Sustainable diets have been around for decades, but an emerging cookbook genre signals a new appetite for change.

By Caroline Saunders, Grist

Kitchen Arts & Letters, a legendary cookbook store on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, is tiny — just 750 square feet — but not an inch of space is wasted. With roughly 12,000 different cookbooks and a staff of former chefs and food academics, it’s the land of plenty for those seeking guidance beyond the typical weekday recipe. 

One table is piled high with new cookbooks about ramen, eggs, and the many uses of whey, the overflow stacked in leaning towers above the shelves along the walls. One bookcase is packed with nothing but titles about fish. And next to a robust vegetarian section at the back of the store, tucked in a corner, is a minuscule collection of cookbooks about sustainability and climate change. 

Natalie Stroud, a sales associate at Kitchen Arts & Letters, pointed me to the five titles featured there. “It’s hard,” she said, “because there aren’t many. But it’s something we’re trying to build out as it becomes more popular.”

One of the cookbooks is Eating for Pleasure, People, and Planet by British chef Tom Hunt. I flip to a recipe titled “a rutabaga pretending to be ham” (with cross-hatching that would make a honey-baked ham blush) and a Dan Barber-inspired “rotation risotto” starring a dealer’s choice of sustainably grown grains. Next to it is Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking by restaurateur sisters Margaret and Irene Li, full of mad-lib recipes for wilting ingredients like “an endlessly riffable fruit crisp” and a saag paneer that grants ingredients like carrot tops a compost-bin pardon. 

What is climate-friendly cooking?

Climate cookbooks seem to be picking up speed in parallel to a trend toward sustainable eating. In 2016, the term “climatarian” entered the Cambridge Dictionary — referring to a person who bases their diet on the lowest possible carbon footprint. In 2020, a survey by the global market research company YouGov found that 1 in 5 U.S. millennials had changed their diets to help the climate. If you consider a climate cookbook to be one that was written, at least in part, to address the dietary changes necessitated by the climate crisis, you can see a whisper of a subgenre beginning to emerge. At least a dozen have been published since 2020. 

These cookbooks might play an important role in the transition to sustainable diets. It’s one thing — and certainly a useful thing — for scientists and international organizations to tell people how diets need to change to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. It’s another to bring the culinary path forward to life in actual dishes and ingredients. And recipe developers and cookbook authors, whose whole shtick is knowing what will feel doable and inspiring in the glow of the refrigerator light, might be the ones to do it.

I’ve been thinking about this handoff from science communicators to the culinary crowd for a while. I worked at Grist until I went to Le Cordon Bleu Paris to learn how to make sustainable desserts. (Climate cuisine is dead on arrival without good cake.) Now a recipe tester and Substacker with my own dream of a one-day cookbook, I find myself wondering what this early wave of climate cookbooks is serving for dinner.

What does climate cooking mean? And will these cookbooks have any impact on the way average people cook and eat? The emerging genre of climate cookbooks puts a big idea on the menu: that there won’t be one way to eat sustainably in a warming world, but many — à la carte style.

The rise of climate cookbooks

Cookbooks about sustainable ways of eating are nothing new, even if they haven’t used the climate label. M.F.K. Fisher’s World War II-era book How to Cook a Wolf found beauty in cooking what you have and wasting nothing. The comforting recipes in the Moosewood Cookbook helped American vegetarianism unfurl its wings in the 1970s. Eating locally and seasonally is familiar, too. Edna Lewis spread it out on a Virginia table in The Taste of Country Cooking, and Alice Waters turned it into a prix fixe menu and various cookbooks at her Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse.

But until recently, if you wanted to read about food and climate change, you had to turn to the nonfiction shelves. Books like The Fate of Food by Amanda Little (for which I was a research intern) and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan swirl the two topics together as smoothly as chocolate and vanilla soft serve, albeit through a journalistic rather than culinary lens. The way we eat is both a driver of climate change — the food system accounts for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions — and an accessible solution. Unlike energy or transportation or the gruel that is national politics, our diets are a problem with solutions as close as the ends of our forks. 

It seems only natural that consideration for the climate would eventually waft into recipe writing and cookbooks. In 2019, NYT Cooking created a collection of climate-friendly recipes, albeit a sparse one by their standards, focused on meat alternatives, sustainable seafood, and vegan dishes. In 2021, Epicurious announced it would stop publishing new recipes containing beef, which is about 40 times more carbon-intensive than beans. In parallel, climate cookbooks have begun to proliferate, and so far, they’re offering varied entry points to sustainable eating.

A few recent food waste cookbooks want home cooks to know one thing: that simply using all our food is an undersung climate solution — one often overshadowed by red meat’s gaudier climate villainy. The research organization Project Drawdown lists reducing food waste as the climate solution that could cut the most emissions (closely followed by adopting plant-rich diets), a fact that caught Margaret Li’s attention when she and her sister Irene were writing Perfectly Good Food.

“That kind of blew my mind,” she said. “For people worried about the environment, you think, ‘I should get an electric car, I should eat vegetarian.’ But then you waste all this food and throw it in the landfill. It seems like a pretty important connection to make for people.” 

One: Pot, Pan, Planet by the “queen of greens” Anna Jones offers another way in, tinkering with a weeknight style of vegetarianism to make it even better for the environment. Her brightly flavored recipes, which have earned her comparisons to Nigella Lawson and Yotam Ottolenghi, streamline kitchen appliance use (hence: one pot, one pan), saving a lot of time and a little energy and money, too.

Jones has also honed her vegetarian shopping list over time. “The ingredients I’m drawn to have definitely changed,” she said. She now offers substitutions for dairy and eggs as a matter of course (you can use vegan ricotta in her sweet corn and green chili pasta, if you wish!), and she deemphasizes certain plant-based ingredients that come with environmental or social baggage. Water-guzzling almonds and often exploitatively produced chocolate appear on a “tread lightly” list, along with the recommendation to think of them as special treats rather than everyday staples.

Is seasonal and local eating legit?

Other cookbooks take a different approach, offering home cooks a fully developed set of what we might call climate cooking principles.

When chef Tom Hunt wrote his 2020 cookbook Eating for Pleasure, People, and Planet, his goal was “to cover food sustainability in its entirety.” It opens with his “root-to-fruit manifesto,” which he translated from an academic book for a home cook audience and boiled down to a few ideas: plant-based, low-waste, and climate cuisine. By “climate cuisine” he means using local and seasonal ingredients, sourcing from labor- and land-conscious vendors (consider the cover crop, would you, in your next risotto?), and eating a rainbow of biodiverse foods. 

Eating seasonally and locally are sometimes dismissed from the climate conversation because they don’t save much carbon, according to experts. But some argue that seasonal food tastes better and can help eaters steer away from climate red flags. Skipping out-of-season produce avoids food grown in energy-sucking greenhouses and stuff that’s flown in by plane, like delicate berries. (Air travel is the only mode of transport that makes food miles a big deal.) And local food comes with an oft-forgotten green flag: Buying from nearby farms strengthens regional food economies, which makes the food system more resilient to climate events and other shocks. 

Hunt also makes the case for putting biodiversity on the plate. “Biodiversity has always felt like one of the key elements of this whole situation that we’re in,” he said. Today, nearly half of all the calories people eat around the world come from just three plants: wheat, rice, and maize. “That kind of monoculture is very fragile,” he explained. “People often don’t realize that our food is linked to biodiversity, and the diversity of the food that we eat can support biodiversity in general.”

