Thanksgiving is the ultimate potluck. Bring in the fam, everyone brings a dish or ten and you set in for the long haul on the twenty-course meal with more sides than you even knew existed. Being a vegan or vegetarian is feast or famine at a family gathering. You are constantly battling chicken broth in a lovely array of veg dishes. So if you haven’t yet trained your family on the perils of cream of chicken soup in the green bean casserole, head over to VeganGR for the top veganized comfort food recipes you can sneak into an omnivore gathering. Kolene and Jon have tried and tested nearly every recipe you can imagine and have settled down with these versions of comfort food, good even for your dad who thinks steak is a food group: VeganGR Thanksgiving Guide.
This weekend I got a little anxious for potatoes and gravy, so I tossed a Vegan Field Roast “Meat” Loaf slathered in BBQ sauce into the oven and served the Easy Mushroom Gravy over baked potatoes as the side. If you think that gravy needs animal fat to be delicious or that cooking the gravy with the threat of “breaking” of the gravy is part of the “art” of Thanksgiving, get out of town because this is the best gravy, meat-filled or otherwise you will put into your mouth. I dare you to swap it out for the main gravy at your holiday gathering…no one will notice a thing.
What little veg secret will you unleash at your holiday gathering? I’d love to hear about it. Make just 1 swap and tell me all about it.
Ingredients:
1 medium sized onion, roughly diced
8 oz cremini (baby bella) mushrooms roughly chopped
4 oz shiitake mushrooms, sliced (pictured is double cremini, no shiitake mushrooms at the grocery store last night)
1 T olive oil
¼ c canola oil
½ c all-purpose flour
2 cups good vegetable broth (I used Rapunzel broth powder)
1 t garlic powder (I subbed a Tablespoon of fresh garlic)
½ t thyme (dried)
½ t sage (I subbed 2 teaspoons of fresh sage for dried)
salt/pepper to taste
Directions:
- Sauté onion and cremini mushrooms in saucepan along with the canola oil and a pinch of salt. Cook down until onions are translucent and the mushrooms have lost their moisture.
- Add flour and stir until everything is covered and combined. You want no more white flour to be visible, and all the veggies covered in a thick paste. Let cook for a minute or so.
- Add vegetable broth and stir. Bring back up to a boil and allow mixture to thicken. Once thickened, turn off heat and allow to cool for a few minutes.
- While that’s cooling, add olive oil to a small frying pan on medium heat. Sauté shiitakes until they’re lightly browned. Remove from heat.
- Take thickened sauce to a blender. Add in the thyme and sage, and process on high until smooth. Return to sauce pan, and turn heat back on.
- Once hot, add shiitakes to gravy.
- Serve + Revel in your plant-based trickery.
Veg Bon Vivant 