Delicious meals, animal products optional
September 4, 2015 1:45 PM   Subscribe

Can you recommend vegan recipes that stand on their own, with the option of adding meat /eggs/cheese?

There are three of us: a meat-eater, a flexitarian and a vegan. Two of us (not me!) love cooking and enjoyed preparing meals together before veganism happened. Now they're stuck with separate meals or strictly vegan meals, and while the carnivore is amenable (and has gone vegan for a month), they'd generally prefer a bit of meat and cheese.

It seems like most people solve the carnivore/vegan meal dilemma by finding veg/vegan dishes that the carnivore will eat. Instead, I would like to find recipes where the bulk of the meal prep is suitable for all, and meat/cheese/tofu/tempeh can be prepared on the side and added near the end. That way everyone is cooking and eating(nearly) the same meal.

We are all reasonably adventurous and willing to put some effort into the prep and cooking. We're open to preparing meals on the weekends, so time-intensive recipes are okay. We have a stove, microwave, dehydrator and two slowcookers.

Just leaving the meat out of a normal recipe often leaves the rest boring and bland. I'm open to suggestions where that's not the case.

While just having a big vegan dish (or two) and a separate meat dish is certainly an option, it misses the mark for two reasons:
  • The vegan can sometimes feel like they're being deprived or cobbling together side dishes instead of having a real meal.
  • It loses the fun "cooking meals and eating together!" aspect.
Snowflakey Details:
  • They prefer tofu that's at least lightly fried or marinated and processed. While I love dishes like mapo tofu, they can't stand the texture.
  • We prefer somewhat bold flavors. The delicate flavor of quinoa shouldn't have to carry a dish.
  • The vegan could use more protein.
  • The carnivore should technically be on a low-FODMAP diet. They're sensitive to: beans, broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, onion and soft cheeses. I'd love recipes that use only moderate amounts of these. So some broccoli in a stir-fry is probably fine, but a beans, rice, onions and garlic dish probably isn't.

Do recipes like this exist? Are there books or sites or search terms that would be helpful? I'm open to older MeFi threads as well; I just couldn't find anything besides "carnivore-friendly vegan dishes"

Thanks!
posted by cost-cutting measures to Food & Drink (13 answers total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Chicken / tofu fried rice, if you leave out the egg (and even that could be added in later). There are many recipes available.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:52 PM on September 4, 2015


Best answer: This Thai red curry coconut soup-stew thing that I've mentioned before is really flexible in terms of what goes in it/gets left out. Very tasty.
posted by rtha at 2:09 PM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Best answer: I love making ratatouille and i think you can adjust it to fit what you need. You'll need vegetables like zucchini, squash, eggplant, and whatever other vegetables you like. Cook all the vegetables separately in olive oil, about half done. Then bake them together with chopped tomatoes/tomato sauce in a dutch oven. I eat meat so I like to add some ground turkey, which is also cooked ahead of time, so could be added in separately later. I also like to crack an egg on top a few minutes before it's done. Trick is adding a lot of herbs throughout the process and seasoning the vegetables separately. I don't use a recipe, but if you read a few different ones I think you'll get the idea. Even better as leftovers!
posted by monologish at 2:09 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Any sort of pasta-based dish might work...

-Like spaghetti, gnocchi or lasagna with red sauce where you can add cheese on top of yours and serve it with a side of a meatball or something, and the vegan can add fake cheese or tofu?

-Pad thai -- cook up the noodles with the peanut sauce and veggies. You add chicken or shrimp, they add tofu.

-Pasta primavera - noodles cooked in oil with sun-dried tomato, mushrooms, spinach, and any other veggies you like. You add chicken and cheese. The other person adds tofu and/or fake cheese.

You could consider the same item prepared differently. Like you have chicken parmigiana and they have eggplant parmigiana. It's base ingredients are the same and you're eating the same meal together. It would help if the vegan wouldn't be opposed to their food sharing the same baking dish as the meat, but you could put two separate ones in the oven.