Biodiversity is also a through line in For People and Planet — a collaboration between the United Nations and the nonprofit Kitchen Connection Alliance with recipes contributed by star chefs, Indigenous home cooks, and farmers. (We’ll call it the U.N. cookbook, since these titles otherwise threaten to blend into an alliterative purée). Its recipes are a global tour of plant-forward culinary biodiversity, like a West African moringa pesto pasta and banana-millet croquettes rolled in puffed amaranth that looks like teensy popcorn. 

Published last year, the cookbook is divided into five big ideas: biodiversity, food and climate change, reducing food waste, sustainable consumption, and the food system. The topics came from a U.N. food systems summit, said Earlene Cruz, who is the founder and director of Kitchen Connection Alliance and who compiled the cookbook. They were the ones that “consumers needed more information on, but could also be contributors to in a positive way.”

The chapters on sustainable consumption and the food system argue that a sustainable eating philosophy isn’t complete without consideration of — among other things — resilience and nutrition. What does that mean in dinner form? In Nunavut, Canada, it might mean choosing grilled Arctic char, because it’s part of a nutritionally and culturally important Inuit fishing economy. (Folks in other parts should source it carefully, since seafood is environmentally complicated.) Among the Maasai Indigenous community in Kenya, it might mean serving enkum, a starchy side dish that uses low-cost veggies, since frequent droughts and social unrest make food prices high. The chapters stress communities’ ability to feed themselves healthily, on their own terms, regardless of what climate disruptions may come or what industrial food supply chains may peddle. 

The U.N. cookbook raises an important idea: that there won’t be one sustainable diet around the world, but many. Still, the mix of considerations it tosses into the pan — water scarcity, nutrition, food sovereignty, biodiversity, pollution — might leave home cooks slightly overwhelmed. You might shut the book, stomach rumbling, and wonder: OK, well, what should I make for dinner if I care about people and the planet?

What goes into writing a climate cookbook

Coming up with recipes for the planet’s well-being involves a number of considerations. How do you come up with a climate cooking philosophy that’s scientifically rigorous and approachable? What do you do about regionality — the fact that some things, like tomatoes, can be grown sustainably in one part of the world, but might require a greenhouse to grow elsewhere? And how do you handle the climate-offender-in-chief — meat?

Most of the climate cookbook authors mentioned above allow for diets that include animal products. They generally don’t want to turn off omnivores, but the overtures they make to meat-eating vary. Hunt’s cookbook Eating for Pleasure, People, and Planet is plant-based, but he includes advice on sourcing meat and fish sustainably for those who do indulge. The U.N. cookbook opted to include some meat recipes, like a South African beef dish called bobotie that could counter childhood malnutrition. Cruz, who compiled the cookbook, is vegetarian; she just doesn’t like the taste of meat. But, she explains, “if I’m putting my personal views aside, some cultures do need to eat meat to sustain themselves.”

More complicated is picking an ingredient list that will be sustainable for everyone who might use the cookbook, regardless of geography, culture, or socioeconomic status. Amy Trubek, a professor in the department of nutrition and food sciences at the University of Vermont, thinks this is one of the biggest challenges climate cookbook authors will face.

“The glossy cookbook genre now, it’s a hard situation in a way,” she said, “because they’re supposed to be pitching it to any middle- or upper-middle-class consumer anywhere in the United States, and they could be living in a penthouse apartment in Chicago, or they could be living in a ranch in New Mexico. So how do you teach about [sustainable eating] without thinking about specificity and regionality?” 

Cookbook authors have a few options. They could write a regionally specific cookbook, or a mass-market one starring ingredients that grow sustainably in lots of places (as One did). Or they could write a cookbook that samples vast biodiversity at some cost to sourceability — that’s the approach the U.N. cookbook took.

“There are many cookbooks that could … have 90 percent of the recipes be part of your staple at home,” Cruz said. “But that serves a different purpose.” The U.N. cookbook is instead “almost a launching point into everyone’s own culinary exploration and everyone’s own culinary journey.” 

That exploratory emphasis — embodied not just in the recipes but in accompanying carbon and nutrition calculations and in principles that offer starting points rather than answers — puts it at one end of the spectrum in the balance these authors strike between nuance and approachability, science and art. As Cruz put it, “What we wanted to create was sort of a textbook in disguise.” 

One, on the other hand, was always meant to make people pull out a cutting board. Jones includes no small measure of environmental nuance — she tucks articles on issues like soil health and ethical sourcing between her recipe chapters — but her recipes themselves don’t ask the cook to do anything other than make weeknight meals with supermarket ingredients. “I could have foraged for sea buckthorn and written a chapter on sea asparagus,” she laughs, “and I would love for everyone to be foraging. But that’s not the reality … I wanted to write a sustainable cookbook, but I also wanted to write a cookbook filled with recipes people could make.”

Standing out from the crowd

No matter the topic, writing a cookbook is a big undertaking. Authors develop 100 or more recipes, typically handing them off to recipe testers in batches to poke, prod, and polish to infallibility. And while roughly 20 million cookbooks are sold in the U.S. each year, the field is ever more crowded, so it’s harder to stand out. 

For now, the climate cookbooks shelf is still tiny, and it’s hard to know which ones readers might be most tempted to pick up — let alone which, if any, might actually create meaningful shifts in what and how we eat.

“People buy cookbooks for myriad reasons,” wrote Matt Sartwell, the managing partner of Kitchen Arts & Letters, in an email to Grist. “But if there is anything that people will pay for — recipes and information being free and abundant on the internet — it’s a clear point of view and the promise that an author has given a subject very serious thought.” 

One: Pot, Pan, Planet is Jones’ best-selling cookbook to date, despite the fact that leaning into sustainability “felt like a bit of a risk,” she said. 

She has a hunch about why it’s been popular. “People want to try and make a difference,” she said. “I think it felt comforting for people to have a book full of recipes that it felt OK to eat.”

This article by Grist is published here as part of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.

The post Recipe For Change: How Climate Cookbooks Can Help Transform How We Eat appeared first on Green Queen.

It’s only Thanksgiving and we might be hitting a tipping point with Christmas content already, so this is probably three months too late – but in case you’re like me and still planning your Christmas menu, here are a few cocktails (both boozy and non-alcoholic) that will spruce things up come Yule.

The other day, I was surfing the internet and – as you do – came upon a thumb-stopping stat. I’ve known for a long time that a third of all food across the world is wasted (and that my continent produces 50% of it) and that it’s worth about $1tn. But these numbers never really hit home unless you measure human impact, at least for me.

Anyway, say we, you know, didn’t waste so much food (just a thought) – did you know how many people we could feed with all that food loss? Two billion. Two fucking billion. That’s all of India, the US and Brazil, and then some change.

There are myriad reasons people waste food, and I’m yet to find a good one. And it gets worse on certain days of the year, like Christmas when the UK alone throws away 54 million excess plates of its food – enough to feed 80% of its population.

But excess is synonymous with Christmas. We eat loads, talk loads, drink loads. On that last one, alcohol isn’t super efficient either. For example, for every litre of tequila, about 5kg of pulp and 10-15kg of acidic waste are left over, both of which can contaminate soil and water supplies in its production regions.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t enjoy a drink, but how can we make our Christmas drinks better for the planet? What if there were a way to use up as much of each ingredient as possible, and produce zero-waste cocktails with zero compromise on flavour?

