Hearty Cooking Without Meat?

For bean-based soups (peas, lentils, etc.), I like to put in "liquid smoke," which you can get at most any grocery. A little goes a long way, and it gives a similar flavor to what you would get using bacon or ham. It is also good to add a little bit of olive oil to make up for the lost fat by skipping the fatty meats, but it is healthier fat and does a lot for the taste.

I use lentils often, as well as beans (usually black or cannelini) and greens to make dishes heartier. I don't like using a lot of meat substitutes either. It's going to be a crock pot winter & that's perfect for veggie soups, stews and other hearty dishes, Have you looked at the cookbooks enchanted broccoli forest & moosewood? they are great veggie cookbooks: http://www.amazon.com/Enchanted-Broccoli-Katzens-Classic-... and http://www.amazon.com/Moosewood-Cookbook-Katzens-Classic-... (if you look in the suggestions area, you'll see all the moosewood cookbooks). Good luck!

You have some great suggestions so far, but I figured I would chime in with my 2c.

When I cook something vegetarian that I would normally have added meat to, there are three components that are frequently missing:

1) Browning. Browning meat adds a unique flavor to the dish. You can duplicate this by browning your veggies, carmalizing the onions, or browning the potatoes. Don't do all of them or else the taste of the dish will be notably different!

2) Fat. All those meats add a richness due to their fat and protein content. Over time, your taste buds will adapt to this. In the mean time, while you are "weaning" to a veggie diet, you can try adding a little extra butter, cream, cheese, or eggs.

3) Texture. Eggplant and mushrooms both have a texture similar to meat. So too do extra firm (pressed) tofu, meat substitutes, and some grains (think barley instead of ground beef). The trick is that none of these can be cooked in a way identical to the way you would cook the meat, so some recipie adjustment is needed.

Finally, if you have been cooking with a lot of processed or preserved meats (think hot dogs, bacon, ham), you will have been adding quite a bit of salt to your dish from the meat. You might find that adding a little extra salt helps bring that flavor back.

Good luck on your meatless adventure!

I do a lot of no-meat cooking. Here is one of my favorite soups...
Kale and Garbanzo Bean.
Chicken Stock or veg. stock
2 bunches of kale washed ant torn up
1 or 2 garlic cloves diced
1 large onion or however much you like
1 or 2 cans of garbanzo beans
3 or 4 potatoes chopped up
a lot of Mexican seasoning (I started with a recipe that called for chorizo)2 table spoons???
Sometimes I add corn because it makes my hubby happy.
salt/pepper

I also make black bean and corn enchiladas, cheese and spinach lasagna, chili with the "Darn Good" chili mix, lentil soup, taco night with fajita style veggies and beans

Hi Gaby,

You've got a lot of great responses here and I would also suggest experimenting with curry. Yellow curries are typically pretty mild - the green and red curries can be pretty spicy. But curried lentil soups or squash is wonderful and very satisfying.

Boullion or meat stock will help some with the meat flavor.

I've heard of substituting portobello and other mushrooms for meat. I don't know how it works, never done it, but maybe that will give you a starting point in your looking.

Check out allrecipes.com and epicurious.com They both have good recipes and there may be some excellent meatless ones there.

We don't eat meat in our home either. Here are a couple of soup recipes I use. I have several more recipes (not all soups) typed up that I could email to you if you would like. We also make a lot of meatless curries, which are soup-like. You can also try looking online for different kinds of meatless soups.

Black Bean Soup with Onion and Cilantro (from "The New American Plate", pg. 217)

Ingredients:

1 Tbs olive oil
1 med. onion, chopped
6 scallions, trimmed and chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
2 cans (15.5 oz. each) black beans, undrained
2 cups water
½ tsp dried re pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
½ cup orange juice
Salt and pepper
Chopped red onion, for garnish
Fresh cilantro leaves, for garnish

* In a dutch oven or large, heavy pan, heat the olive oil over med.-high heat. Saute the onion and scallions for about 3 min., until translucent. Stir in the garlic, cumin, and oregano, and saute for 1 min.
* Add the beans in their liquid, water, red pepper flakes, and bay leaf. Bring the soup to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 20 min., until the onions are soft. Mix in the orange juice and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook for 5 min. more, then remove the pot from the heat and let the soup cool slightly.
* Remove the bay leaf. Using a food processor or blender, puree about half of the soup in batches and return it to the pot. There should be whole beans and onions in a smooth liquid.
* Serve hot in 4 bowls, each garnished with a little chopped red onion and some cilantro leaves.

