The official 500 Vegan Recipes review thread (to be updated)
Breakfast
As you like it energy bars
These didn't hold together for me. Disappointing (dannibazaar)
Banana barley bars
They are wholesome, tasty, crunchy Grape Nuts cereal bars made with no oil, flour or sugar. This simple recipe combines the cereal with banana, peanut butter, agave with touches of cinnamon. The last time I made them I used half Grape Nuts cereal and half rolled oats and they came out great. The 8"x8" pan I pressed them in fit in my toaster oven. I've made these several times. Cut them into bars and stored them in a Ziploc bag in my freezer so I can just take one to work in the morning. (saskia)
Banana fritters
These are meh. An easy, quick way to use ripened bananas, but I'd prefer a healthier version. I halved it for 2 bananas, and made 5 fritters. They taste like banana, and the texture is just...ok. They are better with the maple syrup, but probably not something I'd make again. (AC)
Banana oat morning fuel
Great-tasting smoothie that is a filling and nutritious energy boost. This delicious drink is a blend of bananas, oats, peanut butter, nondairy milk, vanilla, cocoa powder and agave or maple syrup. I used organic vanilla rice milk and left out the agave/maple because my banana was super ripe and plenty sweet. The peanut butter enhances the taste of the Banana Oat Morning Fuel without being too strong. Fast and easy to make. I also like that the recipe was for made for one person. (saskia)
Banana peanut oat breakfast biscuits
Blackberry nut butter waffles
Buttermilk biscuits and gravy
Super yum! This was a nice change of pace. I added sausage crumbles because I couldn't help myself. (intheend)
Butternut drop biscuits
Carob chip waffles
Cast iron skillet frittata, four ways
Nice! A great, basic recipe and then you can add whatever you like, that's my kind of recipe. I've tried two of the variations and both of them turned out great. When I made the tofu mixture I thought it would become too dry with 1 cup of chickpea flour, but it wasn't dry at all. Once I had given it time to set (the recipe says it takes 10 minutes, I waited longer) it held together better than any other eggless frittata I've made. (eldsjal)
Chipotle sweet potato latkes
Chocolate breakfast cake
Chocolate chocolate chip pancakes
Cinna vanilla rice
Cookie crumble granola
Crunchy carob almond granola
I used cocoa since I'm not a fan of granola and really liked this. It has been the best granola I've made at home. (intheend)
Lemon currant cornmeal waffles
Macadamia yogurt granola
This was good but I have a sweet tooth and had to add 2 Tbsp of syrup to get it where I like it. I also made it with walnuts since I didn't have macadamias. (intheend)
Maple hickory tofu strips
Mexican hot mocha
Eh, nothing special. Not bad by any means, but nothing to do any extra work for. (disneyfav)
Muffin cup quiche in phyllo crust
No bake pecan brittle bars
No fail buttermilk pancakes
Not quite a fail for me, but definitely not the best. I followed the recipe (except heating skillet to really hot-I'd never do that for pancakes, they don't get done in the middle), and they were eh. The batter is not that thick, but the pancakes are too thick. They are thick, but not fluffy. Kinda dense and tough. I did get 6 smallish pancakes. Won't make this recipe again. (AC)
I tried them again and was surprised that I even liked them the first time around. It's a bummer because I wrote a review praising them but now I'd like to delete it! I made them so long ago I don't know if I made any modifications and just didn't write them down. Oh well. (intheend)
Noggy bulgur
Good, but too sweet, next time I'll use half the sugar. (disneyfav)
Peanut butter and chips granola
This did not turn out so well for me. After the first 8 minuntes of baking, I went to stir it all around and it was already burnt. I have an oven thermometer so temperature was not the problem. I tried to pick some of the middle (non-burnt) pieces out and they tasted alright. Not the greatest recipe IMHO. (icephrosty)
I made this off of the website and it did not come out. It just fell apart but it tasted ok. (monkey7)
I really liked this a lot. I didn't use any chocolate chips...I used peanuts instead...super good if you like peanuts! It's really good sprinkled on soygurt. (dannibazaar)
Peanut butter and jam granola
Peanut butter oat bars
Peanut butter pancakes
These are AWESOME. The batter came out really think but I didn't add any extra liquid because I wanted them to be dense. Great PB flavor. Two thumbs up! (icephrosty)
These didn't have a very strong taste of peanut butter and they kicked ass with some golden syrup poured on top. (intheend)
Pull apart cinnamon sticky buns