If you’re really into your food, you’ll know there are tons of things you can do to elevate zero-waste recipes. Food waste is among the climate solutions that can reduce the most emissions – so maybe let’s have our beverages and drink them too this year?

Here are a few zero-waste Christmas cocktails (with non-alcoholic swaps) that’ll leave you feeling light and your impact on the environment even lighter. Since These are all time-intensive recipes, as they rely on different techniques for better flavour – the payoff is massive, though, as you’ll mostly end up with spirits that can be used for many other cocktails too. Since Christmas is a month away, you can start working on these now.

(The quantities for certain ingredients are more instinctive than, erm, scientific – but that’s the point! Feel free to play around.)

Pecan-butter-washed Old Fashioned

Starting with the all-timer. I love fat-washing, it brings such a complex note and mouthfeel to a drink, and it just feels… elegant?

Old Fashioneds have been back in fashion ever since Mad Men took over our screens in the late 00s, and now there are so many versions of it, it can be head-spinning. Let me spin your head further with a fat-washed version.

Fat washing is a technique where you use fat to infuse flavour into a spirit (but it doesn’t have to be booze), and you ‘wash’ (separate) the fat once the infusion is done. It’s pretty neat. Many bars do this via a sous-vide machine – since most of us don’t have one at home, there are two other ways that are equally effective (if slightly more time-consuming). One is freezing, and the other is just letting time do its thing.

Another problem with fat washing is that a lot of the time, the leftover fat is thrown away – for no good reason! And as for Old Fashioneds, the customary orange peel is gorgeous, but I’ve personally seen people throw away a perfectly good orange after peeling it all.

What you’ll need: Islay Scotch (or another smokey whisky), pecans, light muscovado sugar, walnut and orange bitters (or whatever you fancy), a cinnamon stick and an orange.

How to make it: Take 250g of pecans and roast them in the oven at 165°C/330°F for 12-14 minutes. Transfer to a food processor and blend until the oils release and it turns into smooth pecan butter. In a large rectangular box, transfer all of the butter and smoothen it out in a layer. Now, pour the entire bottle of whisky over it (saving the bottle for later), but don’t stir. Pop a lid on and leave it in a dark place at room temperature for two weeks.

Once it’s infused, transfer the Scotch to a French press, squeezing the nut butter with a spatula to get most of the booze out (don’t worry too much about this, though). Plunge the French press and pour the whisky back into its bottle – and that’s your base spirit. (You can also pass this through a paper coffee filter for extra-fine filtration, but be prepared to wait hours, if not days).

Peel an entire orange in long strips for garnish, and cut the remainder into thin slices. Make a simple syrup with one part water to one part muscovado sugar, add the cinnamon and orange slices and simmer for 30 minutes. Spread the slices on a silicone mat to cool. Reserve the orange syrup (alongside the cinnamon) in a glass bottle.

Now to build the cocktail: pour a teaspoon of the syrup alongside half a tablespoon of the pecan butter and a few dashes of both bitters in a stirring glass, and stir. Add 50ml of the whisky, in batches so it’s all mixed well. Now fill with ice and stir until cold. Decant into a rocks glass, twist an orange peel in, and add a slice of the candied orange on top.

How to make it non-alcoholic: Since this is a whisky-forward cocktail, I’d recommend using a non-alcoholic spirit like Dochus Smokey Isle or Dandy Smoke.

Christmas orange negroni

Oranges are a very Christmassy fruit and are ubiquitous in cocktails too. But climate change is ravaging oranges so badly that there has been an orange juice shortage, with crop harvests in the US and Brazil falling significantly. Despite that, in the UK, one in five people throw away bags of oranges, instead of making the most out of them.

Negronis can be an any-season drink, but something about the red hue just screams Christmas. This twist on the popular cocktail sees the gin get infused with festive spices, and oranges used in a fun way that adds depth to the drink.

What you’ll need: Gin, Campari, Discarded zero-waste vermouth, star anise, cloves, green cardamom, cinnamon stick, rosemary and an orange.

How to make it: Toast the whole spices (crushing the green cardamom) in a pan on medium heat until fragrant, and add straight to the gin bottle along with a sprig of rosemary. Leave to infuse for a few days (at least 48 hours, but can be left indefinitely).

Peel the orange into long strips, and squeeze the juice out of the rest. As for the leftover orange pith, you can either dehydrate it, grind it into a powder and use it as a fibre-rich flavour enhancer, or compost it. Bring the orange juice to a boil in a saucepan, and simmer for about 15 minutes to half an hour, until reduced to a thick, syrupy consistency (about a quarter of the original volume). Cool and store in the fridge.

To assemble the cocktail, add 25ml each of the Campari, vermouth and gin (you may want to use a strainer to avoid any of the spices going in – just pop them back inside the gin when done) to a stirring glass, alongside a teaspoon of the orange juice reduction. You can adjust the quantity of the latter to your liking. Add ice and stir until cold, decant into a rocks glass, and finish with an orange peel twist and another sprig of rosemary.

How to make it non-alcoholic: Like the Old Fashioned, this is a spirit-forward cocktail too, so use alternatives like Strykk Gin, APRTF or Lyre’s 0% ABV Campari substitute, and Martini Rosso or Lyre’s non-alcohol vermouth. If you do drink but want to avoid the hangovers, swap the gin for Sentia Red.

Spent espresso martini

The espresso martini is a universally popular and ubiquitous cocktail. It’s also one of the easiest cocktails to make, given the short and simple ingredient list.

Coffee has a turbulent relationship with climate change, and the amount of waste it creates is insane. About 23 million tonnes of waste is generated via coffee production every year, while 75% of spent coffee – the grounds left over after brewing – ends up in landfill.

I’m aware there are time-consuming cocktails on this list, with days of prep. This one takes considerably less time (overnight), plus it’ll give you a ton of homemade coffee liqueur to use as you please.

What you’ll need: Espresso, spent coffee grounds, tequila (an eco-friendly one, please!), vodka (preferably vanilla), nutmeg, sugar and espresso.

How to make it: Brew 10 shots of espresso and add to a glass bottle (or a covered vessel) – store in your fridge (don’t worry, it’ll all work out). Leave the grounds to cool, and then transfer to a French press with 500ml of vodka. Leave overnight (ideally between 12-16 hours), and then strain through a paper coffee filter. You can finally compost your coffee grounds – whatever vodka is leftover in here is good for your soil and plans.

Make a simple syrup with a one-to-one ration of water and sugar (about 200g each), alongside some freshly ground nutmeg. Once boiled, cool for 15 minutes and add half to the coffee liqueur. Keep adding more and adjust to your liking.

Take 25ml of espresso, 25ml of your coffee liqueur and 50ml of tequila, add a pinch of salt, and shake in a cocktail shaker until well-mixed and frothy. Add to a martini or coupe glass, and garnish with some freshly grated nutmeg.

How to make it non-alcoholic: Use a no-ABV vodka like Strykk or USKO, and alcohol-free tequila like Lewis Hamilton’s Almave. You can also do away with both and just use cold brew concentrate, espresso and nutmeg-infused sugar syrup.