(Instead of canned black beans, I cook my own. I don't care for much onion so I only use ½ med. onion and no red onion.)

Tom Yum Soup (Internet Recipe)

Ingredients:

3 cups chicken stock
2-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 stock lemon grass, finely minced
2 kaffir lime leaves, if you can find them
Diced chicken or shelled shrimp (optional)
A bunch of sliced Shiitake mushrooms
1-3 hot red peppers, sliced and optionally fried
1 can coconut milk or coconut cream
2 tbsp fish sauce, or to taste
Fresh squeezed lime juice
Julienned carrots
Broccoli floweretts
Red bell pepper, diced
Whole cherry tomatoes.
Fresh cilantro, lightly chopped

* In a large pot prepare broth using bouillon, or heat stock. Add the chopped garlic, lemon grass,and lime leaves (if you have managed to find some).
* Let the broth simmer for a bit and then add the mushrooms and hot peppers. Boil for a few minutes. Also, if you are using meat put it in. You can put in the shrimp raw and let it cook, but I recommend you precook the chicken.
* Once the mushrooms are tender (and the meat is cooked), add the coconut milk and turn the heat down to low. Stir in the fish sauce and the lime juice. Taste the soup, add more fish sauce or lime juice to suit your taste buds as necessary. Bring soup back up to a simmer.
* Once the soup tastes right, turn off the heat and add the carrots, broccoli, and bell pepper. You don’t want these to cook too long; otherwise they loose their crunchy texture and vibrant colors. If you are putting in tomatoes, then do this just before you serve the soup so they don’t cook too much. Top off with cilantro leaves, to taste.

(I make my stock with bouillon cubes. You can usually find minced lemon grass already prepared in asian markets in the frozen section. You can remove the seeds from the peppers to make them less spicy. You can turn this soup into “Tom Khaa” by adding chicken pieces.)

We all eat meat in our family but none of us are really heavy meat-eaters so I make 3 or 4 meals a week that are entirely meatless. I also was strictly vegetarian for several years until I got pregnant for my first time and craved a hamburger. Needless to say, I do not really go for the meat flavor so I am not sure how to do that but I do know how to get your meal hearty in the vegetarian world. Here are some of the things that I find work pretty well.

- Veggie soup with dumplings (dumplings are very dense and heavy so they fill you up and they taste GREAT!

- Homemade fettucini noodles with alfredo sauce. I do not make the typical sauce I include cream cheese, whole whipping cream and a bit of sour cream. The homemade noodles are very heavy and the whole family loves making them. We even grind up spinach in them sometimes and get beautiful green noodles.

- Stuffed Bell Peppers with CousCous instead of the ground burger and cheese on top.

- Veggie Burgers (my personal favorite but my husband hates them)

I do sometimes use beef or chicken bullion in my meatless dishes, however have found success with veggie bullion as well. I think you will find you will enjoy flavors without meat more if you just go hearty and not necessarily meat flavored.

Good luck and happy eating!

I use some vegetarian soup bases that are only available online. They are imported form Switzerland and used only in 5 star restaurants that care about top quality. The beef and veal flavored bases are meat free. The vegetable is wonderful. It makes lentil soup so delicious. They also have a ham base (contains ham though) that is great in any bean soup and a chicken base that is superb. They taste like you've cooked all day to get a stock that took you minutes. They are about $23 a can which yield 23 gallons of stock. It's a store in AZ that sells it, email me if you want ordering info.

