Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes and Vegan Substitutions

 My friend Michelle shared her awesome  vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes with me,  so that I can post them on this website.  I enjoyed her cooking, and I hope you will like her recipes as much as we all did.

Thanksgiving can be a tough time for vegetarians and vegans. Being tempted  by food that evokes memories from the childhood, sitting at the table with family and friends around the Thanksgiving turkey may be challenging.  That's the time when most carnivore families often press a  vegetarian family member  to steer away from his or her diet. But for everyone to feel welcome at the Thanksgiving dinner table, I feel it is so important to  have tasty meatless meals  so that everyone can enjoy the feast.

My story - Thanksgiving through the eyes of an alien...

Having come from the Eastern Europe, where Thanksgiving is not celebrated, I  remember being amused by this holiday during my first year in Canada.  It seemed to me, an outsider, that  people of the  whole country embarked into a challenge of eating  as many big birds as  they possibly can.  I was sure there will be no turkeys left for the next year, but people assured me that this happens for years and turkeys just keep coming.

So everyone spent two or three  days shopping, cleaning,  and cooking. Turkeys occupied supermarket freezers , huge and uniform,looking  like big bombs in the storage , quiet but ready to explode.  

Families  were getting together,  people coming from the remote parts of the  country ( and world) to  eat the bird  as a team.

Then,  the big day has come and everyone stuffed themselves with stuffed turkey. This evoked an analogy with the Russian dolls in my mind. First you stuff turkey, then you stuff yourself... Get it? :) 

Then the hostess would give you some turkey to take with you. Her sweet smile and mention of hours of cooking  made it impossible to say no.

A week after Thanksgiving, 90% of my colleagues still had turkey breast in their lunch bags.  Conversations went around clever ways to store cooked turkey and use leftovers in your menu.  People hated turkey breast but couldn't throw it away.

I felt like an alien.

On the other hand, the variety of squashes available at the Thanksgiving time blew my mind away.  I have never seen anything more than a common pumpkin back in the Ukraine.  And this is what my  vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes are - stuffed squash recipes for a holiday dinner.

...I still didn't learn to cook  the typical Thanksgiving  menu, having been blessed with friends who  do it with mastery.  Michelle's  traditional Thanksgiving menu  was always   delicious .. Enjoy her vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes!

Vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes

• Stuffed Butternut Squash For Thanksgiving Dinner
• Stuffed Acorn Squash

Stuffed Butternut Squash for Thanksgiving Dinner

To make this recipe vegan, take vegan bread and replace butter with coconut oil

Ingredients:

• 2 medium Butternut Squash
• 3/4 cup rice ( I used Jasmine rice)
• 1 cup chopped onion ( I used a sweet onion)
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• 2 1/2 cup torn, packed whole wheat bread (I used Flax bread)
• 1/2 to 1 tsp Sage
• 1/2 to 1 tsp Thyme
• Salt & Pepper
• 1/4 to 1/3 c orange juice (I put less orange juice)
• 1/4 cup butter ( may reduce the amount or replace with coconut oil)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven 375
2. Halve squashes and place in the oven cut side up (4 halves). Bake ~ 40-50 minutes (until firm, but can be pierced with a knife)
3. Cook rice
4. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil
5. Stir ALL ingredients in large bowl
6. Once the squash is baked, Scoop out seeds and discard them.
7. Scoop out squash leaving about a 1/2 inch all around.
8. Add squash to the mixture. Stir thoroughly.
9. Stuff squash halves with mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Alternatively, simply bake mixture in glass pan.

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Stuffed Acorn Squash for Thanksgiving Dinner

To make this recipe vegan, take vegan bread and replace ream with coconut cream, egg with 1 tsp ground flaxseed

Ingredients:

• 1 medium acorn Squash
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 pieces of torn bread (I used whole wheat bread)
• 1/2 to 1 tsp Sage
• 1/2 to 1 tsp Thyme
• Salt & Pepper
• 1/4 cup cream ( try almond milk or coconut cream instead)
• 1 egg

Directions:

1. Cut an acorn squash in half, scoop out seeds, put on some sort of pie plate upside down , add some water, and cook in microwave for about 20 minutes.
2. Check after 15 minutes - is it soft enough when poked with a fork?
3. Cool, scoop out contents making sure you don’t break through the skin.
4. Put contents in a bowl add 2 slices of bread, that you have ripped into small pieces.
5. Add one finely chopped up onion, 1/4 cup cream ( or replace with almond milk).
6. Whisk an egg white separately from yolk. Add both to the squash mixture, mix everything together. Add herbs, salt and pepper.
7. Stuff acorn squash halves with mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Alternatively, simply bake mixture in glass pan.

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