Vegan aged eggnog

We had to include the classic here. There are tons of vegan eggnog recipes out there – some using almond milk, some coconut cream, others a cashew base. Sure, all do their job in their own way.

But there’s a technique many people use that brings about more complex flavours and just hits differently: ageing. And since we’re twisting tradition anyway, we might as well add some Mexican flavours here. I promise this will blow your mind. Cooking the rice means no need to filter and waste any grains. And the booze will keep this for an insanely long time.

Bear in mind though: this needs time, so maybe start whipping it up now so it’s ready for a Christmas in a month. Or get it ready for next year! (Kudos to Jennifer Carroll and Alton Brown for inspiration!)

What you’ll need: Spiced rum, white rice, almonds, almond milk, cinnamon stick (preferably Ceylon), black peppercorns, tahini, vanilla (bean, powder, extract, whatever you can find), nutmeg and maple syrup.

How to make it: Boil 150g of rice alongside a couple of black peppercorns, plus – if using whole – the cinnamon stick, vanilla and nutmeg, until cooked and soft. Drain and once cooled, add to a blender along with the 2 tbsp tahini, about 4-6 tbsp maple syrup, a pinch of salt, and 500ml almond milk (if using powdered/liquid spices, add now). Blend until completely smooth, then add about 225g of booze. Pulse to combine and transfer in a clean glass jar.

Place this in the fridge, and age for at least two to three weeks, and up to a year. The alcohol will help preserve the rest of the ingredients – so fret not. Once it’s ready, you can add more almond milk if you find it too strong, or a little more maple if you want it sweeter.

How to make it non-alcoholic: The alcohol acts as a preservative, so it’s necessary for the ageing. For this one, it’s best to just ditch the booze and ageing – it’ll still burst with flavour. You can heat and infuse the almond milk with the spices too before adding it (make sure to cool before blending), and can make it a couple of days ahead.

The post Zero-Waste Christmas: 4 Gourmet Cocktails (& Mocktails) You Can Start Making Now appeared first on Green Queen.

A new report by the Better Food Foundation and Sentient Media analyzed eight news outlets – four each in the UK and the US – and found that five have recipe sections dominated by meat-based dishes. In an effort to find the link between climate media and animal agriculture, the researchers suggested five actions to help new outlets nudge readers toward more climate-friendly eating habits.

The research, titled ‘Recipe for Succes’, analysed the recipe sections of the AP, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Yahoo News in the US, and the Guardian, the BBC, the Independent and ITV in the UK. The authors deemed all 8 outlets as having “responsible climate reporting (i.e., in keeping with scientific consensus)”. The data included an analysis of at least 100 recipes from each outlet, calculating the share of plant-based recipes to ‘omnivorous’ and vegetarian ones.

US vs UK food media

The report found that among the US outlets, 53.6% of recipes were meat-based, with only 20.2% being vegan. The New York Times had the highest percentage of omnivorous recipes at 63.9%, but vegan recipes (19.7%) outnumbered vegetarian ones (16.4%). This is despite the publication scoring highly in an assessment of its climate coverage, with 90% of articles crediting anthropogenic activity as a significant driver of climate change.

It’s followed closely by the AP, which had 63.6% meat-based recipes, and only 13.6% plant-based ones. Meanwhile, Yahoo News (44.4%) and the Washington Post (42.5%) were two of the only three outlets in the study where meat-based dishes accounted for less than 50% of their recipe share. Both also had a quarter of vegan recipes, at 25.4%.

The third such outlet was the Guardian in the UK, which had 49.1% of meat-based recipes. Its share of fully plant-based dishes came to 18.4%. But like the US, British mainstream media too skewed toward meat-heavy, with an average of 60.6% of recipes being omnivorous, and only 11.6% being vegan.

ITV had the most meat-based recipes in the study at 78.2%, and the fewest plant-based dishes at 3%. Meat-centric dishes accounted for 63.9% of the BBC’s recipes, and 51% at the Independent, but plant-based recipes amounted to just 12.3% and 12.6%, respectively.

The results show that US media features fewer meat-based recipes (despite them still commanding the majority) than the UK, while vegetarianism still trumps veganism in both countries. “The failure of most news outlets to reconcile their climate reporting with their recipe sections is symptomatic of a larger failure,” the study reads.

It refers to research by Sentient Media and Faunalytics showed that 93% of climate reporting doesn’t mention animal agriculture at all. This is despite evidence revealing that vegan diets can cut emissions, water pollution and land use by 75% compared to a meat-rich diet. It’s also perhaps why the US’s higher share of plant-based recipes is surprising, given that 74% of Americans don’t think eating meat can reduce their climate emissions.

The role of food media in climate-friendly eating

Asked if food and recipe media have a role to play in encouraging climate-friendly diets, the Washington Post’s food and dining editor Joe Yonan said: “Absolutely, but food is very personal, so I think it’s a matter of balancing the desire to meet people where they are with the commitment to present them with information that explains the implications of diet on climate, helps them understand the implications of their choices, and also provides some delicious options.”

He added: “People eat for so many reasons, and we want to find ways to support all of them: they eat to remember, they eat to celebrate, they eat to connect, they eat to learn, they eat to nourish themselves, they eat to make a difference, and more.”

In an interview with Green Queen last month, San Juan-based food writer Alicia Kennedy, who just published her first book about the history of plant-based eating in the United States, spoke about lifestyle media’s role in changing culture: “I think the role of lifestyle media right now at this very big crisis point is to get people ready for big shifts, and you don’t have to do that in a way that’s scary. You don’t have to be like: ‘Hey, if you don’t stop eating all this meat, the world’s gonna end.’ But how do you get people ready by just making it look delicious? And look good?”

She added: “There needs to be more diversity in how bigger media is addressing plant-based foods.” In a statement to Green Queen about Better Food Foundation’s report, she writes: “It’s long been past time for food media to catch up to the reality that making plant-based meals the default and norm for readers would have a massive impact on making it desirable to cut out most animal products from a diet. Without making a huge announcement, like Epicurious did with its cutting out of beef, audiences might not even notice.”

Epicurious’s no-beef policy

In 2021, food website Epicurious (which was namechecked in the study as well) famously announced that it was cutting out beef from all its recipes, promising to stop publishing beef dishes from its website, newsletters and social media. The move was widely hailed at the time, marking the first time a major US publication was making such a bold climate statement – beef has the highest climate footprint of any food, according to one study.

However, an investigation earlier this year by climate newsletter Heated found that while Epicurious hasn’t written any new beef recipes since the 2021 announcement, it has published 61 beef recipes from its sister publication, Bon Appétit (both are owned by Condé Nast).

“We feel like that’s sending mixed messages to eco-conscious consumers,” Better Food Foundation’s campaigns director Laura Lee Cascada told Heated’s Arielle Samuelson and Emily Atkin. “They’re leading them to believe that they can count on Epicurious to guide them towards sustainable recipe choices, when that may not always be the case.”

Reflecting on their research, the writers said: “People believe companies are solving climate change voluntarily, so they don’t push for transformational policy change. This is the kind of stuff that results in climate delay.”

The Better Food Foundation’s food media report shares this worry: “One concern we have is that a move like that of Epicurious (to eliminate a single problematic ingredient, like beef) could result in beef simply being swapped out for chicken, which is often promoted as a climate-friendly alternative.”

