Everyone could use a good pizza dough recipe. It is part of many other recipes as it is the base of many of them. This is that recipe.
This pizza dough recipe is inspired by a frustration that every pizza crust we tried to buy had honey in it or worse. And once we started making this, it was no going back. This recipe is incredibly simple and easy, quick, and has reliably proven to be an excellent texture time and again.
Plus, the ingredients on hand are really basic pantry items, making this extremely cheap to make. This is a way better value and taste than any pizza crust we may have bought. We’ve also used this recipe to make stromboli and it turned out AMAZING.
Quick Rise Pizza Dough
Makes: 1 large pizza or stromboli
Omnivore Index: Nobody knows that good pizza dough is vegan already, and they won’t know this is either
Ingredients
-2 cups flour -1 tbsp yeast -1 tbsp sugar -1/4 tsp salt -2/3 cups warm water
-Add flour, sugar, salt, and yeast to a bowl large enough for mixing (or use a mixer if you have it) -Add any other spices if applicable -Slowly add warm water and stir to combine -When ingredients start to form, use your hands to knead and form dough ball -Cover bowl with towel or plastic wrap and let sit for a minimum of 20 minutes -Roll out into pizza dough and cover with desired toppings -Bake on pizza pan at 525°F for 12 minutes -Let cool 5 minutes before cutting and serving
I spent most of my adult life without mac and cheese. It was something I distantly remembered eating as a kid but the memories were as faint and foggy as everything else from the first decade of my life. I had not found enjoyable substitutes in my early vegan years and then stopped looking for it, stopped thinking about it. Just didn’t seem like a feasible ask, to have creamy, indulgent mac and cheese totally suffering-free.
I was, as I have often been in my life when I found certainty, mistaken.
The first time we made this mac and cheeze recipe was a game changer. It was so perfect and also unthinkably easy. We did it with bbq shreddies then (Morningstar farms pulled pork or shredded jackfruit, if you want to try). Then we were in London, Ontario and tried vegan fast food from Globally Local. They had “Supreme Style Loaded Fries” that were cheeze and taco meat on fries. We decided to adapt it onto loaded mac and cheeze. Now it is my favorite meal to eat. Yumm.
Taco Supreme Mac and Cheeze
Serves: 4, or 2 people for two meals
Omnivore Index: There is nothing vegan about this creamy, taco supreme bundle of joy
Ingredients
-16 oz pasta shape of choice -1/4 cup nondairy butter -1/4 cup flour
Cheeze Sauce -4.5 oz (1 cup) raw cashews, soaked in water overnight then drained -1/4 cup nutritional yeast -3 cups plain nondairy milk -2-3 cloves garlic -1 tbsp white miso -2 tsp apple cider vinegar -2 tsp dry mustard -1/2 tsp turmeric -2 tsp salt
Taco Meat -8-10 oz meatless crumbles -1 tbsp chili powder -1 tsp paprika -1 tsp cumin -1/4 tsp cayenne -1/2 tsp oregano -1/2 tsp salt -1/4 – 1/2 cup water -1 tsp onion powder -1/2 tsp garlic powder -freshly cracked black pepper (like… ten cranks)
Recipe
-Cook and drain pasta according to normal package instructions -Combine all Cheeze Sauce ingredients in high speed blender and blend for at least a full minute or until smooth -Thaw crumbles -Combine crumbles with all Taco seasoning ingredients, microwave until hot 2-3 minutes -In a medium pot, melt butter -Add flour, cook while stirring for 2-3 minutes or until slightly golden -Whisk in Cheeze Sauce, cook and stir over medium heat (5-7 minutes) -Mix Cheeze Sauce into pasta -Top with preferred fixings and enjoy (we go for diced tomato, shredded lettuce, and a dollop of plain nondairy yogurt)
Notes
We use Silk plain protein nut milk We use Earth Balance butter We use Silk plain yogurt We use Simple Truth brand meatless crumbles (found at Kroger in our area) but Gardein would be second choice In these pictures, we had Spinach instead of romaine
Closing Arguments
I swear, this goes on the dinner list every other week because I always want it.
Alternative idea for Loaded Mac n Cheez:
Chicken Parmesan Mac n Cheez
-same mac n cheez recipe, but instead of taco supreme it is served with vegan chicken patty (Simple Truth brand in this case) with vegan cheez broiled on top
Nora: I’ve always loved breakfast food, but I’ve never been much of a fan of eggs. Growing up, the only way I’d eat them would be “dippy eggs” (aka over-easy). I would make my parents crazy because after dipping toast in the yolks, I’d never eat the whites. These fries are topped with a delicious “eggy sauce” that reminds me of rich silky egg yolk… without the egg!
Josh: Everything we eat eventually ends up on a pizza or as loaded fries. One day we were thinking loving thoughts about brunch and decided in a burst of inspiration that we could have breakfast for dinner. All plant-based and shamelessly indulgent. We swapped hashbrowns for waffle fries and viola!
Breakfast sausage, bacon, and pepperjack cheese baked up onto crispy waffle fries, topped with an eggy, pseudo hollandaise sauce that just seals the deal. This dinn is one of those meals that we usually find ourselves in the “clean plate club” afterward.
