Easy, delicious, vegan recipes that are a dream to make and eat.
Quick and easy lunch
To thrive on a plant based diet, eat well and feel satisfied, especially if we have busy lives, we need to be able to make delicious, vegan meals quickly and easily and that means having ingredients and recipes at the ready.
Today I made fast and easy vegetable fritters with a herby sauce.
This recipe sounds very simple – it IS very simple – and it’s flavours and textures are as complicated as we need them to be so we feel we have eaten well.
It is a great option if you want something super healthy, light weight and quick without feeling deprived in any way.
Think along the lines of latkes but without the eggs and smoky kitchen.
How many Christmas eves we spent gathered around the kitchen fire eating latkes with smoke floating around our heads?! A lot, and they were fun.
The fritter is made of grated vegetables. You can use whatever you have in your fridge, I used 2 courgettes, a carrot, a red chilli and a sliced onion plus some chickpea flour and water. Seasoned with a little salt and some cumin.
I’ve previously made with cabbage, carrots, peppers and onion plus green onion tops and I have used sweet potatoes, sweet corn and I can’t remember what else, its so flexible it doesn’t matter, you really can use anything.
I’ve served them with various sauces for a example a sauce of sriratcha and mayonnaise with tomatoe ketchup (the super-healthy, raw, homemade one and at other times the bought stuff 😉 when leaning towards an Okonomiyaki pancake and we almost always have some crispy leaves by the side.
Today we have fresh, peppery rocket leaves.
So, the whole thing, without cooking time took 15 minutes tops. Then 15 minutes cooking… and then 10 minutes eating. I am actually eating them as I am writing this and trying not to get sauce on the keys.
To keep on track with a healthy recipe make sure you have an arsenal of easy delicious vegan recipes. When we are doing our retreats I keep a list of two to three times the number of starters, main courses and desserts I will need so that I always have inspiration.
There are some images of meals I have made for guests here http://desriskitchen.com/ and an example of a day’s meals here https://haven-on-earth.com/residential-retreats/.
As you can see there are so many variations and so many possible combinations of fruit, vegetables, seeds and nuts but we all need to be prepared, me too, otherwise we end up with something bland and unbalanced, a bunch of bananas or something we maybe regret (throw that pizza delivery menu away;) Though we aren’t puritanical all the time I promise you!
I grated everything except the onion and chilli which I sliced finely and mixed with 3 TBS chickpea flour, a pinch of salt and a few good grinds of pepper. If you need some water add just enought to pull it all together. My courgettes were very fresh and juicy so I only needed a drop.
The mix then sat and absorbed to bind while I made the sauce and the air fryer heated up. I’ve previously left the mix overnight in the fridge, which does make the fritters a bit firmer.
I’ve also grated, mixed and cooked immediately before now and it was just fine, so no need to wait if you can’t. They are not so firm but still very good.
Todays sauce is based on chimichurri or salsa verde but without the anchovies (I am not sure anyone would know they aren’t in there!).
I used about 8 blood sorrel leaves, hence the less than vibrant colour, and about 8 large stems of flat leaf parsley, a garlic onion (like a spring onion but garlicky or three cornered leek), half an avocado, about 15 salted capers which I had rinsed, the juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper.
It was blended until smoothish and then I added ½ tsp maple syrup to balance out the bitterness of the sorrel and about 1 TBS olive oil to make it more silky.
I blended again and hey presto, delicious!
You can bake or fry the fritters, I air fried mine at 200° – the air fryer is my newest addition to the kitchen and one I really do wonder why I resisted for so long, I LOVE IT and there’s no smoke or frying oil. I just spritz the tray with avocado oil to prevent sticking.
Serve with the sauce to dip into, or pop some on top.
These would be lovely made smaller as part of l’apéros with some other easy, delicious, vegan recipes!
Options if not vegan:
Add a splash of Worcestershire sauce
Use an egg to bind
Crumble in some feta or parmesan
Learn MoreQuick, tasty and bursting with energy.
Here are a couple of recipes for you. Easy to make. Quick. Very good and won’t give you that saggy feeling after eating it AND you will feel as though you have eaten!
I didn’t actually weigh or measure anything, just threw it all in. You can do the same or follow my measuements. When I need something to eat fast or have other things to do rather than enjoy the food prep I like to throw it all together, no fuss. I used what I had, there are substitution suggestions at the bottom of the post so that you can use what you have.
Falafel.
6 soaked sundried tomatoes chopped small – I didn’t wait for these to soak (I hadn’t planned to make this, if I had I would have soaked them an hour or two earlier). I put them in a cup of warm water when I started then used them as soon as I need them.
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds ground in blender or food processor or with elbow grease with a pestal and mortar.
