Easy Vegan Asian Stir Fry [Oil-Free]

Easy Vegan Asian Stir Fry PinThis Easy Vegan Asian Stir Fry that’s oil-free is one of our staple recipes. We eat this one usually once and sometimes twice per week. We typically serve it over healthy brown rice, but sometimes we eat it plain or over some boiled yellow potatoes.

We almost always have the main ingredients on-hand: broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, mushrooms, onions, red cabbage and garlic. But feel free to use whatever you have on-hand or need to use before it goes bad, like green peas, snap-peas, carrots, sprouts, spinach, etc. Be creative!

This recipe has lots of protein, fiber, iron and enough vitamin C for 3 days RDV. With the soy sauce and salt, it’s a little high in sodium, so feel free to skip the salt and/or use low sodium soy sauce.

Like most of our recipes nowadays, we don’t use any oil in this steam fry. Without the rice, this recipe only has 155 calories, but add 1 tbsp of olive oil and you nearly double that. There’s simply no need to add all those extra calories from a liquid that’s 100% processed refined fat. Besides, lots of evidence suggests oil is “The Vegan Killer.”

Instead, we sauté using our homemade Easy Vegetable Broth from Scraps. It doesn’t add many calories, but it does add a lot of delicious flavor.

Since this recipe is so low in calories, but high in nutrient density, it’s a great weight loss recipe. Skip the brown rice and eat it plain to reduce the calories even more.

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.

Cauliflower Chickpea Buddha Bowl

Cauliflower Chickpea Buddha Bowl PinThis Cauliflower Chickpea Buddha Bowl recipe was inspired by a trip to a plant-based restaurant in Cuenca, Ecuador. It’s one of our favorite restaurants in Cuenca and they have several Buddha Bowls on their menu.

The co-owner and chef, Paul, backpacked throughout South America and ended up in Montevideo, Uruguay where he got a job as a chef in a plant-based restaurant. He returned to Cuenca with one of his co-workers and they opened their own plant-based restaurant called Café Libre. It’s what I would call gourmet vegan food (except for a couple of items that contain eggs).

Not only is the food delicious, it’s also presented in a way that is sure to draw your phone from your pocket so you can take a picture and share it with your friends on Facebook. It’s that good!

This Cauliflower Chickpea Buddha Bowl recipe is my own creation, made with some of my favorite ingredients and spices. Amelia usually makes our new recipes, but she put me in charge of the Buddha bowls since I love them so much.

We had some cauliflower that needed to be used so that’s where I started. Paul has a chickpea Buddha Bowl on the Café Libre menu and we had a can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans) in the cupboard so that was ingredient number two.

We always have onions, garlic and chili peppers on hand so those were natural choices. I also like to add mushrooms for their chewy texture. Baby bellas are our favorite type and we usually have some of those in the fridge.

Swiss chard is a very nutritious dark leafy green, and recipes like this are a good way to add dark leafy greens to your diet. Kale, spinach or a combination would also be great. You could also skip the swiss chard and pair this with a dark leafy green Hearty Side Salad or a low calorie Spinach Salad.

Most of the time, we sauté with vegetable broth to reduce the calories (1 tablespoon has 120 calories) and also because oil isn’t a whole food. There is also a lot of evidence that oil may be as bad for our health as any other fatty food. Dr. Michael Greger thinks of “oil as the table sugar of the fat kingdom” and Mic the Vegan calls it the Vegan Killer.

From a calorie perspective alone, we think it’s worth avoiding oil if possible. And there’s absolutely no need to sauté with oil when steam frying with vegetable broth (or vegetable bouillon or water or wine) works just as well.

The remaining ingredients give the mixture its flavor and a lot of extra nutritional benefits. Lime is loaded with vitamin C and antioxidants. Apple cider vinegar has been shown to help with weight loss, turmeric has been shown to fight cancer and spices in general are loaded with antioxidants that have been shown to fight aging and all sorts of cancers.

I like a little sweetness to go with my spicy so I added some agave. Normally I would use maple syrup, but we didn’t have any (sniff sniff). You can skip this to reduce the calories and the liquid sugar. You can also skip the salt if that’s a concern (especially if you have high blood pressure or kidney disease), but it helps bring out the other flavors.

