Vegan Breakfast Casserole

Photo: Dave Irving

This is one of the most searched for posts on The VeganAsana, so it is always good for a repost, and we had it last night for dinner!

It’s an easy recipe, but it does take about 2 hours to cook. I  use a half-steamer disposable foil tray for cooking this, just because it is a little hard to clean out of a pan.

If you want to be extra, you can use fresh potatoes, shredded, but we like it with tater tots. We are just classy like that.

Breakfast Casserole

2 blocks firm or extra firm tofu, drained
¼ cup unsweetened soy milk
1 package of your favorite faux sausage (this time I used Lightlife)
1 package frozen hash browns or tater tots
1 medium onion, diced
Other veggies to taste: red pepper, spinach, kale, mushrooms
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cumin
2 tsp black salt
1 tsp smoked paprika
Daiya or other cheese (yesterday, I used Follow Your Heart)

Depending on the form of your fauxsage, you may want to fry it first. Most of the “patties” don’t require that.

Place tofu in food processor or blender with the soy milk. Pulse until fully broken up and liquidy. You actually *can* stop earlier if you want your tofu to be more chunky and to sit on top of the potatoes. We like ours to sink between the tater tots, but that does require additional baking time to wait on it to set up.

Fold in nutritional yeast, turmeric, cumin, and salt.

If you are using a standard baking dish, cover the bottom with parchment paper. Add veggies (except spinach/kale – that you would place in a layer on top of the tofu) to hash browns or tater tots. Add tofu mixture and spread evenly. Sprinkle on or place sausage. Cover with vegan cheese.

Cover with foil and cook at 375* for an hour. Remove foil and continue cooking until heated through and the tofu has mostly firm back up.

Remove from oven and allow to settle (covered) for 10-15 minutes before serving. Serve with hot sauce, if desired.

YUMMY!

Purple Potato and Broccoli Casserole

I have a tiny obsession with purple potatoes. They are so pretty! And they taste good (because… potato) and have more nutrients than an average white or yellow potato.

Tonight, as I looked through the fridge, I decided that I wanted to do something with the purple potatoes, the broccoli, the baby bella mushrooms, and some vegan bacon. So, I did! This recipe would be really easy to “un-vegan” if you wanted to make it for omnivores!

Ingredients

  • Olive oil
  • 1 package of vegan bacon, sliced into 1/3 inch slices (I used SweetEarth Benevolent Bacon – post not sponsored – I purchased this via Imperfect Foods – my link)
  • 1 large or 2 small onions, sliced thinly
  • 1 pint of baby bella mushrooms, sliced
  • 8-12 purple potatoes, sliced thinly
  • 1/2 to 1 cup of vegan cheese shreds (I used Follow Your Heart)
  • 2 large heads broccoli, cut with 1/2 of stem remaining on the florets – you can absolutely skip the broccoli if you aren’t feeling it!

Process

  • Drizzle some olive oil into a LARGE skillet.
  • Sauté the bacon until nice and crispy and either push to the side of the skillet (away from most of the heat) or set aside.
  • Sauté the onions in the same pan, which now has some of the bacon flavoring. Add a little more olive oil or cooking spray as needed. Allow to cook until soft and beginning to caramelize. Either push to the side by the bacon or set aside.
  • Sauté the mushrooms until cooked well and maybe even a bit crispy in parts.
  • Now put the onions, bacon, and mushrooms all in a bowl or two because it’s potato time.
  • Start your oven preheating to 375*
  • This next part is time consuming, I admit, but I think it made it better. If you want to skip this step, you probably could.
  • Put 1 layer of potato slices in the skillet and cook on each side until they brown and crisp up some. Repeat until all potatoes are done.
  • Using a 9×13 casserole pan, layer potatoes, onions, bacon, mushrooms twice. If you have people in your house who won’t eat mushrooms, like I do, you can cook them off to one side of the pan. They will still take on some bacon flavor and add a little umami to the rest of the dish. And then the mushroom lovers get all of them!
  • Add your broccoli florets on top in a layer. Spray lightly with cooking spray or olive oil.
  • Chuck the whole thing in the oven and let it cook until the broccoli is done. This may take about 30-40 minutes. I put a pan of water next to the casserole to generate a little steam and help keep the broccoli from getting too crispy.

This was voted an A+ by all members of the household, and that’s saying something! So, we’ll be doing it again.

Vegan Enchilada Casserole

FullSizeRenderIt’s just a few days after Christmas and we are finally running out of leftovers. Tonight we had a guest for dinner, so it was time to do something more than recycle (though I did make a big pan of a non-vegan item yesterday). So, with the knowledge that we had recently had Chinese, “American,” and Italian, but that a guest seemed to call for a little more than nachos, I decided on enchilada casseroles.

As we have a mixed diet family, we actually made two of these. One contained dairy cheese and other non-vegan things. But, the vegan version contained:

Ingredients

EnchiladaPie2Corn tortillas
2 cans black beans
1 zucchini – diced finely
1 onion – diced finely
2 cans Rotel tomatoes – pulsed in blender
1 tsp chili powder
1 T cumin
Sea salt
1 pack Daiya shreds

Process

Preheat oven to 375*

Mix black beans, zucchini, onion, chili powder, cumin, and sea salt. Set aside.

Spray the bottom of a casserole dish with non-stick spray. I used a 13X9 pan. Place 1 layer of tortillas in the pan, overlapping to cover the bottom. This took 6 per layer in my pan. Spoon in the bean and veggie filling in a layer to cover the tortillas. Add a healthy sprinkle of Daiya. *Apply another layer of tortillas. Spoon on a thin layer of Rotel sauce. Add another layer of beans and veggie and then soy cheese. Repeat process from * one time. For the final layer, add tortillas, tomato sauce, and Daiya only.

Spray a piece of foil with non-stick spray and cover the casserole. Cook for 30-40 minutes with foil on.

Remove foil and continue cooking until heated through and cheese is basically melted (as melted as Daiya gets) and then remove from oven.

Allow to sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Serve with sour cream, hot sauce, and avocado slices.