Pumpkin chocolate barley bars
Pumpkin molasses power bars
Pumpkin spice coffee
Pumpkin tofu scramble
Pumpkin yogurt smoothie
Sweet potato ginger waffles
Pretty good, they took a long time to cook in my waffle iron though. I did omit the ginger and the candied nuts to make them baby-friendly. (berryraw)
Wheat germ raisin pancakes
White chocolate raspberry granola
Whole wheat couscous bowl of comfort
Zucchini fritters
Sweet and savory muffins
Apple candy muffins
Banana muffin tops
Blueberry orange muffins
These are good, but not my favorite blueberry muffins. I taste something missing, but I don't know what it is! I needed 2 1/2 large oranges for 3/4 cup. I also had to bake about 7-8 minutes more, and they maybe could have used another minute. Pretty good recipe. (AC)
Caramel apple muffin tops
Cherry pistachio scoffins
I had such high hopes for these but unfortunately, they were just hopes. After being baked, these are extremely dry and bland. They ended up being thrown out. (intheend)
Chocolate orange marmalade muffins
Coffee toffee muffins
Double chocolate muffins
Just meh. I've had better muffins made with just applesauce as a fat replacement. (dannibazaar)
Ginger cranberry muffins
Jam filled soda rolls
These were pretty bland. They might have been better had there been something added in the dough like nuts or something. I've had many a better muffin. (dannibazaar)
Lemon poppy seed muffins
Matcha almond muffins
Peanut butter muffins
Another winner. I used chunky PB and the texture was great. DH wolfed these down in one day! I halved the recipe and then used the batter to make 4 big muffins instead of 6 regular ones. Will definitely make again! (icephrosty)
Pumpkin carob muffins
I substituted the carob for cocoa powder and chocolate chips in this recipe. I ate one warm right out of the oven and wasn't totally wowed by them, wishing I had baked the pumpkin muffins in Vegan with a Vengeance instead. But then I had one the next morning and was pleasantly surprised by the marriage of chocolate and pumpkin flavors in this moist muffin! The recipe is also low fat(only 1/4 cup oil for a dozen muffins), low salt and calls for agave instead of dry sweetener. I used part agave, part date syrup. Great muffin. (saskia)
These tasted weird. I like the taste of both pumpkin and carob individually, but together...bleck. I tried letting them sit for a day to see if the flavours would meld or something but no...still bad. (dannibazaar)
Quinoa raisin muffins
Not your traditional muffin but very, very good. This meal muffin is packed with protein and peanut buttery goodness. Tastes like a chai-spiced peanut butter cookie in muffin form. Dense, sweet, moist with touches of vanilla, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg and sweet plump raisins. Batter is thick. I scooped it evenly into muffin tins with an ice cream scooper. Muffins only rose a little. Only problem with this recipe is that I don't know why the author didn't put "peanut butter" in the title since it's the dominant ingredient. Overwhelms the quinoa. But I'm not complaining though because I just really love peanut butter. (saskia)
Savory tomato olive muffins
Speculaas muffins with chocolate ganache
Spicy chick wheat savory muffins
Zucchini poppy seed muffins
Au gratin potatoes: This was good, especially the leftovers. But there was something missing, I'm trying to figure out what... Maybe mustard to make it more cheesy? I will make it again sometime and try adding a tablespoon or so of that. And maybe also not use quite as much potatoes and fresh onion instead of powder. Still, I think it's the best vegan potato gratin recipe I've tried so far.
Granny's meatloaf: This didn't turn out well for me. It tasted pretty good, but it was all stringy inside.
Smoky pumpkin marina - This is so delicious! It sounds like an odd combination of ingredients. Pumpkin puree, tomato sauce, liquid smoke, chili powder, etc. but it all comes together nicely. Of course, it tasted even better topped with some nooch.
Zucchini white bean spread: Pretty nice. Nothing spectacular going on, but good. I liked it more the more I had of it. Don't know if I'll make it again, but I'm glad I tried it. I salted the zucchini and pressed out the water before mixing it with the beans. I also used big white beans instead of cannellini.
Baked chimichangas: So awesome! Why did I wait so long to make these? Very simple and easy and fast to make. The cheesy salsa was to die for, I think you could stuff the chimichangas with pretty much anything as long as you cover it with that sauce. I didn't have enough tofu or black beans so I added leftover zucchini white bean spread to the filling, turned out more than terrific! I will be making this a lot in the future!
