This is Goan(Indian) version of peri peri chicken made with hot chilis, Indian spices, and lots of ginger and garlic. Roasted Tofu chicken in a fiery chili garlic sauce, is perfect served with rice, baked veggies, or pasta!

This is a spicy and amazingly delicious recipe from Goan cuisine. Goa as a state on the western coast of India, and the cuisine has influences from Portuguese cooking and from Southern African cuisine, which came with the Portuguese. This is how the Indianized Goan peri peri sauce came into being. 

Indian peri peri sauce is a bit different from the African version, because it has Indian spices and uses Kashmiri chilis in addition to the peri peri/ pili pili chilies. If you can’t find peri peri chilies, just use hot Indian chilies. These chilies are soaked and blended up with Indian spices, ginger, and garlic to make the sauce. The sauce can then be used in various ways!

For the vegan version of Goan peri peri chicken, we use sliced tofu that is marinated and then crisped on a skillet, then placed in the sauce to serve. You can use other proteins with sauce as well. You can toss your protein in the sauce marinade and crisp it up on the skillet or in the oven, or you can just simmer the protein right in the sauce.

This sauce is often used to make peri peri chicken, prawns, or shrimp. Today, we are making a peri peri chicken version, but instead of chicken, we’re using tofu, and we’re slicing it and shaping it into a chicken breast shape. You can also just cube the tofu or tear it into organic shapes and use that instead, if you prefer. 

If you’d rather not use tofu, there are plenty of other plant-based proteins that you can use, such as tempeh or soy curls. For a soy-free version, use chickpea tofu, pumpkin seed tofu, soy-free vegan chicken substitutes, or seitan. You can also add beans or mushrooms to the sauce.

The dish can be made dry-ish, where all of the sauce kind of sticks to the tofu, or it can be made more saucy with some extra broth.

The sauce has this delicious smoky and spicy flavor from all the chilis. You can adjust the heat by reducing amount of peri peri chilis used in the recipe. Kashmiri chilis are pretty mild, but you can reduce those, as well. The sauce also has black pepper, so you can reduce that to reduce the heat, as well. 

Why You’ll Love Peri Peri Chicken

• super flavorful, smoky, spicy sauce with an adjustable heat level
• Use tofu or whatever plant-based protein you like!
• If you choose to pan fry the tofu, it’s a one pan dinner.
• gluten-free and nut-free with easy soy-free and oil-free options

Continue reading: Goan Peri Peri Chicken – Tofu in Indian Chili Garlic Sauce (gluten-free, nut-free)

The post Goan Peri Peri Chicken – Tofu in Indian Chili Garlic Sauce (gluten-free, nut-free) appeared first on Vegan Richa.

These super easy almond butter brownies have only 6 ingredients with no added oil and taste incredibly decadent. Packed with rich chocolate, creamy almond butter, and maple syrup for sweetness, soy-free. Options for gluten-free, and nut-free.

I mean, what’s not to like about all of this ooey, gooey, chocolatiness! These brownies with creamy almond butter are perfect just five to 10 minutes after you pull them out of the oven. If you want them to slice more cleanly, just let them cool for a bit longer.

These brownies are chewy and decadent. Almond butter gives them more texture and chewiness. The brands of almond butter might affect the texture a bit. You want to underbake these brownies for the best result.

There’s limited binding in these brownies as almond butter is gluten-free and there’s barely some flour, they will be a bit more soft and gooey. Lift the slices delicately, so they don’t fall apart on you. I like them as a scoop-and-serve warm brownie topped with vegan vanilla ice cream or with whipped coconut cream.

Store them on the counter in a closed container for up to a week. To serve, I do recommend warming them up in the microwave or the oven just a bit, because they taste the most fudgy and decadent when they’re warm. The almond butter gives them more texture than your conventional brownies, which works best when it’s warm.

The sweetness of these brownies depends on the sweetness of your almond butter (or alternative nut or seed butter) and your chocolate chips. If you like your brownies on the sweeter side, you can add a little extra sugar to the batter.

