My Top of the list things to prepare for fasting time is my favorite Vegan Meatless Meatballs.
The delightful thing about these meatballs is that you can prepare them in advance, store in the fridge, and use them wherever you need them or if you are in hurry.
They go perfectly with pasta, in soup, as a side or appetizers, and in many other ways that I will make sure to try and share with you guys.
Happiness is finding out there’s a vegan option
If you like meatballs like I do, than it is time to explore meatless varieties.
The vegan meatless meatballs are delicious, light, and crunchy from the outside and moist from the inside with surprisingly amazing flavor combinations.
You can mix and match the flavors as you like; it can easily replace meat in any recipe you can think of!
These meatballs are such an easy, delicious comfort food that is perfect as a vegan dish in the fasting period.
As you all know by now, I can’t eat plain boring food, and I love finding fresh, delicious ways to re-make some of my favorite foods while reducing calories, fat and making them vegan for special occasions like now!
It’s not always easy to come up with ways to create a meaty flavor from vegetables and grain, but after a few trials and research I pulled it off.
From meat to meatless, basics:
The main thing is the concept of meatless meatballs is to know the basic constructions of it in order to be able to mix and match with endless flavors:
Basic ingredients: that is basically grains from beans to lentils to nuts and seeds.
Veggies: from leafy veggies like spinach, kale, parsley basil to celery and cauliflower, eggplant, sweet potatoes, and many others.
Dry ingredient: that helps absorb any extra moisture from veggies and others. You can use oat, cornmeal bread crumbs, and others.
Texture ingredient: to add some texture to those mighty bites; you can use rice, nuts, seeds, mushroom, and some cheese for a non-vegan version.
Binding ingredient: it helps everything hold up together and give a dough texture form. For the none vegan, the best binding ingredient is egg and it’s substituted with avocado, flaxseed or chia seed, or flour in the vegan version.
Cooked flavoring: to add some specific flavors that usually goes in the meat version, like onion and garlic.
Seasonings factors: all kinds of herbs and spices that you like.
Liquid flavorings: to add some extra special taste in here from Italian to Chinese or Indian. That kind of flavoring should be used in moderation so it won’t break down the dough structure and turn the whole thing into a messy soup. You can use : soy sauce, chili sauce, ketchup, red wine, salsa, fish sauce, hoisin sauce and any flavoring you like.
When you know the basics of these meatless meatballs you can mix and match as you like from curry balls to Italian, Mexican, Asian, Greek and Thai …
You can swap out ingredients to suit your dietary needs.
Preparing ingredients ahead of time
It is essential that all the ingredients are cold or at room temperature before blending so the dough texture doesn’t be ruined.
I cook my lentil and quinoa with my smart pot the day before. and let them cool in the fridge overnight. you can prepare them up to 4 days in advance. you can also whenever you are cooking some lentils or quinoa and have leftovers just save them in the fridge and use them in this recipe also. You can also do the mushroom onions saute ahead of time also and give it time to cool while you are doing something else.
I tried those meatballs with some pasta and red pepper vegan sauce that is absolutely marvelous; you should try it as soon as you are craving Italian pasta.
Vegan meatless meatballs
Ingredients
Patty Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ½ small onion diced
- 1¼ cup big mushrooms (100g)
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- ½ cup quinoa cooked and cooled (see notes)
- 1½ cup lentil cooked and cooled (see notes)
- 2 clove garlic minced
- ¼ cup rice flour oat flour or any flour you like
- ¼ cup parsley chopped
Seasoning Ingredients
- 1/2 tbsp. garlic powder
- 1/2 tbsp. dry parsley
- 1/2 tbsp onion powder
- 1/2 tbsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp dry thyme
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp sweet pepper
Instructions
- Heat oil, on medium heat, add the onion and toss till lightly transparent add mushrooms and keep tossing for 5 minutes until the mushroom release all the water and evaporate.
- remove the mushroom mixture and set aside to cool down.
- Preheat oven 180 C° or (airfryer method in notes)
- In the food processor, add quinoa lentil mushroom mixture, parsley, seasonings, garlic, salt and pepper.
- Pulse all together but don’t overdo it , you need to keep the texture.
- The lentil if over blended will release his moist and it will turn into a soup more than dough for meatballs.
- Scrap down the side, add rice flour and pulse all together again until you have a sticky dough kind of texture.
- Transfer into a bowl, line a baking cheat into the baking pan you can spray it with some oil if you want.
- Scoop 1 Tbsp. of the mixture and for a ball shape between the palms of your hands and align on the baking pan. give it an extra spary of oil on top.
- Bake for 25 minutes. or until crispy from outside.
- Remove from oven and let it cool for at least 20 minutes before serving with your favorite red sauce (click here for the sauce shown in the pics) or with any dish you like in place of meat.
- Don’t worry, when you remove from oven it will be soft let it cool and it will get firmer whenit cools down.
Video
Notes
- cooking lentil and quinoa: I like to cook my quinoa and lentil the night before and let them drain a little before storing them in the fridge. that way I make sure they are completely cooled down when I use them because using warm lentils and quinoa will affect the texture and the dough won’t hold to form. it will be too watery. if you felt that lentils are very moist when you finish cooking them just let them drain a little in a strainer before using.
- you can also cook the mushroom onion mixture the night before and store it in the fridge to cool down. this way you can easily just process and form the balls the next day.
- you can mix and match with the seasonings and herbs as you wish in this recipe
- storing: cook these meatballs and store them in the fridge for a couple of days or up to 3 months in the fridge.
- air fryer version: for the air fryer version, cook the meatballs in a 200 C preheated fryer for 14 minutes flipping halfway. make sure you spray a little bit of oil on the balls for a crispier texture.