Vegan Pasta Salad

Vegan Pasta Salad PinThis Vegan Pasta Salad is oil free, delicious and easy to make. It’s a great summer dish to take on a picnic or to a family gathering.

Pasta salad has always been one of my favorite side dishes. We always used the store-bought mix before going WFPB, but it has lots of additional ingredients, preservatives and uses lots of oil. So Amelia decided to make our own and added some more colorful veggies while she was at it.

Amelia used cauliflower, grape tomatoes, cucumber and black olives, but it would also be great with artichokes, broccoli or your other favorite veggies.

You can use your favorite Italian salad dressing, but we used my oil-free creation, JP’s Italian Salad Dressing. This salad dressing is also easy to make so the hardest part of this recipe is chopping the veggies.

It’s easy to make this recipe gluten-free, too. Just use gluten-free pasta instead of the flour-based rotini that we used.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Vegan Nachos

Vegan Nachos PinThese Vegan Nachos are loaded with goodies. Vegan Refried Beans, Potato Cheese Sauce, Vegan Cashew Sour Cream, jalapeños, black olives, avocado and salsa make this one yummy party dish!

Nachos are one of those treats that most people expect to give up when they go vegan, but there’s no need to make such a supreme sacrifice. The potato cheese sauce tastes better than the nasty cheese you find on most non-vegan nachos, and the cashew sour cream is absolutely delicious!

We used the toppings that we like the most, but you can be as creative as you want to be. These vegan nachos would be great with some sautéed onions or mushrooms, seasoned tofu, Tex-Mex jackfruit, vegan chorizo or anything else you can think of.

We bought some yellow and blue corn chips for this recipe, but you can easily make this with some Corn Tortilla Corn Chips.

Just promise me you’ll serve these at your next gathering of non-vegan friends so they can see how good veganized food can taste!

Vegan Nachos Instructional Video

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Mexican Salad

Mexican SaladThis Mexican Salad is a flavorful, delicious, hearty salad that works well as a side salad or a main dish for lunch. With 14 grams of fiber, 10 grams of protein and 136% of your RDV of vitamin C, this is a nutrient rich recipe. And thanks to the beans and corn, it’s pretty filling, too.

Amelia whipped this recipe up one day with some spare ingredients we had laying around. Thanks to the lime juice and spices, it has a lot of flavor without using any oil.

You can put this Mexican Salad in a taco bowl to make it a little more special. EatingWell.com has a cool way to make your own taco bowls with corn tortillas and a muffin tin.

This salad is great on a hot summer day made with fresh corn on the cob, but you can eat it all year round and not get tired of it.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Sautéed Spaghetti Squash with Kale and Tomato

Sautéed Spaghetti SquashYou can eat as much of this Sautéed Spaghetti Squash as your stomach can hold. It’s full of fiber and nutrients, but only has 85 calories per serving. If you’re trying to lose weight, this recipe will help you achieve your goals without sacrificing flavor.

This is another recipe that Amelia whipped up one day with some spare parts we had laying around the kitchen. We love to eat spaghetti squash because it’s low calorie but very filling so she’s always thinking about how we can utilize it in new and interesting recipes.

This Sautéed Spaghetti Squash is a great main dish for lunch, or side dish with your Balsamic Portobello Mushroom Steaks.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Hearts of Palm Salad

Hearts of Palm SaladThis is a delicious, hearty Hearts of Palm Salad with lots of colorful variety and nutrients. With 8 grams of protein and 8 grams of fiber and only 218 calories, it makes an excellent side salad for your dinner. You can also make it a main lunch dish by adding some black beans or garbanzo beans for some extra calories and protein.

Hearts of Palm is a new and welcome addition to my diet. I had heard of them before, but never tried them. They’re mild with a similar taste and soft texture as artichoke hearts, but they’re shaped like water chestnuts. They’re delicious on nearly any salad.

We used JP’s Italian Salad Dressing, but you can use your favorite vegan salad dressing.

To reduce the calories and fat, you can skip the avocado.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Chickpea Kale Salad Sauté

Chickpea Kale Salad PinThis is a delicious Chickpea Kale Salad oil-free recipe that can serve as a main dish or a side dish. It’s also good warm or as a cold leftover.

It’s packed with nutrition, containing 10 grams of fiber, 15 grams of protein, 359% RDV of Vitamin A, 245% Vitamin C and 26% Iron. Eat this dish for lunch and you’ve hit much of your daily nutrient requirements.

It’s packed with nutrients, but 1 serving only has about 220 calories so if you want it to be a one dish meal, you may want to eat 2 servings. It pairs well with Oven Roasted Red Potatoes to give it a little more volume.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Italian Tomato Mushroom Sauté w/ Fresh Green Beans

Italian Tomato Mushroom Sauté PinThis oil-free Italian Tomato Mushroom Sauté w/ Green Beans is a fast and easy side dish that pairs well with Italian dishes like our Vegan Alfredo Pasta. You can whip it up in a few minutes while your pasta is cooking and it’ll add a lot of extra color and flavor to your meal.

We needed something to go with our Alfredo Pasta so Amelia threw this together one Saturday afternoon with spare parts from the pantry. She’s amazingly talented at making use of spare veggies, and this dish is a delicious example of her creativity.

When Amelia made this recipe the first time, she sautéed it in olive oil, but that was before we thought of oil as a processed food. Now that we know oil is a refined fat like sugar is a refined carb, we no longer cook with it. Instead, we typically sauté in veggie broth or water, and sometimes wine. The key is to cover the pot to trap the moisture, which is commonly referred to as steam frying. It works great and adds additional flavor without the calories and endothelial damaging oil.

This side dish wouldn’t as be good warmed up so we recommend only cooking what you’ll eat with your meal.

Italian Tomato Mushroom Sauté

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.