Why You’ll Love Brownies with Almond Butter

• rich, fudgy brownies with no added oil
• batter comes together in just one pan
• refined sugar free and refined oil free
• easily made gluten-free, soy-free, and/or nut-free

Continue reading: Almond Butter Brownies (6 ingredients, gluten-free option)

The post Almond Butter Brownies (6 ingredients, gluten-free option) appeared first on Vegan Richa.

Vegetable bhuna is a rich, Indian curry with an amazing flavor. Read on for my tips to make the best Indian restaurant style vegetable curry! Tender crisp fenugreek roasted veggies folded in a creamy tomato curry finished with a cumin spiced oil – tadka. You can add your favorite veggies to make this your own!

Bhuna is a spiced, Indian curry typically made with chicken or other meat in a creamy, spiced tomato-yogurt sauce. Bhuna means to-fry or to roast and for the sauce we fry the spices, then fry and caramelize the aromatics and continue adding more ingredients and roasting, deglazing and caramelizing to make this roasted sauce. Here, we’re using cauliflower, beans, carrots and lots of veggies for a vegetable bhuna that’s packed with flavor!

There are 3 steps in the recipe and they serve a purpose. First, we pre cook the veggies, we get a char going on the longer cooking veggies, roast them a bit then add a bit of water to steam and cook them until evenly al dente.

Second, we make the sauce with spices, aromatics, tomato and cream element. Then we fold in the cooked veggies and take it off heat. We do not cook the veggies in the sauce! Cooking them in the sauce adds all the veggie flavor to the sauce. We want the sauce flavor to stand out and not taste like veggie soup.

Third, we make a finishing spiced oil (tadka) with cumin seeds, bay leaf and fenugreek, then add some peppers and onions for crunch and lightly cook and fold those into the dish before serving. The spiced oil adds amazing flavor and the crunch adds texture as well as carries the spice flavor into the veggies and sauce!

This bhuna vegetable curry is a delicious way to use up veggies in your fridge or freezer! This is a restaurant-style curry and hence has more steps than your usual vegetable curry but, the resulting flavor is so worth the extra time.

Why You’ll Love Vegetable Bhuna

• creamy, tomato vegetable curry with cumin spiced oil with an amazing flavor
• versatile – Use your veggies of choice!
• naturally gluten-free with soy- and nut-free options.

More Vegan Curries

• Chickpea Coconut Curry
• Malaysian Tofu Curry
• Malabar Curry
• Baked Tofu Curry
• Butter Chickpeas curry

Continue reading: Restaurant-Style Vegetable Bhuna (North Indian Veggie Curry)

The post Restaurant-Style Vegetable Bhuna (North Indian Veggie Curry) appeared first on Vegan Richa.

Creamy, zesty, cashew nacho cheese is delicious for dipping and great on tacos, burritos, nachos, and more. You make it in the blender, no cooking required, and it’s so versatile! Nutfree option

I have a couple of versions of nacho cheese on the blog . They are nut-free, so I decided to make a nut-based version which is creamier and more decadent. This is a super easy vegan cheese recipe. Just add everything to the blender, and blend until smooth and creamy. 

From there, you can adjust the flavors by adding more spices or adjust the tang with lemon juice to make this your own. 

Use this cashew nacho cheese over nachos, burritos, a taco bake, baked potatoes, on blanched broccoli, or however you like. Add some salsa for even more flavor and serve with your fave tortilla chips! For a more neutral cheese sauce recipe see my potato carrot vegan cheese sauce

Why You’ll Love Cashew Nacho Cheese

• rich and creamy vegan cheese sauce with no oil needed
• velvety smooth with light smoky and spicy notes
• versatile! Adjust saltiness and spiciness easily. Serve on nachos, tacos, burritos, and more!
• naturally gluten-free with an easy soy-free option

Continue reading: Cashew Nacho Cheese (gluten-free, oil-free with soy-free option)

The post Cashew Nacho Cheese (gluten-free, oil-free with soy-free option) appeared first on Vegan Richa.

