by The US Thanksgiving Holiday traditionally centers around giving thanks. Thanks for friends and family. Thanks for a good year. Thanks for a good life. For many US families, a center piece of this thanks is a large feast, with turkey as the main protein. Is it Vegan? Not the turkey, that’s for sure. But everything else? Well surely, it can be vegan! As long as you can dream up a feast and share the day with good people…you’ve got yourself a vegan Thanksgiving!
The bounty of the Thanksgiving Day meal can be truly amazing. We love a mix of tried & true favorites along with adding one or two new dishes to the mix. We always use a selection of trusted recipes and a heck of a lot of improvisation to get a meal going around here.
We thought it might be helpful to include a recipe round-up that includes lots of amazing food writers that will hopefully help you make this year’s feast a vegan one to to remember. We’ve also included some basic ideas for dishes, as opposed to traditional recipes (since improvisation makes the holiday even more fun).
Here are some great recipes to make your Thanksgiving meal fabulous AND vegan friendly.
- Stuffed Seitan Roast -  or improvise… by making the Smoky Seitan Roast in Vegan Diner
(one of our all time favorite recipe books). Then roll out your seitan dough, cover with a vegan stuffing, roll up and steam until cooked. Let cool and slice with gravy.
- Isa Chandra’s Chickpea Cutlets
- Braised Tempeh Wellington with mushrooms
- Lentil Walnut Apple Loaf (YUM!)
- Vegetable Pot Pie
- Butternut & Mushroom Tart
- Gravy - Mushroom and Red Wine, Lower Fat Chickpea GravyHere’s where it gets fun…because vegetable are inherently vegan. There are so many ways to prepare them and veganize your favorite side dish that you  shouldn’t have to forgo anything…even green bean casserole. (author’s bias…YUK!)
- Potatoes -Â Three Variations on Mashed Potatoes
- Cauliflower – Roasted, Or 399 Other Ways (many of which are vegan or easily made so)
- Mushrooms – Serve Mushrooms Berkley as an appetizer with some crusty bread.
- Green Beans
- Brussel Sprouts – Shaved Raw Salad, Lemon Roasted (sub vegan butter),
- Kale – The Best Raw Salad, Sauteed, Creamed, Celery, Date and Apple Salad
- Sweet Potatoes – try Traditional Mashed,  Roasted (sub for vegan margarine), Casserole
- Squash –Â Butternut Puree, Roasted, Warm SaladÂ
- Acorn Squash – Stuff or slice and coat with salt, allspice and olive oil, then bake at 400 until done.
- Carrots – Rosemary Roasted
- Cranberry: Make it yourself with orange. Or  add lime and chipotle or maple or seriously…just open a can. Because many canned cranberry sauces are vegan.
- Sautéed Red Cabbage with tart apple
- Caramelized Beets
- Corn Bread
- Quinoa
- Stuffing: Here’s what I’ve learned stuffing comes in all shapes and sizes and it doesn’t have to look pretty. Generally, you start with a small chop of fragrant veggies and maybe an apple. Add a savory element (diced seating or to tofurkey sausage), add complementary seasoning, vegetable broth, and a starch (stale bread, cornbread or wild rice.) Let this simmer together and bake in a dish or stuff it into a seitan roast, an eggplant or a portabella mushroom.
Don’t Worry – Part 2 (Vegan Desserts) is up next!!!!!!
These are all awesome recipes! I’ve been vegan for almost 20 years tho and have never made any dish from scratch to replace a turkey. I’ve also never had turkey before going vegan, so that may be part of the reason why, but still I haven’t made homemade seitan for any other dish either. For that reason, I think others like me who might not be interested in making a turkey dish replacement from scratch, it would be beneficial to also include the links to many of the ready made vegan “turkey” meals sold everywhere now!! I bought a Tofurky roast for the first time ever this year and my daughter loved it! I liked it too, but have to get used to it as the texture is very flesh like. I bought the “feast” which came with a delicious mushroom gravy, jerky wishbones and a chocolate cake – all vegan! I think it is a perfect main dish for anyone!
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/shoppingproducts/tp/Vegetarian-Turkey-Subsitutes.htm
http://inhabitat.com/6-vegan-vegetarian-and-raw-food-turkey-alternatives-for-thanksgiving/
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/shopping/2008/11/mmm_turky.html
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/blog/taste-test-faux-turkey-faves/
These are some blogs that reviewed different veg options, however, please be advised that they are NOT all vegan! Please do a google search to check on which is vegan out of the ones listed.
Good call Tammy! Thanks for contributing.
Also, can anyone tell me why someone is attempting to sell Tofurky Vegetarian Feast for $211.47 on Amazon?!?!?
Yikes! That was surely a typo on Amazon!!! I got my feasts for $9.99 each on sale, so I stocked up and bought 3, since they’re frozen anyways and last longer in the freezer!
I checked out the 4 links that I had provided and of the “turkey” alternatives reviewed, the following ARE VEGAN:
– Tofurky Vegetarian Feast or just the Tofurky Roast (sold on it’s own)
– Gardein Savory Stuffed Turk’y (serves 2) or Gardein Holiday Roast (large)
– Trader Joe’s Turkey-less Stuffed Roast with Gravy
– Vegetarian Plus Whole Turkey (looks exactly like a roast turkey, but vegan and feeds 12 – 16 people!)
– Field Roast Celebration Roast (available in 1 or 2 lb sizes)
The following was the only NON VEGAN one listed in the 4 links provided in my previous comment:
– Quorn Turk’y Roast
So, if you’re not up for making your own vegan “turkey” from scratch, try these out and have fun making some vegan side dishes to go along with your vegan feast!! Happy Thanksgiving! 🙂
Oh and Melissa, I think I may have solved the mystery of the super expensive Amazon listings for the Tofurky Feasts, although that particular one still seems to be a typo. I’ve seen several others that cost $130+ or more, but they were for 6 boxes of the Vegetarian Feast, so maybe that one was supposed to be for 10 or 12, but wasn’t marked properly? Or it was just supposed to be for $21.47? Who knows! lol. Just thought I’d mention it, as I was browsing on Amazon and came across those other auctions!