This is a great one-pot lunch recipe that you can make ahead of time and eat it cold or heat it up the next day. I made this a two serving recipe, but if you serve it over 3/4 cup of brown rice, you can get 4 servings out of it.

This Cauliflower Chickpea Buddha Bowl recipe is a nutrition powerhouse that’s loaded with healthy sources of protein, carbs and fat. It’ll keep you satisfied and powered until dinner. Enjoy!

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.

Coconut Curry Lentil Soup Recipe

Coconut Curry Lentil Soup Recipe PinThis Coconut Curry Lentil Soup recipe is a delicious Indian dish that will fill your kitchen with the savory aroma of curry. We love Indian food, and it’s one of the easier types of cuisines to eat at restaurants since they typically have lots of vegan/vegetarian options.

But if you’re craving some curry, you don’t have to go out to eat. Now you can make your own!

We served it over brown rice to make it a little more filling and to spread out the delicious flavor, but you can eat it plain without the rice to save calories.

If you’re watching your saturated fat intake, you can also skip the coconut milk, but it won’t be as creamy or flavorful. We tried it without, but that seemed to be the missing ingredient.

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 Breakfast Burrito

Vegan Breakfast Burrito PinThis Vegan Breakfast Burrito recipe is delicious and filling. If you prepare the tofu scramble and potatoes the night before, all you’ll need to do is reheat them and assemble the burrito for a quick and easy healthy plant-based breakfast.

To make our delicious breakfast burrito, we combined our Easy Tofu Scramble recipe and our Oven Roasted Red Potatoes recipe and wrapped them up in a tortilla. We used flour tortillas since they make better wraps, but you can also use corn tortillas if you avoid gluten. Eat them open-faced, tostada-style if you can’t wrap them without splitting the tortilla.

Our roasted potatoes use a little olive oil to get them to come out crispy and prevent them from sticking to the baking sheet. However, if you prefer to avoid oil altogether, you can roast them without oil but they might be a little mushy and may stick to the pan.

We’ve tried several different oil-free roasted potato recipes and none came out well. That could be due to the high altitude in Denver. They either came out mushy or burned. We’d love to hear your experiences roasting without oil in the comments below.

This is one of our favorite plant-based breakfast recipes! You don’t have to give up your delicious breakfast burritos just because you eat a plant-based diet!

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.

Curried Lentils

Curried Lentils PinCurried lentils are a favorite of ours. These are super flavorful and fill our house with delicious curry smells. We prefer them over brown rice, but you can also serve them over naan bread, pita bread or your favorite asian noodles.

We think green lentils work best in this recipe due to their mild flavor, but you can try other lentils to see which you prefer. Let us know in the comments if you like a different type better.

We also like to add a dollop of plain, unsweetened vegan yogurt and stir it into the lentils. It’s a good source of vitamin B12, and it mimics sour cream when served with spicy foods. A sprinkle of paprika adds some nice color and flavor.

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 Muesli

Vegan Muesli PinThis Vegan Muesli breakfast is filling and delicious. It makes enough for 8 servings so you can make it ahead of time and enjoy it for several breakfast meals.

We used whole rolled oats as the base, but you can use instant oats, rye flakes or your favorite breakfast grain. We also used coconut flakes, raisins and craisins for sweetness, and walnuts and sunflower seeds for a little extra protein and healthy fats. But you can use your favorite dried fruits and nuts. Anything will work.

Unsweetened Cashew Milk is creamy and delicious without many calories. The brand we use only has 25 calories per cup with 45% of your day’s calcium needs (50% more calcium than dairy milk).

Berries are a nutritious part of any breakfast. They’re loaded with vitamins and antioxidants. Plus, they’re very sweet so you may not need additional sweetener. If berries aren’t your thing, sliced bananas or Healthy Cooked Apples also taste great on this Vegan Muesli.

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.

Healthy Cooked Apples

Healthy Cooked Apples PinThese Healthy Cooked Apples make a great dessert, side dish, snack, or topping for your Vegan Pancakes, Vegan Chia Seed Pancakes or Rolled Oats Breakfast. They’re sweet, decadent and delicious!

Amelia has been pestering me to eat more apples, but I’ve never been a fan of raw apples. The texture doesn’t appeal to me for some reason. But apples cooked up in a pie is a different story altogether. I love apple pie!