This amazing Indian Lucknowi Biryani is baked in the oven in a single pan. North Indian Spiced tofu Rice bake has fantastic flavor with unique blend of spices! It needs just 1 pan and 15 mins active time. A 2 step bake means no need to stand around sautéing the tofu or the aromatics! Gluten-free. Options for Soyfree Nutfree Oilfree.

You guys love my baked jackfruit biryani, so I decided to make another baked biryani for you. Biryani is a Rice dish often with added meats. Many regional cuisines of India have their own variations of this rice dish. They can vary significantly, some just a few spice differences while other with the processes and methods as well. Today we are making a royal biryani from Awadhi (Lucknowi) cuisine.

Lucknowi cuisine (north-central Indian cuisine) has influence from Mughal, nawabi, and Punjabi cuisines with its own dishes. Lucknowi Biryani is usually made with meat, like lamb. I’m using tofu here as the protein, I’m using the same spices that make that biryani ultra delicious and special. Come along with me on my mission to explore regional Indian cuisine as well as make vegan versions of meat heavy Indian recipes!

Biryani is a rice dish, which usually has a really flavorful protein added to it. Everything is layered in a pot to get all of the flavors infused into the rice, and it’s served either as-is or with some yogurt dip raita or as a side dish. The traditional cooking requires many pans and multiple steps to get all the flavor in the protein and the rice which is then layered and slow cooked in a covered/sealed container. I simplify that whole process by baking the Biryani so you need just 1 baking dish and a few minutes of active time in the kitchen!

I’m using very specific spices in this recipe for that particular authentic flavor. If you don’t have all of the spices, use whichever spices you have and add in some extra garam masala, or you can use the spices from my jackfruit biryani.

Why You’ll Love Lucknowi Biryani

• Crisp spiced tofu and rice flavored with a mix of whole and ground spices
• same incredible, layered, complex flavors baked in a single pan in the oven
• only 15 minutes of active time and the rest hour is baking in the oven
• naturally gluten-free with easy nut-free, soy-free, and oil-free options

Continue reading: Lucknowi Biryani (North Indian Spiced Tofu Rice Bake)

The post Lucknowi Biryani (North Indian Spiced Tofu Rice Bake) appeared first on Vegan Richa.

Crisp on the outside, fudgy on the inside almond butter blondies with decadent chocolate chips are the quick and easy one-bowl dessert you’ve been looking for!Just 8 main ingredients, 15 minutes to whip them up in just 1 bowl. Serve with a dollop of your favorite vegan ice cream. This recipe was first published on feb 20, 2015. It has been updated with new pictures, write up and video.

These amazing, fudgy vegan almond butter blondies only take 15 minutes to whip up in one bowl. After mixing, you just pour them into a baking pan and bake to perfection.

This blondies recipe is lightly sweetened, fudgy, and buttery, with flavors of vanilla and cinnamon. Use other flours or gluten-free flour blend of choice. If you are using a whole grain flour to replace the white flour in this recipe, add 1 to 2 tablespoons less than the mentioned quantity, and add more only if the mixture is too wet. 

Not only are almond butter blondies delicious and easy to make, the batter is free from added refined oil! If you want to make them completely oil-free, use cacao nibs in place of the chocolate chips.

They’re also refined sugar-free, since we sweeten these blondies with coconut sugar, which gives them such a nice flavor.

Why You’ll Love Almond Butter Blondies

• crisp, butter, and fudgy with flavors of cinnamon and vanilla
• lots of decadent chocolate chips
• one-bowl batter takes only 15 minutes to mix
• easy to make soy-free and even nut-free

Continue reading: Vegan Almond Butter Blondies with Chocolate Chips (1 bowl, soy-free, nut-free option)

The post Vegan Almond Butter Blondies with Chocolate Chips (1 bowl, soy-free, nut-free option) appeared first on Vegan Richa.