It also noted the Guardian’s initiative to evolve its reporting alongside the climate crisis. “There are about 23,000 on The Guardian website, including plenty of ideas for meat eaters, so we rarely add new beef ones,” the publication has said. “Our cooks flag when you could use meat with a lower environmental impact or how you might veganise it.”

The report’s climate-centric recommendations

The report’s authors write that mainstream media sites can help nudge their readers toward more climate-friendly cooking, and moreover, audiences are looking for such direction.

“A common misconception that influential institutions, like media companies, have about diet change is that they need to introduce plant-based recipes gradually,” says Jennifer Channin, executive director of the Better Food Foundation. “Outlets may believe they’re already being progressive by featuring a vegan recipe here and there, but what multiple studies have shown is that the public is ready for plant-based meals to be featured as the norm in food culture, rather than the exception.”

The report recommends a five-point plan to help media outlets be more climate-friendly in their recipe sections:

1. Maintain a 2:1 ratio for vegan to animal-based recipes.
2. List plant-based options first, by default, within search results and each collection of recipes.
3. Make editors’ picks or seasonal recommendations plant-based by default.
4. Swap out animal-based ingredients for plant-based ones in popular recipes to make them vegan by default.
5. Add a climate score to each recipe based on the emissions intensity of the ingredients, and present the highest-scoring options first.

“It is important to note that these recommendations are designed to shift recipe sites away from all animal products, and not just the most climate-intensive ones,” the study states.

The post Meat Dishes Dominate Recipe Sections of Mainstream Media, from NYT to BBC & The Guardian – New Report appeared first on Green Queen.

While many of us enjoy dumplings when we dine out, why not try your hand at making dumplings at home. Below are some of our favourite plant-based dumpling recipes that both herbivores and omnivores will love. 

Who doesn’t love dumplings? The choices are endless – wontons, mandu, gyozas, momos and clear crystal dumplings – and each can be made in so many different ways, from steamed to boiled and fried.

1. Sichuan spicy wontons

We love these Shanghai-style wontons, which can be boiled and served with Sichuan chilli oil and some pak choi. 

Get the recipe: Nm Meiyee

2. Tofu crystal dumplings

These pretty crystal dumplings are a plant-based version of har gao, made with firm tofu, mushrooms and scallion. Steam them in a bamboo basket to get that yum cha feel at home. 

Get the recipe: Feast Glorious Feast

3. Black bean & tofu rainbow dumplings 

Could any dumpling be more beautiful than these? This recipe calls for black beans, tofu, spinach and shiitake mushrooms for the filling, and are naturally coloured with vegetable juice. 

Get the recipe: Full Of Plants

4. Vegetable gyozas

Veggie filled pan-fried gyozas are easy to make and just so addictive. They’re perfect to serve as an appetiser for a group. 

Get the recipe: Bianca Zapatka

5. Mum’s special steamed dumplings

These delicious traditional dumplings will remind you of home. Buddhist-friendly and whole foods based, the filling contains only cabbage, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, carrots and tofu skin.

Get the recipe: Choo Choo Cachew

6. Homestyle potstickers

If you’re looking for comfort food, try making these potstickers. The crunchy pan-fried wrappers will give way to a warm bite filled with wood ear mushrooms and vermicelli and shredded veggies. 

Get the recipe: Omnivores Cookbook

7. Shiitake mushroom money bags

These steamed dumplings look like money bags, and they’re usually enjoyed during the Lunar New Year but you can have them all year round if you make them at home. Serve them with a vegetable-based broth. 

Get the recipe: Purely B

8. Cabbage & carrot momos

We love this Tibetan-inspired momo recipe, which is stuffed with carrot, onion and cabbage, and is served alongside a spicy tomato and sesame chutney. 

Get the recipe: The Curious Chickpea

9. Open top dumplings 

Why not try a different style of dumplings – open top dumplings! These are made with plant-based chicken, and are sure to fool even the staunchest meat lovers. 

Get the recipe: VegNews

10. Kimchi mandu

Korean mandu dumplings, anyone? This recipe is a bit more complicated than the others, but we promise full-of-flavour and colourful kimchi dumplings are worth it in the end. 

Get the recipe: The Feed Feed

Lead image courtesy of Full Of Plants.

The post 10 Delicious Vegan Dumpling Recipes You Need To Try Right Now appeared first on Green Queen.

Vegan sausages are just as juicy as traditional sausages, easy to make, and the biggest bonus: so much healthier. These Asian sausage recipes don’t disappoint.

Asia is a magical place for vegan food lovers. We have such a richness of variety and range when it comes to delicious vegan dishes. From colourful tangy pickles to delightful pancakes to noodle and rice dishes to dream about, there is much to celebrate across the many Asian cuisines. However, we’re not yet world-famous for our vegan sausages, and we should do. Almost every major Asian cuisine has a sausage worth tasting but finding vegan versions of the traditional recipes is no easy task!

The World Health Organization (WHO) marked processed meats including sausages as carcinogenic, meaning there is sufficient evidence to suggest excess consumption causes cancer in humans, so vegan versions are your best bet. Not to mention better for the planet and for the animals! We managed to suss out these 5 Asian vegan sausage recipes from Lap Chong to Cha Lua Chay and we think you will love them. Happy cooking!

1. Naem Het Fermented Mushroom Sausages (Thailand)

This Thai mushroom sausage recipe is prepared from sticky rice, fermented fungi and fresh garlic clove. Apart from salt, you can also add your own spices to make it more flavourful. It is one of the simplest vegan sausage recipes to make, so no excuses- try it now.

Recipe: Messy Vegan Cook

2. Longganisa Breakfast Sausages (Philippines)

Made from tofu, coconut vinegar and porcini mushrooms, this filipino vegan sausage recipe has a crispy outer surface and paprika flavor on the inside. Make this relishing breakfast dish all by yourself and it will surely start off your day right!

Recipe: One Green Planet 

3. Vegan Lap Cheong Sausage (China)

At first, you won’t believe that Lap Cheong Sausage is a 100% vegan recipe. It is meaty by looks and taste, but is made from only healthy, plant-based ingredients. It is also known as ‘beet’ lap cheong as it contains beet root powder. On the condiment side, we recommend the classic soy sauce is as a dipping partner for this delicious vegan sausage.

Recipe: Smart Vegan Recipes

4. Taiwanese Vegan Sausage (Taiwan)

Taiwanese plant-based sausages are so popular that you can even buy them from the supermarkets in China and Taiwan but if you want completely healthy, organic sausages free from harmful ingredients (like nitrates), then you should try making this delicious vegan sausage at your home. Also, don’t forget to savour these with your favourite vegan noodles.

Recipe: Hope and Butterflies   

5. Vegetarian Cha Lua Chay (Vietnam)

This veggie version of the Vietnamese ham dish, Cha Lua Chay, is made from frozen bean curd sheets, leeks and mushroom powder. These are wrapped in banana leaves and can be enjoyed with rice or peanut sauce. If stored in the fridge, these scrumptious sausages can stay edible up-to one and a half months.  

Recipe: Daily Rice Bowl

Lead image courtesy of Messy Vegan Cook

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Craving an authentic gastronomic experience, we’ve rounded up 10 traditional Chinese dishes that have always been vegan! 

There is a common misconception that Chinese cuisine is not very vegan-friendly…and the truth is, it can be very heavy on chicken, pork and seafood. While it’s easy enough to swap out animal ingredients from most recipes, there are actually a fair few traditional recipes that are in fact 100% plant-based.

