Vegan Rosemary Parmesan Chicken Soup

This is hands down the best soup I've ever made. If I could eat only one kind of soup for the rest of my life, it would be this. I mean, at risk of hyping this dish up way more than necessary, this soup is literally going to change your entire existence forever.
Too much?

This recipe was inspired from another dish I recently created, a creamy coconut mushroom alfredo (recipe coming soon!). The trick is to add the noodles to the mix when they're dry or only partially cooked to let the starch release and thicken the broth. 

When I first tried this I was extremely skeptical. I thought it might affect the taste of the broth or turn my perfectly good soup into a gooey disgusting mess. Not so. I added my noodles in partially cooked to be on the safe side and it produced an amazing result. The soup turned creamy, comforting, filling, warm, satisfying, and savory. Perfect for a cold evening in.

10/10 would make again.

In order to make your own vegan parmesan, there are plenty of recipes online to choose from. The most important part of making your own parmesan is the fat and the salt. As long as you have those two aspects, the recipe should taste fine. Check these out for inspiration: [x] [x] [x] [x]

You Will Need:

3 carrots, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 medium onion, minced

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups mushrooms, sliced

6 cups vegetable broth, or to preference

16 oz dry noodles of choice

1/2 cup shredded Gardein chicken strips (or other meatless brand, tofu, etc)

1/4 cup vegan parmesan cheese (I use this brand, but you can make it homemade, see above note)

3 tbsp rosemary

1 tbsp parsley

1/3 nutritional yeast

2 tbsp Bragg's liquid aminos or soy sauce

1/2 tbsp black pepper, or to taste

To Make:

1. Chop all vegetables and shred the vegan chicken
2. Add all vegetables except mushrooms to the bottom of a soup pot on medium-high heat with some water or a little oil to cook
3. While the vegetables are cooking, you can optionally boil the noodles in a separate pot until they're partially cooked, or wait and add the noodles to the broth in completely dry later. This is all preference, but I would recommend pre-cooking them a little to not make your soup too creamy
4. Once vegetables are fragrant, add in mushrooms and saute for a remaining three to five minutes, add in the rosemary, parmesan, parsley, nutritional yeast, pepper, and soy sauce now and stir
5. Add the vegetable broth and noodles and bring to a boil
6. Once noodles are fully cooked, turn the heat down to a simmer and add in chicken
7. Let simmer for five to ten minutes to allow the flavors to fully combine, and add in any spices and broth as needed
8. Serve and enjoy!

Breakfast potato hash

This recipe came to me while searching through the breakfast recipe section of the Forks Over Knives webpage. If you haven't seen that fantastic documentary yet then you're seriously missing out. You can download or buy a copy here or watch it on Netflix, iTunes, or Amazon. Forks Over Knives is a must-see for anyone who is interested in the health benefits of a plant-based diet. 

Treat this recipe as a base instead of an end-all-be-all. Try it out with different kinds of potatoes, seeds, greens, legumes, and sauces for variety (I'm willing to bet this would taste amazing drizzled with BBQ sauce or tahini!). To make things easier on yourself, try making it the night before and keeping leftovers for the morning. 

I haven't tried it myself, but cooking everything together in a large pan with vegetable broth might make for a neat outcome. I'd imagine it would keep the moisture much better that way. The one downside to this recipe is that it can be on the dry side since it's free of oil. Personally, I don't mind the dryness, but if I did I would remedy it by whipping up some gravy or fresh salsa instead of adding oil.

Let me know what you guys think of this recipe either in the comments here or on my instagram, @tofuandsprouts! 

You Will Need:

3 medium russet potatoes (or potatoes of choice), chopped

1 small head broccoli, chopped into bite-size florets

1/4 cup prepared lentils

1/8 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped - look for ones with no oil or preservatives if possible

1 cup white mushrooms (or mushrooms of choice), chopped 

2 tbsp sunflower seeds

5 cloves roasted garlic, minced

3 tbsp Bragg's liquid aminos or soy sauce

2 tbsp onion powder (you can use a fresh onion if you have it, but I didn't so I opted for powder)

1/2 tbsp rosemary

1/2 tbsp Italian seasoning or thyme, oregano, and basil

Black pepper and salt to taste

To Make:

1.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet with parchment paper
2. Chop all potatoes and arrange in a single layer on the parchment paper, bake for 20 minutes or until they're cooked through
3. If your lentils are not pre-prepared, cook them now then set them aside
4. While the potatoes are in the oven, chop your veggies
5. Add garlic and broccoli to a pan with a bit of water and cook until the broccoli is as soft as you like it. I personally like my broccoli to be crisp-tender so I didn't cook it for too long
6. Add the mushrooms and lentils to the pan and let the flavors combine
7. Once potatoes are done, add them to the pan with the sun-dried tomatoes. You can add the tomatoes sooner if you'd like, but I find that if I cook them too long they lose their sweet and salty flavor
8. Add in onion powder, black pepper, bragg's, and herbs and stir to combine
9. Turn off the heat and add the kale.
10. Sprinkle with sunflower seeds and sriracha and serve!

Homemade Vegetable Broth

I've always suffered from headaches throughout my life. Recently, they've been more frequent and intense, to the point where I would be left miserable all day even after I caved and popped a Tylenol (or smelled essential oils or did yoga or drank water or anything else, I tried everything). I couldn't figure out the source for the longest time. Was I gluten intolerant? Allergic to tree nuts? Then finally, it hit me. Almost every time I've gotten a headache I've eaten something high in sodium and preservatives beforehand. The main reason it took me a while to figure that out was because the foods I was eating, like bread and pasta sauce, weren't what you think of as stereotypically high sodium foods. Granted, I also enjoy Asian noodle dishes drowning soy sauce, but otherwise my diet was pretty void of obvious salt-rich foods. Once I limited the foods I thought were giving me troubles I noticed immediate improvement. Unfortunately, the foods I based my diet on were the same that gave me headaches. So I've had to quickly find alternatives.

