Festive RecipesVegan Nut Loaf

A vegan, GF free, Christmas Day roast, good enough to eat the whole year…

This Vegan Nut Roast is an explosion of flavour, thanks to the parsley, oregano and thyme, as well as the garlic, mushrooms and soya sauce which enrich the flavour even further!

It’s surprisingly cheap to make too. I always buy lentils in bulk and have my cupboards stocked with herbs and nuts, I use Indigo herbs. So, the only real shopping necessary is for the vegetables!

Don’t feel restricted to only making this at Christmas though. It’s delicious all year round, and you can play around with different nuts, seeds and vegetables, or even throw in some dried cranberries for a sweeter twist!

Ingredients serves 6

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 carrot, grated
1/3 cup chestnut mushrooms, chopped
1 cup of mixed nuts (I used walnuts and cashews)
3 tbsp pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup of raw puy lentils
1 heaped tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbsp fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1/3 cup of gluten-free flour
3/4 cup of vegetable stock
1 tbsp soya sauce (or tamari if gluten-free)
Salt and pepper, to taste
2 tbsp pine nuts to scatter on the top – add about 10 minutes before the end of baking time or else they will burn

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 C and line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper (or plenty of oil).
Sauté the onion, garlic, carrot and mushrooms in the olive oil on a medium heat for 3-5 minutes until the onion turns translucent.
Add the nuts, pumpkin seeds, lentils, coriander and dried herbs to your food processor and pulse just until it’s all broken down into small pieces.
Add this mixture to a large bowl, along with the flour, salt and pepper, and mix well.
Add in the soya sauce and sautéed vegetables, pour into the stock and mix very well.
Transfer the mixture into the loaf tin and roast for 45 minutes, until the top develops a crust and a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. 10 minutes before the end, scatter over the pine nuts.
Set it aside to cool for about 20 minutes before removing from the tin and slicing.
Scatter pine nuts on the top about 10 minutes before the end of baking time.