1. Chinese Pickled Smashed Cucumbers

This is one of the common cold appetisers you’ll spot in most Chinese restaurants. Originally viewed as a “poor man’s meal” as the dish contains no meat and only small amounts of oil, it has become a popular palate cleanser over the years both in restaurants and at home (it’s so easy to make!). And of course, it is 100% vegan – the typical ingredients include cucumbers, sugar and salt, black vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, coriander, chilli peppers and a dash of sesame oil.

2. Ma Lan Tou With Chopped Dried Spiced Tofu 

This traditional Shanghainese dish, sometimes called Ma Lan Xiang Gan, is comprised of finely chopped ma lan tou leaves and tiny cubes of fragrant spiced tofu. It is a cold and refreshing dish, often enjoyed in the summer months, and is loved for its texture and herby taste. Containing only ma lan tou, dried tofu, seasonings like salt, sugar and sesame oil, this dish is plant-based through and through.

3. Braised Kao Fu (Wheat Gluten) With Mushrooms

Kao fu is a form of wheat gluten or seitan that has been cooked in this way in Chinese cuisine for years. It is usually a side dish or appetiser that can be served both hot and cold, and it tastes a little nutty and resembles tofu with a chewy texture. Braised in a thick sweet soy sauce with different types of mushrooms – usually wood ear – it is packed with protein and minerals all coming from plant ingredients. 

4. Stir-Fried Eggplant, Potatoes & Peppers 

These three ingredients are known as the “three earthly bounties” in Shandong cuisine, and when tossed in a stir-fry, they make up one of the long-standing home dishes in Chinese food culture. Just chop some eggplants, slice potatoes and green peppers, coat them in cornstarch and sauté with garlic cloves, soy sauce and onion. It’s that simple!

5. Chinese Scallion Shanghai Noodles

Another super simple but timeless recipe that is completely plant-based is Shanghai stir-fried noodles with loads of scallion and tossed in a sesame-soy sauce. This Shanghainese dish can be served for breakfast, lunch, dinner or even a snack – it is an age-old humble dish with a surprising load of flavour.

6. Braised Bamboo Shoots

During the spring season, many Chinese families cook up tender spring bamboo shoots that are only available at that time of year. Try throwing in star anise, mushrooms and siu tong choi (a green variety of pak choi) for a great dish that pairs oh so well with freshly cooked jasmine rice. It’s also common to top it off with some chopped chili if you’re up for a bit of a kick. 

7. Tiger Skin Fried Peppers

These green heaty peppers are marinated in Chinese black vinegar then thrown in an extremely hot wok until their skin is all blistered up, crinkly and the insides are bursting with flavour. Leaving the vegetable to shine on its own, this Szechuanese side dish is traditionally plant-based and is usually enjoyed with rice or a cold beer.

8. Hunan Steamed Eggplant

Made with the longer and thinner variety of eggplant that is common in Asia, which are sliced into perfect rectangular sticks and glazed in a delicious marinade, this is a classic dish that requires zero tweaking. It contains only vegan ingredients – eggplants, minced garlic, red chilli, spring onion, sesame oil, sweet soy sauce and rice vinegar – don’t forget the scallion and chopped peanuts topping. 

9. Lo Han Jai (Buddha’s Delight)

This traditional vegetarian dish has featured in Chinese cuisine for many years thanks to the country’s strong Buddhist cultural roots and is comprised of braised bamboo shoots, arrowhead, fat choy, water chestnuts, lotus seeds, pressed tofu or bean curd sticks, and different types of fungus such as wood ear and black mushrooms. The dish gets its flavour from its rich broth-marinade of soy sauce, cooking wine, pickled cabbage, ginger, peanut oil and varied additional seasonings.

10. Vegetable Dumplings

We saved the best for last! Who doesn’t love a steaming hot bowl of veggie dumplings? While many (ok, most!) dumplings in Chinese cuisine are pork-based and sometimes contain shrimp and egg, there are also lots of veggie-packed dumplings in Shanghainese and Cantonese cuisine. Usually, they are filled with chopped pak choi, Chinese celery, diced fungus and jicama and sometimes rice noodles too! And you can have them in so many ways – fried, steamed, boiled, with soup noodles…the list is endless!

Lead image courtesy of Lazy Cat Kitchen.

The post 10 Traditional Chinese Food Dishes That Are Naturally Vegan appeared first on Green Queen.

Keeping our pantries well-stocked with versatile, tasty and healthy ingredients is a total must, and whether you’re a seasoned cook or a kitchen newbie, you might now be on the lookout for some new staples to try out to elevate your dishes. 

One brand that we keep going back to is one of Hong Kong’s most recognisable ones – Lee Kum Kee, now of world fame—whose fermented products, such as soy sauces, Soy Bean Sauce and vinegar have time and again helped home cooks nail the perfect flavours in vegan-friendly Asian dishes, while keeping things healthy and sustainable. We’re big fans ourselves- every last one of us stocks a selection at home, so below, we share our top reasons for keeping Lee Kum Kee’s condiments stocked in your low-waste, plant-based kitchen. 

1. Fermented foods are a big health trend right now, and for good reason

There’s a growing body of evidence showing the health benefits of fermented foods, and it’s become quite a big trend in the well-being and nutrition world to incorporate more fermented foods into our diets. Consumption of products like kimchi, soy sauce and kombucha has increased by as much as 149% in restaurants in recent years. But this is not some meaningless fad- fermented foods are hugely beneficial to your gut.

Traditionally, fermentation is used to preserve foods and extend its shelf life – but the process also gives the food an extra boost of healthy gut-friendly microorganisms that are great for our digestive systems. In addition to promoting bowel regularity and digestion, eating fermented foods has also been linked to better mood, cognitive function, higher immunity and weight management – just to name a few!

2. Lee Kum Kee’s soy sauce range is made using natural, traditional sun fermentation 

There are loads of fermented foods on the market, but Lee Kum Kee’s soy sauce range stands out because they have stuck to age-old culinary traditions that use a natural sun fermentation process. To make their famous soy sauce, Lee Kum Kee mixes soybeans, wheat flour and Aspergillus spores together to cultivate koji, which then ferments in brine over three to six months under the sun. This process creates a clear, reddish-brown coloured sauce that packs an umami punch and has a rich aroma – perfect for enhancing any dish you’re cooking. 

3. Fermented soy contains far more nutrients than regular soy sauces

Another reason why we picked Lee Kum Kee’s soy sauce is because it boasts a far better nutrient profile, thanks to the natural fermentation process the brand uses. It takes far more time and is costlier than the industrialised methods used to produce formulated soy sauces. Fermented soy sauces contain different amino acids – including essential amino acids our bodies need – and unlike formulated soy sauces, they don’t contain any acid-hydrolysed vegetable protein seasoning or food additives such as flavour enhancers. The flavour you get is completely natural and doesn’t give off any unpleasant “choking” smell associated with formulated blends. 

4. Lee Kum Kee’s range is packaged sustainably in glass jars & made in a renewable-powered facility

Lee Kum Kee’s range also scores points because the vast majority are packaged in glass jars and bottles rather than in plastic – always something we’re looking out for to keep our pantries low-waste. You can recycle these jars and bottles after you’re done, or even reuse and repurpose them at home, from storing things in your cabinet to upcycling it into a DIY candle. 

