All Vegetarian Recipes
There's nothing better than a homemade meal. So, when you're not eating one of ours, here are some you can make yourself:
- Our fresh recipes bring out the best in seasonal ingredients.
- Our everday recipes are money-saving and easy to prepare, but still delicious.
- Our entertaining range has a 'wow' factor.
This recipe is an attempt to keep young and old happy while the ketchup still hopefully tastes of (mainly) tomato! Although tomatoes are available all year round we find the late August/September British ones (usually our own or Granny's) make the best flavour packed, deep red ketchup.
This delicious all butter puff pastry tatin was a real staple at Café Maitreya. It is quite easy to prepare with a great wow factor on presentation. Now Spring has arrived we are serving this with a lovely fresh herb salsa verde.
Roasting the aubergine with raspberry vinegar gives a lovely tangy flavour when combined with the pickled walnuts. With the addition of olive oil, it has a silky caviar like texture and is excellent with freshly made flat bread.
This dish is lovely as a starter or a main course, served hot or cold. The classic Mediterranean flavours of charred aubergine, sweet almonds and salty feta is a great combination. Try with fresh spinach leaves and sundried tomato and chilli pesto.
It was a real dilemma which baked cheesecake to present for this recipe. The addition of cranberries and a tiny bit of saffron seemed worth the extra effort and expense if going to all the trouble of making a really good cheesecake.
This alternative cottage pie has a deep flavoured brazil nut base and a velvety layer of butternut squash. The addition of a layer of wilted spinach makes this into a special occasion recipe. This dish is gluten free.
These simple to make mini pizzas are adored by children, who may like to get involved in rolling out the pastry and adding the topping. Flakey pastry together with simple cheese and tomato, a real favourite for the whole family.
This simple to make old fashioned recipe creates a cake with a moist rich texture. We bake the cake with a good quality chocolate, the end result can be served as a dessert with honey and fresh cream. It is also excellent simply served with coffee.
The quality of this tart is dependant on organic fresh cherry tomatoes and a crisp buttery pastry. The creamy 'not eggy' texture is down to using extra thick double cream and excellent quality cheddar. Our current favourites are Barber's Cruncher and Quantock Gold.
The idea behind this fresh marinated salad is based upon the Peruvian national dish of seafood simply marinated in lemon and seasalt. By using finely shaved fennel and a little raspberry vinegar this tangy salad is perfect with creamy avocado.
These visually stunning all butter puff pastry galettes are quick and easy to prepare. By serving them with a tangy mango and avocado salsa they make a starter with a real wow factor.
Spinach is such an organic star, and available locally all year round, though particularly good in spring. Filo is a dream product for chefs and home cooks alike, and easy to get hold of and quite inexpensive. This is excellent with a baby leaf spinach salad and honey and walnut dressing.
Green tomato chutney is cheap and easy to make, with a rich tangy sweet and sour flavour. It is extremely versatile and an excellent addition to all sorts of vegetarian dishes.
With lemon and fennel dressing. Halloumi as an ingredient seems to get better and better. We are no longer dependent on Cyprian halloumi, as we have recently discovered some local West country products.
This delicious dressing is great with salty cheese's like feta and halloumi. We serve it regularly with a feta, fig and spinach filo. It's also great as a sweet, crunchy salad dressing with peppery leaves such as rocket, watercress etc.
A lemon tart is a great treat all year round. This 'wet pastry' recipe is simple to make an hour or so in advance. The rich, creamy, lemon filling is quick and easy to make. Wonderful with fresh summer berries, and equally with a rich caramel in winter.
The best Middle Eastern Hass avocados and Alfonzo mangos from India and Pakistan overlap in their seasonality for a few weeks in March. Try serving this salsa with something crispy and slightly salty, like our feta and sundried tomato galette.
This fragrant warming broth is good at all times of the year, it's relatively simple to make and always proves popular. You can use vegetable stock cubes instead of fresh stock. If you don't make the chorizo, it's delicious with good pitta slices, pistachios and chilli oil.
Nettles can add something unexpected when combined with feta cheese and raspberry vinegar. The nettles will need to be picked in advance and marinated in olive oil to completely remove the stings. This pesto is delicious with roast beetroot, fresh orange and shaved marinated fennel in particular.
This is simple to make and has a course texture and deep nutty flavour. It is delicious as a plain cake or can be seeped with the orange juice and a little sugar then warmed up and served with a tahini and orange cream.
These delicious rostis will take about 40 minutes to prepare. They are a real treat with their sweet nutty flavour, working beautifully with Emmental cheese, sauted Kale and a piquant fruit dressing.
By lightly caramelising fresh apple and pear in a little butter, sugar and honey the flavour of these staple ingredients really stands out. A really crunchy granola topping adds a wonderful texture to this British comfort dessert.
This deep flavoured savoury vegetarian treat can be served with a host of dishes or just as a pâté with pitta and olives. It's delicious in a sandwich with avocado and sorrel leaves.
It is best to make the chorizo in a narrow terrine mould or dish for nice chorizo size slices.
Cooking the porcini mushrooms down to a glaze and then combining them with a 'roast hazelnut butter' produces a pate with a huge and complex depth of flavour. It's dairy and gluten free and is a hit with vegans and hardened carnivores alike. Serve with a fruity jelly like Crab apple or Rowan.