Portabella mushrooms are a great replacement for meat. They are hearty and have a very fleshy texture.

I was a vegetarian for over 15 years & started eating birds a few years ago. There are things you go through as a part of the change that you will miss but eventually it goes away, trust me.

As a vegetarian, your comfort foods are things like dairy products, mushrooms, and eggs. You may want to familiarize yourself with the concept of umami to learn about where your taste buds get satisfaction & how...

Hearty winter vegetarian meals:
Vegetarian lasagne, especially with eggplant in it. Eggplant very much takes on the characteristics of meat to non-meat eaters. (Eggplant parmesian as well)

Any pasta dish is hearty and veggie - like walnut butternut squash stuffed ravioli.

Any enchilada or burrito type of dish is hearty when vegetarian.

Mashed potato and macaroni and cheese are both vegetarian and classic comfort foods. Stuffing too.

You can use potatoes as a thickner in soups. I puree half the potato to make it thicker, then leave the other half chunky for texture. They say you can do this with cauliflower too, but I never found that as satisfying.

You may want to try Tempeh - I love tempeh, and I also love Boca burger. Boca burger on pizza is fantastic. You can't think of it as MEAT... you just think of it as a protein ingredient. It tastes great on it's own - but it's not going to taste like meat to a meat eater.

Nuts - roast some nuts and put them in anything to make it more hearty. Some roasted walnuts with barley and mushrooms make a fantastic soup (with other ingredients too).

Good Luck, I hope this helps.

I tried a great recipe a couple of weeks ago.I am trying to have all my family go meatless not just myself. My 15 year old picky eater loved it.
Cooked pasta of your choice, a can of cream of mushroom soup, a couple of morning star mealtless sausage patties broken up blend all together and add a little lemon pepper.
I tried a couple of hamburger helpers recently and used vegi burgers in place of hamburger. They weren't too bad eiher. I also make fruit and vegi smoothies every day so we can get our servings of fuits and vegetables. I have a great blender that turns whole foods into smoothies with a little bit of soy milk. I use 1/3 frozen banana,5 frozen strawberries, 5 frozen blackberries, handfull of grapes, and a handfull of spinach. You can't taste the spinach at all, but they have to drink it fast because if it sits very long it starts to turn green from the chlorefil. You can be very creative with these and use whatever you have.

You've probably already tried this, but just thought I'd mention "Not Chicken" and "Not Beef" boullion. They're not exactly a perfect sub for hearty stocks (and they have a ton of sodium), but they are so quick and easy. I use them to add extra flavor to, say, a big pot of beans or rice, instead of cooking in just water. Also, you don't mention if you've gone meatless to save money or just not to eat meat. If it's more about saving money, would you still accept using meat stocks in your dishes?

Using a hearty broth will probably help. Of course, you could make a really good vegetable broth (I'd look at Food Network for recipes), but perhaps you're willing to use chicken or beef broth to gain that flavor back. Just a thought!

Here's one I made just a couple days ago....get a package of ten bean soup from the Womens Bean Project (any King Soopers or Safeway). Soak the beans. Make the pot of soup per directions, I add carrots, celery, onion to give it a little variety. Then add a cup of quinoa. It made all the difference in turning the bean soup into a hearty bean stew. Plus it's added protein!

You got some great responses already, and I'm so happy to see so many meat free homes!! Thought I was the only one...

Not sure if someone mentioned the slow cooker cookbooks. I think they are fix it and forget it for vegetarians, or fresh from the vegetarian slow cooker. Lots of great and varied ideas in there.

I think once you adjust more, you won't miss the meat flavor. I use vegetable stock and love it. They do make 'fake' beef or chicken stock. I think they have some sodium, but so does the real stuff!

I was surprised to learn that my picky family loved squash, just not cubed. They will eat squash soup (so many recipes out there, I use one that adds some pureed carrots, too). Even my 250 pound football playing hubby loves it. I just serve it with a hearty multi-grain bread to fill us up. Also squash ravioli. Really good flavor.

Good luck!