Aside from cutting down on packaging waste, Lee Kum Kee’s soy sauce is made in a premium LEED-certified facility – they’re the first brand in the global fermented food industry to have earned the achievement. Equipped with a solar photovoltaic power generation system, geothermal heat pumps, a wetland park and wastewater treatment facilities, you can rest assured that your condiments are being manufactured in an eco-friendly way.  

Other sustainability initiatives that the brand has undertaken include launching more meatless, veggie-filled recipe demonstrations at their trade events, in order to promote low-carbon planet-friendly diets. 

5. The sauces are super easy to incorporate into classic Asian dishes, from dumplings to stir-fries

Finally, Lee Kum Kee’s condiments are so versatile. They can be added into any recipe to give your vegan Asian dinner that extra flavour boost. While the brand is not exclusively plant-based, they do offer a wide variety of vegan-friendly condiments, including their Vegetarian Oyster Flavoured Sauce, Mushroom Bouillon Powder and of course, its flagship range of soy sauces, from chilli-infused to gluten-free. 

If you’re looking for some cooking inspiration, the brand has put together loads of meatless recipes using their sauces here, featuring classic Asian dishes like Steamed Eggplant with Garlic, Braised Beancurd and Black Garlic, and the iconic vegetarian dish Buddha’s Delight. 

All images courtesy of Lee Kum Kee. 

The post 5 Reasons Why Lee Kum Kee’s Fermented Condiments Are The Umami Kick Your Vegan Pantry Needs appeared first on Green Queen.

Mix up your breakfast game with these delicious vegan Asian-inspired breakfast recipes.

There’s a Russian proverb that goes something like this: “Eat breakfast alone, share lunch with friends and give your dinner to your enemies.” Not sure about the dinner part, but sometimes it’s nice to treat yo-self before you start your day (there’s a reason we all love Sunday brunch) and your first meal is an important one as it sets the mood and energy for your whole day. We have rounded up some delicious, simple plant-based recipes you’re going to love, from banh mi to okonomiyaki. Yum!

1. Breakfast Noodle Bowl

Want an easy and delicious start to get motivated? Try one of the most popular breakfast meals! It will take you less than 7 minutes and you can get all your ingredients in the nearest wet market.

Recipe: Cheaplazy Vegan.

2. Congee Rice Porridge

Undoubtedly, our favourite comfort food, especially on the rainy pre-typhoon days. You’ve probably got all the ingredients in your pantry already.

Recipe: Vegan Heaven

2. Congee Rice Porridge

Undoubtedly, our favourite comfort food, especially on the rainy pre-typhoon days. You’ve probably got all the ingredients in your pantry already.

Recipe: Vegan Heaven

3. Cauliflower Banh Mi

Who doesn’t love this popular go-to Vietnamese sandwich? And who doesn’t like grilled cauliflower? Check out this ridiculously easy recipe and start the day on a powerful note.

Recipe: Minimalist Baker

4. Spicy Asian Breakfast Crepes

Crepes as Asian breakfast? Given the big French presence all over Asia, we decided to add this yummy dish to the list as well. Actually, it was inspired by the popular Chinese street-food called jianbing.

Recipe: Parade.

5. Creamy Wheat Berry Porridge

For those looking to level up their nutrition, this meal is a perfect match. Wheat berries (like many other berries) are a great source of fiber, magnesium, vitamin B and the list goes endless. You can play with toppings and add what you find in your nearest grocery store.

Recipe: An Edible Mosaic

6. Zen Quinoa Bowl

This meal will need more ingredients and time but the outcome will cheer up your eyes and your gut! Preparing it could become a creative and therapeutic process alltogether.

Recipe: Nutrition In The Kitchen

7. Okonomiyaki Cabbage Carrot Pancakes

Craving for Japanese food? These pancakes will take you to the gourmet journey – just make sure to get your ingredients (like chickpea flower) in advance. Thankfully, we’ve got some great zero waste bulk shops that have them in stock.

Recipe: Vegan Richa

8. Thai Pineapple Fried Rice

Thailand might be still inaccessible for tourism, so why not to bring Thai flavours home? This dish takes only 15 minutes to prepare and will cheer you up with so many colours!

Recipe: Vegan Heaven

9. Kimchi Pancakes

Looking for something spicy, salty, chewy and perfectly crispy? Kimchijeon is the perfect choice (yes, we love pancakes!). Best thing about them, apart from the taste? You only need 4 ingredients!

Recipe: Okonomi Kitchen

10. Asian Vermicelli Noodle Bowl

More noodles? Bring it on! Get them in less than 20 minutes and you can always keep them for lunch.

Recipe: My Tasty Curry

Lead image courtesy of Minimalist Baker.

The post 10 Asian Vegan Breakfast Recipes, From Cauli Banh Mi To Kimchi Pancakes appeared first on Green Queen.

Your breakfast bowl is sorted, your lunch bowl is set, and now all you need are some healthier dinner bowl recipe inspirations.

Whip up these healthy veggie bowls as the recipe intends or take inspiration and create your own. Happy eating!

What are veggie bowls?

There’s no official rule for veggie bowls, but generally, they’re based on the macrobiotic way of eating, combining seasonal vegetables, minimally processed plant-based proteins, and whole grains. But within that framework, there’s no end to the possibilities.

1. The Big Vegan Bowl

If you don’t want to make your hummus from scratch, we recommend the olive oil one from Marks & Spencer Food shops. It’s addictively delicious!

Photo courtesy of Oh She Glows

2. Sweet Potato Chickpea Buddha Bowl

We are huge fans of The Minimalist Baker. All her recipes are, as her name promises, minimal. This stunning buddha bowl is a breeze: the whole thing is a 30 minute affair!

Photo courtesy of The Minimalist Baker

Recipe: Sweet Potato Chickpea Buddha Bowl

3. The Mother Of All Veggie Bowls

Vegetarian husband & wife duo David and Luise, and their Green Kitchen Stories blog, have become world famous thanks to their outstanding and easy-to-follow plant-based recipes. This one is another winner.

Photo courtesy of Green Kitchen Stories

Recipe: The Mother Of All Veggie Bowls

4. Enlightened Miso Power Bowl

Love the Orange Maple dressing that accompanies the bowl- a gorgeously sweet citrusy affair.

Photo courtesy of VegKitchen

Recipe: Enlightened Miso Power Bowl

5. Roasted Veggie Tahini Quinoa Bowl

How colorful is this bowl? You can just feel the vitamins jumping off the page! We also really enjoyed the presentation: instead of piling veggies and toppings on top of a quinoa base, Cookies To Kale advocates a line by line approach.

Photo courtesy of Cookies To Kale

Recipe: Roasted Veggie Tahini Quinoa Bowl

6. Roasted Veggie Quinoa Bowl

Whilst this veggie bowl is a more involved affair, it’s so worth it. From the Garlic Roasted Broccoli to the Roasted Sriracha & Soy Sauce Chickpeas to the Chili-Lime Kale, every part of this is an explosion of flavour in your mouth.

Photo courtesy of I Love Vegan

Recipe: Roasted Veggie Quinoa Bowl

7. Korean Barbecue Tofu Bowls With Stir Fried Veggies And Quinoa

We are cukoo for Korean food so this was a no-brainer addition and we especially liked the clever addition of roasted pineapple. The Korean BBQ sauce recipe from scratch is a keeper, too.