We used many variations of this sauce at Cafe Maitreya, it doesn't involve any bones or processed stock cubes and still packs a great savoury punch. The stock can be used as a base for many vegetarian dishes, sauces and soups.
This simple fragrant tagine is designed for adults and children; it can be made in around an hour and costs around a fiver. Serve with steamy couscous or rice.
Making bubble and squeak always grabs our three year son's attention, as he associates the name with pirates!!
Adding the red onion and cheddar turns what is essentially fried mashed potato, carrots and cabbage into a worthy main dish. This is particularly delicious with green tomato chutney.
The combination of sweet roast Romano peppers, a sharp super fruity raspberry vinegar dressing and crunchy roast hazelnuts is worthy of being a meal on its own.
Rowan berries, the fruit of the mountain ash, which is common throughout Britain, are best picked in September/October. They make the most delicious tangy, orange-red jelly which is a great accompaniment for cheese, veggie sausages and is particularly good with globe artichoke.
These simple and relatively easy to make flatbreads are particularly delicious with an array of summer dips, like aubergine and pickled walnut caviar, broad bean hummus, or nettle and feta pesto. You just need a pinch of saffron for a lovely floral, aromatic flavour. A little saffron is a lot.
Figs are a wonderful thing, but are only at their very best and most affordable for a short amount of time (late september) unless you are lucky enough to live in the Mediterranean. I find that out of season figs are generally dry and bland having travelled so far.
This tangy herby dressing takes minutes to prepare, will keep for a good week and is a delicious accompaniment a great variety of vegetarian dishes.
Fennel is one of those vegetables like aubergines which seem to be reasonably good and accessible all year round. By braising with orange, stock and olive oil at a low temperature the fennel becomes succulent and tender.
These quick and easy light pancakes are a great base for many tasty vegetarian toppings. We have found they are particularly delicious with aubergine and pickled walnut caviar. You can always add a little dollop of sour cream.
With honey and cracked pepper dressing. The combination of super-fresh crisp spinach, sharp juicy strawberries and salty full flavoured feta is a marriage made in heaven. The honey and cracked pepper brings out the best of all the flavours.
Strawberry, elderflower and lemongrass cordial
This simple fresh 'punch style' dessert has all the floral sweet flavours of early summer.
The unusual fruity lemon flavour of Sumac works really well with sweet almonds and olive oil. We have found it is particularly delicious with asparagus. Simply blanch the Asparagus and toss in a pan with the Sumac pesto and extra olive oil, salt and pepper.
This paste keeps well and is very versatile. It can be used as a seasoning or as a base for sauces, and is delicious with cheese or salads. As the chillis are slow cooled you get all the flavour but the just the right amount of heat.
This deep flavour one pot tagine is a great winter warmer and relatively quick and easy to make. Its deep, floral flavour also works well in summer with peppers, aubergines and courgettes. The list of ingredients is a little daunting, don't worry if you can't find them all.
Although this appears as a chowder visually and texturally, it's a cheeky twist on a classic Spanish tapas dish. Very simply, Goat's cheese toasted over an excellent rich tomato sauce.
Try this for a burger which is bursting with nuts, seared and crispy on the outside with a flavour packed moist centre.
This rich, chocolatey sponge can also be made with gluten free bread flour instead of plain flour and 2 flax eggs. The sponge is also sugar free.
It took about 3 years to work out the secret to the texture, and its as simple as not cooking the chick peas; soak overnight, rinse carefully and add lots of aromatic seasoning, then cook from raw to order.
Learning that chick pea water has a similar protein binding effect to eggs has been a revelation. Tinned chick pea water seems to be more consistent, strong acids such as lemon juice can split the sauce, so I tend to use a quality vinegar to add zing, such as white balsamic.
These meringues are crispy and neutral flavoured just like their counterparts with eggs. Add vanilla seeds or lemon zest at the end of the process for extra punch.
Using tofu as a protein base has been a real eye opener, the texture of this cheesecake is rich, creamy and light. Everyone who has tried this one has said they do not miss the cream cheese, which alone has a pretty neutral flavour too.
This versatile, easy to make pastry is a ‘wet pastry recipe’ which is best made in a food processor. The pastry will need chilling for at least an hour before use.
This recipe makes about 15 to 20 fat sausages which can be deep fried, shallow fried, baked or grilled.
I recently made this for the family and visiting nippers and made the cardinal sin of forgetting the mash potato! One of the greatest comfort foods from the British Isles,why should vegetarians miss out! Vegetarian sausages have improved massively over the last 10 years and certainly beat some of the mass produced supermarket varieties.
Most veggie sausages contain Textured Vegetable Protein or TVP. This is not a problem, but these sausages have a more natural texture and a greater depth of flavour. This recipe can be made vegan by omitting the cheese. These sausages are best shallow fried.
The combination of white chocolate and almonds is equally great as a special dessert or a favourite treat for children. It's easy to make but that added 10% pleasure comes from a slightly caramelised base while still retaining a moist 'ganache' raw white chocolate centre.
This baked swiss roll style roulade can be re-heated and served with a good custard like a roly-poly or served as a cold dessert with a fruit compot or lemon caramel.
From mid-March until the beginning of June, many woodlands in the UK are strewn with Wild Garlic leaves and flowers. This delicious pesto is great with cheese, crusty bread and as a condiment with pastry dishes.