So I came up with an idea that makes eating apples my way healthy. That makes Amelia happy with me for eating more apples, and it makes me happy by preparing them in a way that tastes delicious! It’s a win-win!

These apples only have a couple of ingredients, no added sugar and no fat. It’s important to use Granny Smith apples to bring some tartness or they can be too sweet. Leave the peel for the extra fiber. It softens when cooked.

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.

Easy Tofu Scramble

Easy Tofu Scramble PinIf you’re in a hurry or if you need an Easy Tofu Scramble for your Vegan Sardou, this is the perfect recipe. It only takes a couple of minutes to prepare once you’ve pressed the tofu and it’s a great substitute for any scrambled egg recipe.

Contrary to what the dairy industry will have you believe, tofu and soy are very healthy foods. They’ve been consumed in asian countries for millennia and are strongly associated with positive health outcomes.

Most of the negative publicity soy gets was created by the dairy industry to protect their profits from soy milk. All of those myths have since been proven false, but that doesn’t keep them from being perpetuated.

My favorite myth is that the estrogen (actually phytoestrogen) found in soy will cause gynecomastia (aka man-boobs or moobs). In psychology, this is called projection, which occurs when “humans defend themselves against their own unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.”

Phytoestrogen is different than mammal estrogen. Phytoestrogens have been shown to help prevent or reduce diabetes, several forms of cancer, blood cholesterol and cardiovascular disease.

Plant estrogen doesn’t behave the same way as mammal estrogen, but you know what has loads of mammal estrogen? Cow’s milk. Unlike phytoestrogens, cow estrogen found in dairy looks just like human estrogen, which may actually cause moobs, as well as male infertility, several forms of cancer, osteoporosis, erectile disfunction, and heart disease. Dairy also exposes us to toxic chemicals that make their way up the food chain and get stored in the fat in milk.

When the dairy industry started the myth that phytoestrogens cause moobs, they were actually projecting the real negative qualities of dairy onto a naturally healthy food, soy. But when a competitor like soy milk threatens your bottom line, you do whatever it takes to protect the interests of your investors even if that means funding false or misleading studies, as well as organizations that promote them.

Rant over…

Our regular Tofu Scramble recipe has a higher nutritional content because it’s loaded with mushrooms, hearty greens and colorful bell peppers. If you have the time and ingredients, you might like that even more.

Easy Tofu Scramble 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.

Vegan Hollandaise Sauce

Vegan Hollandaise Sauce PinThis Vegan Hollandaise Sauce tastes so much like the real thing it’s scary! But you won’t find any cholesterol in this vegan version of a normally heart clogging recipe. It’s a perfect topping for your Vegan Sardou or Steamed Asparagus.

If your cashew cream is room temperature, you may not need to warm it up on the stove. Our cashew cream was in the refrigerator so the sauce was cold despite the hot water.

Also, hollandaise sauce should be pretty thin so it pours evenly. When we heated it up, it thickened so we had to add another 1/4 cup of water to thin it out.

Remember to prepare your Vegan Cashew Cream ahead of time so it’s ready when you want to prepare your Vegan Hollandaise Sauce.

Vegan Hollandaise Sauce 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.

Potato Cheese Sauce

This Potato Cheese Sauce tastes far better than the typical “cheese” like product found a mile from the refrigerated section in the grocery story. You know the stuff I’m talking about…in yellow boxes stacked on the store shelf…the only thing that’ll outlive Twinkies and cockroaches when the world ends.

Believe it or not, those “cheese” products are made with milk and whey (the leftover scraps from the cheese making process). How they can store it outside the refrigerator is a testament to the copious amounts of preservatives they contain. They also contain a lot of fat and cholesterol.

Lucky for you, this Potato Cheese Sauce recipe has an even better taste and it’s FAR more nutritious. There are no preservatives, cholesterol, fat or any of the other nasty ingredients found in the processed “cheese.” Add to that, this recipe contains only 39 calories for a quarter cup while the other stuff has 180 calories!

Enjoy this delicious Potato Cheese Sauce with your Mac & Cheese, Vegan Nachos, broccoli, cauliflower, fondue or any other time you need a cheese sauce.

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.