Photo courtesy of Oh My Veggies

Recipe: Korean Barbecue Tofu Bowls With Stir-Fried Veggies And Quinoa

8. Deconstructed Vegetable Sushi Bowl Miso Tahini Dressing

For those naysayers who think Japanese cuisine can’t be vegan friendly, try this plant take on a sushi bowl with nori, miso and shitake mushrooms.

Photo courtesy of In My Bowl

Recipe: Deconstructed Vegetable Sushi Bowl Miso Tahini Dressing

9. Nourish Bowl

Less of a strict recipe and more of a helpful guide, the Nourish Bowl How To shows you how to achieve the perfect macro balance in your veggie bowl.

Photo courtesy of Nutrition Stripped

Recipe: Nourish Bowl

The post 9 Healthy Veggie Bowl Recipes to Fuel You From the Inside appeared first on Green Queen.

Try these meaty, vegan jackfruit recipes for a healthy twist to your plant-based recipes.

The jack of all fruits, AKA jackfruit, could very well be the vegan’s dream food. It’s amazing how meaty this tropical fruit is when young and unripe! Taste-wise, jackfruit is essentially a blank canvas to work with and texture wise, it mimics the feel of shredded/pulled meat. Packed with vitamins, minerals, potassium, fibers and scores of other anti-inflammatory benefits, the jackfruit should be a staple in the plant-based kitchen. To help you get started, here are ten mind blowing vegan jackfruit recipes to try. 

A Few Facts About Jackfruit

Before we delve into the recipes, it’s worth The fruit appears to have originated in India, where it has been cultivated there for the past 3,000 to 6,000 years and where it is a vegetarian food staple used in curries and many other dishes known as kathal. It grows abundantly in tropical climes so it’s all over South East Asia. If you have traveled in that region, you may have come across jackfruit crisps/chips, a popular snack made from dehydrated and sweetened jackfruit. We also have jackfruit trees here in Hong Kong actually! You may have seen the large, bruised fruits by the roadside in the more leafy areas of the New Territories. It can be mistaken for a durian or a soursop though they are not directly related. Last fun fact: the jackfruit is the largest tree fruit on earth!

Where To Buy Jackfruit In Hong Kong

While you can find ripe, mature jackfruit with yellow flesh at most Hong Kong supermarkets, you actually want young, unripe jackfruit with pale white flesh in order to use it as a meat substitute and for all the recipes below. The easiest way to buy it is in brine in a can. Jackfruit is a very new product outside of Asia. There are very few non-Asian brands on the market and only one organic one that is widely available online: Native Forest’s BPA-Free Organic Young Jackfruit. Unfortunately, this is not available in Hong Kong. You can find brands of canned young jackfruit like Chao Koh or Aroy-D at most Thai and Indonesian grocery shops around Hong Kong (almost every neighborhood has one, usually near or in the wet market). They are inexpensive though they are not organic, and usually include some basic preservatives like citric acid and calcium chloride.

1. Bulgogi Jackfruit

Jackfruit stands in for beef in this simple but delicious Namely Marly take on bulgogi, the ultimate Korean barbecue dish. Ingenious!

Photo courtesy of Namely Marly

Get The Recipe: Crockpot Bulgogi Jackfruit

2. Jackfruit and Black Bean Wraps

As wrap lovers, we were all about this hearty, meat-free take from Quite Good Food. Paired with a simple slaw ‘dressing’, this is a great meal on the go or a great light lunch alternative.

Photo courtesy of Quite Good Food

Get The Recipe: Jackfruit and Black Bean Wraps

3. Jackfruit Fish-Free Tacos

This vegan take on pescado perfection from Keepin It Kind tastes just as good as it looks. And no need to scrape off the mayo from your fish tacos, the recipe includes a deliciously spicy Ancho Chili Cashew Cheese. Hello vegan taco night!

Photo courtesy of Keepin It Kind

Get The Recipe: Jackfruit Fish-Free Tacos

4. Larb Jackfruit

We are huge fans of larb, the Isaan Thai/Laotian dish usually made with ground meat. Herbivoracious‘ vegan recipe substitutes in jackfruit and combines it with a dressing packed with chili heat, puckery lime juice and fresh herbs served over lettuce leaves or cabbage. Our tastebuds are salivating in anticipation!

Photo courtesy of Herbivoracious 

Get The Recipe: Larb Jackfruit

5. Jackfruit Carnitas

A Green Queen original, chef Anthony Damico’s Jackfruit Carnitas are a great alternative to pulled pork, without the guilt of meat or drama of slow, slow cooking. Smoky, juicy and served with piquant pickled onions, the eerily-similar-to-pulled-pork texture and flavor will leave you in disbelief. 

Photo courtesy of Anthony Damico 

Get The Recipe: Jackfruit Carnitas AKA Vegan Pulled Pork

6. Jackfruit Crab Cakes

A testament to just how versatile jackfruit can be,One Green Planet‘s meaty crab cake recipe is the real deal! Serve these lumpy golden brown patties with its vegan tartar sauce accompaniment, throw in some lemon wedges, and you’re good to go! (Hot Tip: We like to drizzle a little Sriracha on top of ours)

Photo courtesy of One Green Planet 

Get The Recipe: Jackfruit Crab Cakes

7. Buffalo Jackfruit Spinach Dip

The perfect dip for game day or your next family holiday party gathering, Vegan Yack Attack offers up this cheesy, spicy, creamy bowl of goodness that takes only five minutes to prep and 30 minutes to bake! #HostessWithTheMostess

Photo courtesy of Vegan Yack Attack

Get The Recipe: Buffalo Jackfruit Spinach Dip

8. Pulled Jackfruit Enchiladas Verdes

This vegan take on traditional pork enchiladas are what our foodie dreams are made of! One Ingredient Chef lets us in on his secret move: sautéing the jackfruit in a little soy sauce to develop the flavor. Combined with some corn tortillas and homemade enchilada sauce, this is a dinner winner!

Photo courtesy of One Ingredient Chef

Get The Recipe: Pulled Jackfruit Enchiladas Verdes 

9. Maple Cinnamon Delicata Squash Salad with Vegan Jackfruit Bacon

When the warmer weather calls for a light and refreshing meal, this yummy salad from Sweet Simple Vegan is our go-to, especially because of founder Jasmine’s jackfruit bacon topping. The tender, fleshy jackfruit soaks up the flavors of the smoky, pepper-maple mixture marinade for an unbelievable replica.

Photo courtesy of Sweet Simple Vegan

Get The Recipe: Maple Cinnamon Delicata Squash Salad with Vegan Jackfruit Bacon

10. BBQ Jackfruit Sandwiches with Avocado Slaw

One of our absolute favorite healthy food bloggers, Minimalist Baker, serves up these yummy barbecue jackfruit sammies (that’s Food Channel slang for sandwiches). Tender in texture, big in flavor, and crunchy thanks to slaw, this satisfying and simple recipe uses only 10 ingredients!

Photo courtesy of Minimalist Baker

Get The Recipe: BBQ Jackfruit Sandwiches with Avocado Slaw

Lead photo courtesy of Keepin It Kind.

The post 10 Vegan Jackfruit Recipes You Have to Try appeared first on Green Queen.