Lentils popped in a skillet and tossed in spices then paired with an easy cauliflower-potato mash, have amazing texture and flavor! You can make the mash smoother or chunkier based on your preference. Serve it with the lentils on top and a good drizzle of olive oil. soy-free, gluten-free, nut-free with oil-free option

These crispy popped lentils with smooth mashed potatoes are full of amazing texture and flavor!

If you’ve never made popped lentils before, they are so much fun! Add cooked lentils and a little bit of oil to a skillet, cook them over high heat until they fluff up and pop like a popped grain, and then they crisp up a little bit. Then, we add some savory and smoky spices to flavor them.

Then we try not to eat these delicious lentils all by themselves! And serve them over some creamy mashed potatoes. I served these as topping over a simple cauliflower potato mash flavored with herbs and paprika. You can use all potato or all cauliflower. These bowls make for an amazing holiday or even weeknight side dish!

These popped roasted lentils are very versatile. Add whatever herbs or spices you like and add them to your salads, bowls, tacos, pasta and everything! Think spicy Cajun lentils, Jamaican curry lentils and more.

Serve these with a side salad or rustic bread, or some gravy and biscuits, or as a side in a spread

Why You’ll Love Lentil Mashed Potatoes

• creamy, cauliflower mashed potatoes with crisp, popped lentil topping
• lentils add fiber and protein!
• Everyday ingredient and quick recipe, perfect for the holidays or any day!
• soy-free, gluten-free, nut-free
• can be made oil-free

More Vegan Lentil Recipes

• Smoky Skillet Lasagna with Crispy, Bacon-y Lentils
• Kung Pao Lentils
• Handi Lentils
• Easy Lentil Soup

Continue reading: Popped Lentils with Mashed Potatoes

The post Popped Lentils with Mashed Potatoes appeared first on Vegan Richa.

Beans do pyaza (Indian cumin onion sauce) uses the flavorful sauce from North Indian chicken do pyaza! Creamy caramelized onion sauce seasoned with toasted cumin, ginger, garlic, and spiced and garnished with seared peppers and onions. Glutenfree. Nutfree Soyfree

Beans are having a real moment right now, so I’ve been using beans in some of my favorite sauces. Today we add them to this flavorful Indian sauce.

All the amazing complex flavor is always in the spiced Indian sauces! The proteins( meats, tofu, beans) taste so good because of the well spiced and simmered sauce! This sauce today is vibrant, deep and delicious! Do pyaza translates to double onions. In this fragrant toasted cumin and onion sauce, you add onions at two different points. You’ve got seared onions in the topping and caramelized in the base sauce. Caramelized onion with well toasted cumin and other spices makes for a deeply rich and flavored sauce.

This one is an amazing curry to use with any protein that you like, like baked tofu, chickpeas, beans, soy curls, seitan, vegan chicken substitutes, or whatever you like. I’m using great northern beans, but you can also use other white beans, like cannellini beans, butter beans, or you can even use chickpeas in the same sauce. 

It’s a fabulous, flavorful sauce!

This is also a freezer-friendly recipe. You can freeze just the sauce or the sauce and beans together and heat it up and serve whenever you’re ready.

Beans do pyaza is also a great way to serve beans on toast! if you want the beans and toast to be extra flavorful and spiced As with spiced Indian curries and sauces, the flavor gets stronger as the sauce sits. The flavor also depends on the age of your spices. If you find yourself tripling the amount of spices listed in my recipes, the spices are probably quite old.
This sauce pairs well with any kind of protein like baked tofu, vegan chicken subs, roasted cauliflower or veggies and what not! With the beans It makes a simple, cozy, satisfying one-pot meal.

Why You’ll Love this Beans do Pyaza Curry

• Very flavorful, creamy sauce packed with onion, spices, ginger, and garlic and toasted fragrant cumin seeds
• quick and easy one pot meal. Uses just 1 pan and cutting board!
• freezer-friendly : the sauce as well as the beans+ sauce are freezer friendly. Reheat in pan or microwave
• gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free with an oil-free option

More Indian curries

• Malai tofu
• Gobi Do Pyaza
• Lasooni Chicken Curry
• Dal Bukhara
• Lentil Coconut Curry (1 pan, 30 minutes!)

