for ages in the fridge or you can freeze it. (If you're freezing and reheating, cook the pasta quite dente.)

Have fun at Christmas. Sounds ... hectic.

I'm dairy free & use Flora original in mash.

My favourite vegan cheese is the Cathedral city block.

I make lasagne dairy free, using flora & sweetened soya milk to make the white sauce & cathedral city crumbled on top & then some breadcrumbs.

Swedish Glace is a good dairy free ice cream brand & Tescos do a squirty cream in the fridge section that is great for adding to puddings etc.

Brilliant suggestions, thank you! I'm taking notes.

I make Yorkshire puddings with GF flour. Do they work with GF flour and dairy free milk?!

Why are they diary free? I have IBS and oil, as well as diary, are trigger foods. This means I can’t have the plant based flora. A hot pot or casserole with potatoes cooked within the dish would work for me instead of serving mash

They're dairy free as they're excluding all dairy before trying the milk ladder (again).

Lots of foods can be dairy free and gluten free.

I am dairy free and a member of my family is coeliac.

Ideas:

Rice is gluten free so any kind of risotto - chestnut and chestnut mushroom risotto is a nice winter one.

Casserole - sausage and bean casserole is nice and you can get gluten free bread to go with it.

This can also go on jacket potatoes.

Roasted veg lasagna is good - you can get gluten free lasagna sheets and soy milk and butter are fine for the sauce.

Some of the vegan cheeses can cause problems if the intolerance/allergy is not just lactose but also milk protein.
Some of them melt better than others as well'

Corn flour is the best ( it is GF) and use any milk alternative 😊

Becky excell is ace for help, has really good blog full of recipes
Www.glutenfreecuppatea.com
She's also very active on Social media

I am Gluten intolerant and now make most of the dishes I used to. I do meatballs and meatloaf with GF breadcrumbs from GF bread, bolognaise with GF pasta, bread and salad (you could do that instead of lasagne), the GF person can just have spag bol and salad. Chilli and rice or jacket potatoes, a chicken dish with potatoes and roasted veg, a sausage casserole made with GF sausages many ordinary sausages are GF (just double check), a stew but would need to toss beef in GF flour if recipe requires it. Just don’t cook with ordinary soy sauce or teriyaki sauce as most aren’t suitable but many stock cubes are ok.

BBC GoodFood usually have good recipes. I have just googled this for you but yiu could try searching for Gluten Free and Dairy Free https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/gluten-free-dinner-recipes

If eggs are ok, they can be used as a substitute to milk and butter in mashed potatoes. I did mine by mashing the potatoes first and then whisked in the eggs afterwards. You need to do it as if you're making a carbonara. Gf and DF pancakes tesco do a gf Yorkshire pudding/pancake mix and it does say on the package to use a DF alternative. I used normal milk so I'm not sure how they would turn out. The other way I made them was using cornflour. They came out really well

Try olive oil mash instead of butter and milk, it's delicious!

Do you use a potato ricer to make your mash? If not, a ricer would make a huge difference to how smooth and creamy the mash is.

Here are some ideas op

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/gluten-and-dairy-free-recipes

I cannot recommend Elmlea Plant enough as a cream substitute- it behaves just like cream and tastes good and is quite 'neutral' -ive found some soya/coconut based alternatives have a distinctive taste.
I use it for all sweet or savoury, common ones are-
carbonara,
In mash,
chocolate mousse,
gratin dauphinoise (using vegan parmesan)
Stroganoff (easy to serve with rice)
On pavlova (meringue is an easy gluten free pud)
In risotto
Etc.

Violife cream cheese works well as the white sauce in a lasagna

Jacket potatoes and omelettes with chips are common easy meals here, also chilli and rice

Oh I forgot- fish pie is good too!
And Jus-roll gluten free puff pastry - dairy free too and you wouldn't guess it wasn't standard.

Becky excell has excellent gluten free cookbooks which show adjustments for other needs including dairy free

Thank you for all the suggestions! Keep them coming please!