Foil boats
Loaded Breakfast Fries
Source: His Bite Her Bite
Serves: 2, heartily
Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients: For fries: 1 bag frozen waffle fries or tots 8 oz breakfast sausage 4 strips bacon (or some bac’n bits) 1/2 c pepperjack shredded cheese green onions, for topping
Eggy Sauce: 1c water 4 tsp corn starch 2 tsp nutritional yeast 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp turmeric
Directions: 1. Bake fries according to package directions. 2. While fries are baking, cook sausage according to package directions (we use the microwave). Crumble or roughly chop into small bits. 3. In a small pot, whisk together water and corn starch, then whisk in everything else. 4. Cook over med-high heat, whisking as it cooks. Simmer 3-5 minutes until sauce coats the back of a spoon. 5. During the last 5 minutes of baking the fries, slide a few fries over and add the bacon, cook until crisp. 6. Make two tin foil boats, place on the baking sheets used for the fries. Add cooked fries, crumbled sausage, top with cheese. Broil until cheese is melted. Remove from oven. 7. Move foil boats to individual plates. Using a small, sharp knife, slit the underside of the boats in an x-shape. Pull foil apart, leaving the fry pile on the plate. 8. Top the fries-sausage-cheese with eggy sauce, crumbled bacon and green onion.
For the dinner pictured here, we used the following:
Nora: Normally I don’t finish a full plate of loaded fries, but with these I’m in the Clean Plate Club every time! Josh: You bet your ass I’m munching these fries.
Nora: Ribs were one of my absolute favorite restaurant splurge meals. Since I’m new to the veggie lifestyle I still have deeply-ingrained taste preferences for certain foods and these meatless Ribs totally hit the spot for me. (Veggie crumbles as taco meat is another Craving Buster, but that’s another post.) This recipe is insanely delicious and even has the fun “pull apart” quality meat ribs have. I was honestly shocked at how good these are and other than the lack of bones, they are completely realistic feeling/tasting. We’ve made these three times in three weeks.
Don’t be alarmed by the word seitan. It’s just wheat meat. You probably don’t have to go to the fancy grocery store since our Kroger carries it alongside all the Bob’s Red Mill fancy grain flours. If you are familiar with seitan, you’ll be happy to know this recipe does not require the long kneading and boiling/steaming/baking which usually produces seitan. Yes, this is weeknight friendly wheat meat! Rejoice!!! Also, this recipe PERFECTLY bakes half a bag of freezer fries simultaneously. This is the kind of high quality vegan content we have all been searching for!
The only negative to this recipe is it only makes two slabs (enough for two hungry people or maybe four with lots of sides). If you need more or want leftovers (you do) you will need to prepare this in two pans. The key to the meaty texture is contact with the pan edges and larger slabs will have mushy middles. We don’t have two small pans the same size, so currently we are doomed to eat all our ribs in one sitting.
Josh: Ribs are a weird thing to eat when you stop and think about it. Like… ribs, though? I digress. I never had ribs as a real boy, we didn’t have money for splurges like that and the idea of seeking ribs out was not on my radar. Then I joined the dark side of the force and began growing my incredible vegan super powers, so there was no going back. I would have never come up with the idea of eating ribs, would have never bothered with it. But Nora gets this idea to make ribs and so we cobble this together.
Wow. Just wow. We’ve made these ribs three times in less than a month. They’re ridiculously good. Firm and tough, tangy, sticky, actual finger licking good. The recipe is really easy to make thanks to our kitchen aid mixer. Mostly the recipe is waiting for the cook time to expire, which is useful when you have other things to accomplish in the evening but know you’re just going to hit the sofa after dinner no matter what.
In addition to being quick and easy and tasty, these ribs are affordable. Buy yourself some vital wheat gluten (seriously, if you don’t have this already GET IT TOGETHER because homemade seitan is delicious, versatile, and easy), some soy sauce, some nooch (read: nutritional yeast – we read the Thug Kitchen cookbook once and can’t think of Nooch any other way), and you’re already most of the way to cooking countless meaty vegan meals without breaking the bank. If nothing else, do it just to make these ribs. They’re spectacular.
Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 375F. Spray grease a 9×9 metal pan. 2. Mix all ingredients except BBQ sauce and knead 60 seconds. I do it in the stand mixer but it wouldn’t be hard by hand. 3. Spread into the prepared pan, using the “kitty paws” technique with your fingertips as needed. 4. Using a small, sharp knife, cut dough down the middle. Turn pan 90 degrees and cut across 8 times to make 16 “riblets.” 5. Bake 25 minutes. Pull out of oven, baste with half the BBQ sauce. Using a spatula, flip each quarter of the ribs, taking care to flip “corner to corner,” with the crispy outer corners all swapped to the center of the pan and the soft inner edges all against the sides of the pan. 6. Baste with the other half of the BBQ sauce and bake 15-25 more minutes or until sauce is starting to caramelize and ribs are firm.
Closing Arguments
Nora: Make these ribs and eat them. Soon. Josh: Holy shit these ribs are good. Sinfully good. They’ll make you think you accidentally broke vegan edge.