1/4 cup pistachio nuts ground in blender or food processor or with elbow grease with a pestal and mortar.
1/4 cup hemp seeds
1 hand full of basil, parsley and coriander chopped
1 TBS chia seeds
Juice half a big lemon
1 TBS olive oil
1 TBS tomatoe soak water
1 tsp dried herb de provence
1 tsp ground cumin
Several grinds of black pepper
Good pinch of Himalayan or other mineral rich salt
Mix it all together and roll into balls.
At this point you could serve with the sauce or store in the fridge till later or dehydrate for a few hours and serve warm.
Tahini sauce.
1/2 cup Tahini
Zest of half a lemon
Juice of one lemon
3 cloves black fermented garlic
1 Umboshi plum, stone removed
1/2 cup warm water (or more if you want it runnier, wait until it is blended up to decide)
Dash Braggs
Blend it all up. If you do not have a high speed blender chop the garlic and plum finely or squidge through a garlic press then whisk it all up. Add more water if needed.
To serve
Plate with salald leaves, any salad ingredients you like, drizzle with the sauce, scatter with sesame seeds and nasturtium flowers – or any flowers or fresh herbs, make it pretty!
If you want to stuff it all in a pitta bread or a wrap. Wholemeal is best.
Substitutions
Braggs – pinch salt/ tamari/ soya sauce
Umboshi plum – Dash Umboshi vinigar or leave out.
Black garlic – one clove fresh, remove central shoot
Herbs de provence – Italian herbs, dried oregano
Pumpkin seeds – sunflower seeds
Pistachio nuts – wallnuts/ almonds/ pecans/ mix of all or any of these nuts/ more seeds for nutfree version
Hemp seeds – replace with any of the seeds or nuts
Sundried tomatoes – half a fresh tomatoes and 6 chopped black olives.
Fresh herbs – use any mix of the herbs I used, even just one.
Bon appetit!
Learn More
Packed lunch for Aimee!
A handful of hundreds.
My lovely daughter asked for some tips for easy, tasty, fast and cheap packed lunches.
Tired of the, and by the, sandwiches, wraps, even more supposedly healthy options available within easy reach of where she works in Paris she needed to get back on top of this.
Everyone needs to enjoy a meal and function on all cylinders afterwards at lunch time no matter what we do. Lighter, brighter, cleaner food helps lift our mood rather than lower it (foods can do both), give us energy, keep us fresh and physically and mental bright and vibrant.
Even the best of us need motivation sometimes, she is a very healthy eater, amazing cook, experimental and enjoys the best of France too (think of those divine cheese stands at the market, the freshest fish, I won’t go on) so she came a-calling on Momma. Who, by the way, also goes to her and literally hundreds of recipe books both cooked and raw for inspiration.
First, of course I mentioned green smoothies, my go to lunch at least 4 out of 7 days a week but she wanted something ‘to eat!’ so I suggest making some wraps of sliced or even pulsed which is faster (unless you have a mandolin – which I have but dare not use, it looks lethal!) vegetables. Carrots, mushrooms, spring or red onion, radishes, avocado, whatever you have and like, even some cauliflower or broccoli.
Mix it all up with a few herbs if you have them, maybe a good sprinkle of ready to eat sea salad, a drop of olive oil or sesame oil would give a more oriental flavour and some balsamic or a drop of tamari or soy sauce some good combinations to mix in small quantities OR to put in a mini sealed pot to dip into:
- olive oil – balsamic – basil – salt n pepper
- sesame oil – soy sauce/tamari/ liquid amos (I use the coconut version with no soy) – splash of maple – pepper
- Teriyaki sauce (I use the coconut version, because it has no soy)
- a blended avocado, drop of cider vinegar, pinch salt, italian herbs or chopped chives
- juice of one orange, splash of soy sauce/tamari/ liquid amos (I use the coconut version with no soy), dash of olive oil, sprinkle of sea salad. I think this is one of my favourite dressings for salad too, I put lots on and happily drink what is left out of my bowl, if we don’t have visitors of course.
- blended plums (3 or 4), a sprinkle cider vinegar, chilli depending on taste and heat, tbsp olive oil, onion – match quantity to size of one plum, a small chunk of fresh ginger, a date or two and, depending on meetings, a clove of garlic.
You could make a raw wrapper, use a wholewheat pitta bread, corn tortilla or a great and light one is a rice wrapper that they sell for spring rolls.
As with all my recipes adjust to suit you. I am not a chef, I throw things together and make them work (and occasionally they don’t) and I have been doing this for many, many years so know what we like and work more on instinct – even when following a cooked recipe, it has to be said, much to Aimee’s dismay. And Robins on occasion, as you can see here .