Cheezy Quackers
Just so everyone knows, these are not Cheez-Its. If you love nutritional yeast like I do, then you'll like these. Making them as directed, they don't really crisp up like crackers. I had much better luck rolling them out even thinner. Then after cooking for about 12 minutes, I flipped them and cooked for another 8 minutes. They were actually crispy this way! Yay! This will be a fun recipe to play with. I want to try them with cayenne or smoked paprika next. (kristinv)
Minor rant about the index. I remembered a good review of the smoky pumpkin marinara from intheend (whom never steers me wrong) so later that night I tried to find the recipe in the index looking under "pumpkin" and "marinara" and couldn't find it. I had to get out of bed (yeah, I read cookbooks in bed) and log on here to find out what the name was and found it under "smoky". Very annoying.
Pumpkin fauxsage - I'm not too excited, not bad, but I guess I was expecting more. I don't think it was spicy enough. I forgot to turn it over halfway in the oven and the bottom was a bit crispy. I will say it was very good in the marinara below, so I guess I'm disagreeing with the writer that it's good on it's own. It makes a huge amount.
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/392007_2269793463144_1197836956_32069254_459433830_n.jpg
Smoky Pumpkin Marinara - Delicious! Thinking to combine pumpkin puree, tomato sauce and chili powder is pure genius and very unique (at least to me). It tasted very good with the fasuxsage I made above. It might have been better with a more chunky sauce like crushed or petite tomatoes instead of sauce.
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/374707_2269794063159_1197836956_32069255_1919432173_n.jpg
I know!The index thing is one of the main reasons I don't like this book-it's horrible. I've ranted about that a couple times.
I know!The index thing is one of the main reasons I don't like this book-it's horrible. I've ranted about that a couple times.
Very annoying. It's obviously a medium budget cookbook since it doesn't have a lot of pictures, but it had a budget enough to publish 500 recipes, you'd think they'd spend a little of that on a good index. If one was looking for a marinara recipe they would miss this great sauce.
So glad you liked the pumpkin marina too! There's another pumpkin cream sauce or something like that right under it that I plan on trying. I'll report back with it when I do.
The index is infuriating and has failed me so many times. I don't understand how something so simple like an index could be messed up so bad.
Pumpkin fauxsage - Tweety is right, this is VERY bland and I wouldn't make it again. It kind of has a sweetness to it so it worked welll with the sauce that I made but because of that sweetness I wouldn't bother trying to put it in another dish.
Creamy pumpkin almond sauce - This is a fantastic super thick sauce. I used unsweetened So Delicious Coconut Milk and 1/2 tsp garlic powder instead of actual garlic. I thought the addition of almond butter would be odd but it blends in and you don't even notice it. I chopped up some of the pumpkin fauxsage to throw in and it ended up being a great addition. I served this on top of pasta.
I'll have to let the index redeem itself a bit. I was looking in various indices of the books I have for something to do with chives and found this recipe that way.
lemon herb coconut tofu with udon - Borderline meh. Nothing exciting here. A+ for uniqueness as it has coconut milk, lemon, dill, basil, parsley and curry powder, along with a whopping 7 tbs. of chives and 1/2 cup of scallions which are combinations you don't see. It calls for 3 tbs of lemon juice which is too much for my tastes. I beginning to find out at this age that too much lemon in dishes isn't a good thing for me...gotta add that to my "inner voice" and take notice. I used pad thai rice noodles instead of udon.
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/382857_2287738871768_1197836956_32080838_73955361_n.jpg
Veggie enchiladas: This was very bland. The only thing that tasted anything was the enchilada sauce and I didn't even like that sauce very much. I made the mistake to not taste the refried beans before adding them, so the filling tasted pretty much nothing. For the cheese, I used a homemade block of cheddar cheese that I crumbled, and it was ok. If I made these again I think I'd use a cheese sauce instead. But this took a lot of time and effort to make and I don't think the end result would be worth it even if I made it spicier. I'll just stick to the chimichangas.
Refried beans: Needs more spices, as written it tastes just like mashed beans. But that's easy to adjust, I added 3x the spices and salt. I used home cooked beans. With more spice it was very good and it's a good, easy, basic recipe. Used it in the enchiladas.
Enchilada sauce: Didn't like it very much. Tasted too much coffee. It was okay when I mixed it with beans and cheese for a burrito filling, but I didn't like it on the enchiladas.
Warm chili con queso dip: Very good! But I added a bunch of stuff because I thought it lacked some oomph. More spices, more nooch, more miso, a tablespoon of tahini, lots of tomatillo sauce, a little ketchup and mustard and salt. Really liked how it turned out. Used it as a taco filling and it was awesome.
Veggie curry feast - This was alright but I found it kind of bland. After the cauliflower is mashed into the coconut milk it just absorbs all of the liquid so there's no extra sauce. I served it on top of rice so it was pretty dry.
Pages