Vegetarian Meals for Christmas

What’s the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian Christmas? Though both diets promote a more plant-based eating, vegetarians don’t omit all animal foods or animal sourced products like eggs, honey, and dairy.

With that understood let’s dive into the Vegetarian Christmas Meal menu!

This menu has been broken down into three meals during the course of the day. Each meal has multiple accompaniments.

Breakfast:

Often referred to as the most important meal of the day, many people make sure to cram in their energy boosters into this meal. I am not a big breakfast person, so I prefer something light. However, for my readers here is very simple and quick to put together Breakfast.

French Toast Banana Nut Smoothie

Lunch:

Lunch is by far my favourite meal of the day. I usually sip my tea or coffee well past noon so lunch is my first big meal of the day. It's also when I enjoy taking my time to cook some warm comfort food without the evening rush of dinner. Some examples of Christmas lunch are a root Vegetable Tatin, a simple vegetable Pizza or some homemade Banana walnut bread.

Root vegetable tatin Banana Walnut Bread

Dinner:

Warm filling dinners during the winters are just blissful. It can sometimes be challenging cooking a new vegetarian meal for important occasions such as Christmas.

This Vegetarian Wellington is the perfect fit for this. It can serve up to 8 people.

This recipe contains Flour and assorted nuts so please make the necessary changes to substitute the ingredients.

Ingredients

• 500g butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1cm dice

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• small bunch sage, leaves finely chopped

• 2 shallots, finely chopped

• 500g closed cup mushrooms, chopped

• 3 garlic cloves, crushed

• 150ml double cream

• 200g fresh breadcrumbs

• ½ tsp ground mace

• 150g cooked chestnuts, chopped

• whole nutmeg, for grating

• 500g block puff pastry

• plain flour, to dust

• 6-8 cooked beetroot (similar sized- about 400g)

• 1 egg, beaten, to glaze

• 1 tbsp sesame seeds or poppy seeds, to decorate

Method

• STEP 1

Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Toss the squash with 1 tbsp oil, half the sage and some seasoning. Tip onto a baking tray and roast for 25 mins until tender.

• STEP 2

Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp oil in a large frying pan and fry the shallots for 10 mins until tender. Add the mushrooms and fry for 15 mins until softened, and the liquid has evaporated.

• STEP 3

Add the garlic and remaining sage to the mushrooms, fry for a minute, then add the double cream. Stir until it coats the mushrooms and no liquid remains. Fold in the breadcrumbs, mace, chestnuts and roast squash. Season everything well, adding a grating of nutmeg. Leave to cool before assembling the wellington.

• STEP 4

Roll the pastry out on a floured work surface to a 35 x 45cm rectangle. Transfer to a large parchment-lined baking sheet with one of the long lengths of the pastry facing towards you. Spoon the mushroom and squash mixture down the length of the pastry, leaving a 7cm border along the top and 1cm on both sides. Brush all the exposed pastry with beaten egg.

• STEP 5

Put the beetroots in a line down the middle of the filling – they should be touching. Fold the filling-covered, long length of the pastry over the beets, using the paper to help you. Roll up and trim the pastry with a knife when it’s overlapping by 1cm.

• STEP 6

Place the wellington seal-side down, and pinch the ends to seal. Egg wash the whole thing and use a fork or blunt cutlery knife to score the pastry in a pretty pattern. Chill until for at least 30 mins, or up to 24 hrs.

• STEP 7

Heat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Brush the wellington with more beaten egg, sprinkle with the sesame or poppy seeds and bake for 45-50 mins until golden brown and puffed up. Leave to rest for 10 mins before carving into chunky slices with a sharp knife to serve.

This is the original recipe as authored by Anna Glover.

Vegetarian Christmas Recipe provided by:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/vegetarian-wellington

Dessert

Finally, we arrive at dessert. The 'meal' my kids look forward to the most!

We try not to make our desserts too sugary or fatty. These days there are so many options to choose from. One of my favourite places to lurk when it comes to recipes is Pinterest.

These spinach tartlets are super easy to make and what I love about them is that they are already divided into portions. These keep well in the refrigerator for a few days.

Spinach Madeleine tart with cheesy pastry

So there you have it!

All your meals and then some for a lovely Christmas Day.

I hope you found the information here helpful in making your Christmas special.

I wish you guys a very happy Christmas!

Stay tuned for vegan recipes coming up in a couple of days!