Continue reading: White Beans in Toasted Cumin Onion Curry (White Beans do Pyaza) – one pot

The post White Beans in Toasted Cumin Onion Curry (White Beans do Pyaza) – one pot appeared first on Vegan Richa.

Don’t you love baked oatmeal? It’s so hearty and versatile! You can make it sweet or savory using whatever ingredients you have in your kitchen, but did you know that it also makes a great holiday gift? This baked oatmeal mix is a mason jar gift that’s a perfect stocking stuffer, coworker gift, hostess gift, etc.

There are so many different baked oats options on the blog. I have sweet options like Snickers baked oatmeal, banana bread baked oatmeal, pumpkin baked oatmeal, and apple pie baked oatmeal. There are also savory baked oatmeal recipes, like the pizza oatmeal bake and veggie baked oats. 

This baked oatmeal mix in a jar contains all of the dry ingredients you’ll need to make all kinds of amazing baked oats recipes!

For most of my baked oats recipes, I use basically the same amount of oats and other ingredients, so I decided to make a mix that you can use really quickly for whichever kind of baked oats you want to make. You can use my mix as written to make PBJ baked oatmeal or Tex-Mex baked oats, use my other recipes for inspiration or vary up the mix-ins and/or spices to build your own creations! See some options in recipe notes.

If you are planning to use the the oats for just sweet options, add in some vanilla powder into the mix as well!

Vegan baked oatmeal is so easy to make and such a satisfying breakfast, no eggs or egg replacer needed!

Why You’ll Love Baked Oatmeal

• easy to make
• great holiday gift
• great make-ahead breakfast or snack
• versatile and packed with healthy oats!
• make them sweet or savory
• oil-free and easy to make soy-free, gluten-free, and even nut-free

More Ways to Use Oats

• Crunchy Granola Bars
• Baklava Overnight Oats
• Apple Pie Overnight Oats
• Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Waffles

Continue reading: Baked Oatmeal Mix for Holiday Gifting

The post Baked Oatmeal Mix for Holiday Gifting appeared first on Vegan Richa.

This is cranberry sauce chutney! And it’s baked in 1 pan so completely handsfree! Just add all ingredients including some green chili, cinnamon and Garam masala to a baking dish and bake! Stovetop option in notes

This cranberry chutney is also part of my Indianized Thanksgiving spread. This gets baked in the oven. In fact, the whole spread is pretty hands-free.

We bake many of the dishes for this spread in the oven, so that there’s much less standing around and sautéing things on the stove. Instead of cooking this cranberry chutney in a pan, I just add all of it to a baking dish, and bake it. It’s simple as that! 

After baking, you simply mash it a little bit to get an wonderful, jammy texture, and the cranberry chutney is ready. 

If you prefer to cook your chutney on the stovetop, see the notes in the recipe card for those cooking directions.

For the spread the chickpea loaf has Indian spices, and the gravy is a quick mix and boil butter chikin sauce that you’ll also use as the glaze for the meatloaf. The veggie side is spiced, glazed carrots, and the cranberry sauce is made into this quick dump and bake cranberry chutney with garam masala and green chili added to it. For the Spinach pastry, we are using spinach and vegan cream cheese, but the spinach is spiced like saag or palak tofu, so it has all those flavors going and is delicious and creamy.

Why You’ll Love Indian Cranberry Chutney

• easy oven recipe — no standing over the stove!
• sweet cranberry with spicy chilis and savory garam masala
• no chopping or slicing!
• naturally gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, and oil-free

More Indian Chutnies

• Mint Chutney
• Spicy Mango Chutney
• Tomato Chutney
• Coconut Chutney
• Date Tamarind Chutney

Continue reading: Spicy Cranberry Chutney (easy oven recipe!)

The post Spicy Cranberry Chutney (easy oven recipe!) appeared first on Vegan Richa.