Another one would be burritos, where yours has meat and theirs has all the beans, veggies, etc. but not the meat or cheese.
posted by AppleTurnover at 2:12 PM on September 4, 2015


Best answer: I eat everything and regularly prepare food for groups that include vegans and vegetarians, as well as people who feel like meatless meals are lacking.

Things that work well for us include:
- making separate pasta sauces and freezing for later (bolognese for the meat eaters; marinara for the veggies)
- pasta salads/quinoa salads/similar, setting aside the vegan portion before adding any eggs or tuna fish or anything like that
- DIY salads -- set out a bunch of toppings, let people choose
- taco/burrito night -- people can put in their own fillings
- ditto pizza night
- curries or soups where the meat portion and tofu/tempeh portions are prepared separately, then divide the base into two pots and add the meat to simmer in the sauce
posted by linettasky at 2:14 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Caponata is vegan, easy, and delicious.
posted by neushoorn at 2:18 PM on September 4, 2015


Slow cooker Aush (Afghan chili) is very good. We made it with TVP instead of ground meat, but the meat can be easily prepared on the side and used as a topping (the cream garnish is totally optional and doesn't add much. FODMAP-wise, I totally forgot the garlic when I made it and it was fine, and I'm sure the same could be said for the onion).
posted by everybody had matching towels at 2:39 PM on September 4, 2015


Best answer: I'm the vegan in a vegan/omnivoire relationship. We also love cooking, and we also like to eat (mostly) the same thing when we're cooking at home.
These are (just off the top of my head) some meals that we return to again and again, sometimes with a meat option, sometimes without:
- This pasta recipe from the Veganomicon is delicious, and the spicy tempeh (which works like a faux-Italian sausage in the dish) could easily be substituted for a real Italian sausage for the meat-eaters. We always add lots and lots of mushrooms, and often serve it over spinach instead of pasta
- Stir-frys are great and endlessly customizable, super easy to add meat to the base dish
- Risottos (made with veg or mushroom stock instead of chicken) are great because there are so many variations on a theme to try, and the cheese step happens at the end and can therefore be skipped for the vegans (with apologies to risotto purists out there)
- Hearty salads are always easy to modify to add meat or cheese.
posted by Dorinda at 2:39 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Charlie Bird's Farro Salad recipe is a masterpiece.

Omit the Parm to make it vegan, it stands just fine without it.
posted by gyusan at 3:16 PM on September 4, 2015


I've been making a lot of stir fry with Berbere seasoning-- it is hot! so a little goes a long way. I stir fry vegetables, add powdered peanut butter (regular PB would be fine) and the seasoning and serve it with either crispy noodles or chopped cashews. My husband requests this every week.

In the stir fry: chicken, bell peppers, onion, broccoli, baby corn, jalapenos.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:44 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I came in to recommend ratatouille, and then I thought of smittenkitchen's version, and then I thought: that is a blog you can use for inspiration. She has tons of vegan/vegetarian recipes, though the family is omnivore.
I could imagine that shakshuka would be a great dish for your purposes: at the end, the vegan puts tofu in, instead of eggs and feta. This is a delicious meal without the onion, too. I know, because I always forget the onion.
Once, I had my vegan friend and his daughter over for dinner every two weeks. We had minestrone or green lentil stew, in both cases with bacon and cheese on the side for the kids to spoon over the soup/stew.
For weekends, look at meze recipes. The leftovers from a meze are great for lunches and snacks during the week.
posted by mumimor at 10:57 PM on September 4, 2015


rice based stuff, like majadra and vegetable fried rice. Both would easily accept an addition of stir fried meat or, my favorite, a topping of a fried egg.
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:30 AM on September 5, 2015


We do lots of burritos/fajitas. Sauté up a mess of vegetables with seasonings, slice up a ton of avocados, get/make some salsa and tortilla chips if you want. Deploy tortillas. The vegan and flexitarian add lots of seasoned beans (since your carnivore doesn't like them...we add cumin and garlic, and make them into kind of a soupy thing), flexitarian and carnivore add cheese, sour cream, and meat.
posted by charmedimsure at 2:37 PM on September 5, 2015


« Older What can I do to help my tree which has mud and...   |   Pleasant Tomato? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.