In general Asian cuisines are both dairy free and gluten free - so anything Indian or Chinese

Also - pad Thai with rice noodles
Sweet and sour stir fry with either noodles or rice
Lentil dhal with salad and a hummus dressing
Butternut squash stuffed with lentil, walnut and cranberry stuffing with roasties and veg
Roasted peppers stuffed with small potatoes tossed in vegan pesto
Roasted cauliflower curry
Chicken and olive tagine with rice
(Going morroccan now - they use a lot of couscous which does have gluten in it but it can easily be replaced by rice)

My son is milk free, we tend to use naturally milk free recipes rather than substitutes.

Things like
Curry
Sausage casserole
Chicken noodle soup
Bolognese
Chilli (veg and meat)
Stir fry
Risotto

I would ask what they do re dairy free alternatives (yoghurt, cheese etc), I was milk free for 2 years and just didn't eat any cheese as I didn't like it.

Also check packets for everything, e.g some stock cubes are ok, some have milk in. I have seen pickled onions containing milk on ingredients list before!

I cook gluten and dairy free all the time

I use either napolina or barilla gluten free pasta for spaghetti/linguini/penne for spag bol, spicy sausage/ tomato ragu type pasta

I make roast chicken/ beef etc with gf and df yorkshire puddings (use the becky excell recipe), roast potatoes, gravy, roast veg etc.

Beef stew with roast potatoes or with a pie topping using jus rol gluten free pastry (its dairy free too)

A lovely curry with rice and poppadoms

Gammon, egg and chips

Chili con carne and rice

Hotpot

Sausage casserole

Lasagne etc - it's possible to get gluten free and dairy free jarred white sauces if you can't be arsed making the sauce. Gluten free lasagne sheets are available own brand in all the supermarkets

Fried chicken and chips (again look at becky excell for a gluten free KFC recipe)

Spare ribs and potatoes wedges (I get the ribs from the butcher and make my own sauce with honey, ketchup, salt, Chinese 5 spice and orange juice - and sweet chilli if I want them a bit spicier). Morrisons are also doing gluten free 'Asian party food' in the freezer which would go nicely.

Gluten free homemade scotch eggs

TBH I'd speak to the child's parents about them bringing the dairy-free parts of the child's meals. You're doing a lot catering for 11, including gluten free, without being expected to provide dairy-free as well. If for some reason you don't want to do that then ask them for suggestions and recipes (and help when they get there).

Slow cooker rice pudding with rice milk is v good. Lemon zest is lovely. Once cooked, stir through a couple of egg yolks, whisk the whites until stiff and fold through. Pour into a nice dish and cook in a bain marie for half an hour until golden and puffed.

With mash, chicken fat left over from a roast gives a lovely flavour instead of butter, or ham fat and juices melted down.

If doing lasagna, could you reserve a portion of meat sauce to do as a spag Bol or individual lasagna using GF pasta (shapes or sheets) and an alternative white sauce (or even just layering meat sauce and pasta sheets).

For stew and mash dinners, will you have the oven on for stew anyway, could you throw in some baked potatoes as well? (Maybe enough for more than that night as some others may take that option and it would be easy to use leftovers for another night).

Get GF part baked bread for crusty bread nights. (I'm pretty sure I've seen that - but I don't swear I have). Or might there be frozen GF bread rolls in supermarket?

Actually, I just noticed someone mentioned cornflour - our white sauce has always been made based on cornflour (so the flour never needs to be "cooked out" before adding milk). I'm sure oat milk would work to make a sauce - so maybe try that out beforehand? Using df spread suitable for cooking.

Flora block plant butter or flora buttery are great dairy free butters. Soya or Oat milk is a good substitute for mash. I also add nutritional yeast to my mash which gives it a slight cheesy flavour. You can also get plantbased elmlea double cream which could be a nice treat since it's Xmas.

For my lasagne white sauce I use flora, flour (GF or cornflour in your case) and soya or oat milk. I then add mustard, nutritional yeast, salt and pepper. Best vegan cheese in my opinion in the cathedral city one.

If you're really stuck Kirsty's does a range of GF and dairy free pre-made food. I've seen lasagne, pizza and different cakes. I'm sure they do more.