Enter this broth recipe. There's nothing better than a cup of soup on a rainy day, except maybe a cup of fresh soup with homemade broth. What's better is this broth recipe can be made low sodium (or I guess completely sodium free if you're into that sort of thing) and contains no preservatives or weird additives. As long as you know how to chop vegetables and boil water, it's super easy to make.

To make this as frugal and budget-friendly as possible save your veggie scraps, like carrot peelings and celery ends throughout the week in a container or bag and freeze them until you need them. If you save up enough scraps, you might not even need to chop extra vegetables strictly for the broth. Dried herbs work just as well as fresh ones, so don't stress out if you can't find or afford the fresh stuff. 

The vegetables I outlined here are just what I used and can be referred to as a guideline for whatever kind of soup you're going for. Adding in extras like mushrooms, ginger, zucchini, or tomatoes can make it more interesting. 

If you guys try this be sure to let me know what you all think in the comments here or on my instagram, @tofuandsprouts!

You Will Need:

Scraps of onions, celery, carrot, sweet potato, and other veggies from throughout the week
1 chopped onion
3 stalks chopped celery
2 chopped carrots
4 cloves roasted or fresh garlic
1 tbsp fresh or dried parsley
1/2 tbsp oregano
1/2 tbsp thyme
1/2 tbsp chives
Bay leaf, optional
Other herbs of your choice
Sea salt
Splash of Bragg's liquid aminos
2 tbsp white miso paste

To Make:

1. Chop all the veggies and add to the bottom of the soup pot with some oil or water. If you're using oil, saute until the vegetables start to stick a little to the bottom of the pot. Don't let them burn but let them form a coating. This will enhance the flavors like crazy!
2. Cover with water and simmer for 1 hour
3. After an hour, add in herbs, miso and salt and continue to simmer for another hour
4. Taste test often and continue to add anything you think the soup needs, adjust quantities of vegetables and time spent simmering if needed
5. Once you’re satisfied, strain veggies from broth and you’re done! It's actually that easy to make a flavorful, mineral-rich homemade broth.

Fat-Free Vegan Mac and Cheese

Brace yourself for what I'm about to say... This is mac and cheese that you can enjoy every day while still staying perfectly healthy.
I know. That's essentially the dream.

Because this is based on whole plant foods, low in fat, and high in starch, this is the perfect healthy meal for when it's cold out and you want something comforting. Carbohydrates, especially starchy ones like potatoes, get a really bad rep in society for being unhealthy and fattening, which is both hilarious and awful because they're the exact opposite. Did you know we thrive best when we eat a diet high in starchy foods? That's what Dr. McDougall says in his book, the Starch Solution. Here's an excerpt:

The gold medal for the carbohydrate most beneficial to humans goes to starch. Like cellulose, starches are made up of long branching chains of glucose molecules. Starch is valuable to us because we can break it down into simple sugars that provide us with sustained energy and keep us feeling full and satisfied. Starchy foods are plants that are high in long-chain digestible carbohydrates—commonly referred to as complex carbohydrates. Examples include grains like wheat, barley, rye, corn, and oats; starchy vegetables like winter squash, potatoes, and sweet potatoes; and legumes like brown lentils, green peas, and red kidney beans. Starch is so important that an international scientific journal—Starch—is dedicated to its study. Starch is at the core of my health enhancing diet. If you take away just one message from this book, it should be: Eat more starch. Basic to our human nature is the scientific fact that we are, and have always been, primarily starch eaters. According to the world-renowned anthropologist from Dartmouth College, Nathaniel Dominy, PhD, “A majority of calories for most hunter-gatherer societies came from plant-foods, not animal-foods, thus humans might be more appropriately described as starchivores.” Think of yourself as a “starchivore,” like a cat is a carnivore and a horse is an herbivore.

So you can have your potatoes, rice, and pasta and eat it, too!

This pasta is wonderfully flavorful without the added animal protein and fat. You'll be astonished at how tasty and creamy it is without any dairy, nuts, or oil. It leaves you feeling energized instead of sluggish. Best of all, at least in my opinion, is it leaves room for experimenting. Instead of delicata squash, feel free to try butternut or acorn. Add more nutritional yeast, or don't. Try a splash of almond milk while it blends. Leave the skins on the potatoes or peel them off (I left mine on). I love recipes that you can make your own and this is definitely one of them. Let me know what you all think in the comments here or on my instagram, @tofuandsprouts!

You Will Need:

1 cup chopped and peeled delicata squash, about 1 small
2 cups chopped golden potatoes
1 cup chopped carrots, about 2 medium
4 cloves roasted garlic (you can use fresh if you'd like, but the flavor will be slightly stronger)
1 tsp concentrated vegetable bullion base
1/4 cup nutritional yeast, or to taste
1 tbsp Bragg's liquid aminos (or plain tamari/soy sauce, but if you haven't tried Bragg's yet what are you even doing with your life?)
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of turmeric for color

To Make:

1. Combine all chopped veggies and bouillon base in a pot of boiling water
2. Cook the vegetables until they're soft and then transfer to a blender- save the water/broth!
3. Add to the blender the nutritional yeast, liquid aminos, salt, pepper, and turmeric and puree until you've reached your desired consistency. You can use a little of the leftover broth to help get things moving, but not too much or it won't be as thick and creamy
4. Boil the noodles in the leftover broth for flavor. You might need to add more water, depending on how much you had left
5. Drain the noodles once they're cooked and combine with the sauce. Voila!
6. Store any leftover sauce in an airtight jar in the fridge for up to a week