Yummy Vegan Thanksgiving

This was the first year I attempted vegan Thanksgiving. Stuffing is my favorite food and Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite meal, always has been. My mom made Thanksgiving the same as my grandmother did as I eventually learned to. The menu never changed, and those are the tastes I dream about for 364 days a year. It isn’t fancy or gourmet, but it tastes so dang good!

I was absolutely not willing to compromise on my favorite flavors, sans turkey. Okay, here’s the traditional menu:

• Turkey
• Stuffing (cooked in the bird)
• Mashed Potatoes with Gravy
• Green Bean Casserole – yep, traditional made with cream of mushroom soup
• Cranberry Sauce
• Sweet Pickles & Olives (black & green)
• Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows
• Bread/Rolls

The dish I was most worried about recreating was the green bean casserole because I would have to recreate the cream of mushroom soup. Also, it is my husband’s favorite.

Let’s be honest, this is not a healthy meal. It isn’t fresh. It isn’t veggie laden. The only thing it is is kind to animals. It will still put you in a food coma just like Thanksgiving should. Once the leftovers are gone, you can go back to eating big salads and brown rice.

This year is was just me and Phillip.

Here’s our final vegan Thanksgiving table:

And by dish with all the swap outs:

Turkey: We went without a main dish this year. We’ve done a tofurkey and field roast in the past, but it is enough food without it.

Stuffing: I use a boxed stuffing mix with sautéed onions, celery & canned mushrooms. My grandma used to add the giblets to the stuffing and the canned mushrooms mimic that. For the liquid, I use two cups of a combination of veggie stock and wine, 3 to 1. I also add in the full amount of earth balance buttery spread. The earth balance and liquid keeps the stuffing moist as if it were cooked in a turkey. I cook it with tinfoil over the casserole dish the whole time for the same moistness. If you like yours crunchy, you can take the foil off 15 minutes before the stuffing is done.

Mashed Potatoes: This is an easy one. My mashers are made of all russet potatoes. For creaminess I use earth balance buttery spread, soy milk and a scoop of tofutti vegan “sour cream.” Season with salt and pepper and mash away.

 

Gravy: I usually make a mushroom gravy, but since we had mushroom in the stuffing and green bean casserole, I made this one veggie only. I start by sauteing shallot with garlic. To that I added earth balance and flour to make a roux. Add in veggie stock and a splash of wine and whisk until you have the gravy consistency you desire. To flavor it, I used: mustard powder, a splash of soy sauce, some nutritional yeast, sage, thyme, seasoned salt and pepper. To finish it, I added a couple of tablespoons of soy milk for luxury.

Green Bean Casserole: I started by making the “cream of mushroom soup.” I sautéed mushrooms with garlic, shallot and thyme. As with the gravy once things were cooked, I made a earth balance and flour roux. This time I added in mostly soy milk with a bit of veggie stock to make it creamy. I heavily seasoned with salt, pepper and a touch of mustard power. This got mixed with drained and rinsed canned French string beans and some really bad for you canned French fried onions. I bought a fancier brand that had lower sodium than French’s.  Phillip said he couldn’t tell the difference from the original.

The rest is fairly self explanatory or already vegan. I did decide not to do the marshmallowed canned yams this year. Phillip isn’t a fan of the dish so I was going to be the only one eating it. I decided to roast acorn squash instead. The squash was okay with dinner. We each only had a small slice since I tend to overload on stuffing. It was great a few days later reheated and chopped up over salad greens with almonds, raisins and an apple cider vinaigrette.

We finished the evening with pumpkin smoothies instead of pie. I know that there are lots of vegan pumpkin pie recipes out there, but it seemed way easier to throw all the pumpkin pie flavors in the blender and slurp it down instead of dealing with a crust and baking…especially after cooking all afternoon. The smoothies were s.i.m.p.l.e. Pumpkin puree + pumpkin pie spice + sweetener (I used agave) + silken tofu for creaminess. They were delicious and did not overdo the fullness.

Eating vegan at home is easy, even at Thanksgiving. It is all about swapping and making some things from scratch. The payoff is a meal you can feel proud of because it is delicious and kind.

What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish? And how do you make it to fit your diet?