This vegetarian loaf recipe has evolved over a few years, and I haven’t, until now, written down the recipe and cannot remember where the original inspiration came from. So if you recognise this as your great aunt’s veggie loaf recipe, please thank her for this winning recipe.

After making this Easy Vegetable Loaf once, you will realise how ‘easy’ it is. The quantities of ingredients do not need to be exact; in fact, I have never really measured except to write this recipe to share.

The variety of protein sources in this recipe – grain, lentils and nuts make this nutritionally grounding, providing a range of amino acids for strength and growth. This is an excellent recipe for a vegan or vegetarian diet or to break up the week with a purely plant-based meal for meat-eaters. Serve with your favourite homemade sauces or condiments and with some steaming hot vegetables, and your visitors may not even realise that they are eating a healthy plant-based meal.

Easy Vegetable Loaf Recipe

This Easy Vegetable Loaf makes regular appearances at our dinner table, almost a complete meal in itself; it is excellent for picnics, fussy visitors or when culinary inspiration is needed. It is dairy-free, vegan, gluten-free and incredibly delicious.

Author: Leonie Satori

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Prep Time 15 min Cook Time 45 min Total Time 1 hr Difficulty: Easy Servings: 10

Ingredients

Servings

• 1 medium brown onion - finely chopped
• 1 stick celery - finely choppped
• 1 carrot - roughly grated
• 1 medium sized zucchini - roughly grated
• 1 cup of cooked grain (quinoa, brown or wild rice, millet)
• ³⁄₄ cup ground almonds
• 1 can lentils - rinsed and drained
• 150 grams firm tofu (crumbled)
• 2 teaspoons turmeric powder
• dried herbs (oregano, marjoram or thyme)
• 3 teaspoons egg replacer
• 2-3 tablespoons parsley - finely chopped

Instructions

1. Firstly, prepare all of the ingredients for the loaf; cook the grain, chop and grate vegetables, grind almonds and crumble tofu.
2. Once you have all of your ingredients ready to make your loaf, pre-heat your oven to 180C and grease your loaf dish.
3. In a large pan or flat bottomed wok, start with gently sautéing the onions in a little oil.
4. Once the onions have begun to soften, add the celery, carrot and zucchini to the pan and cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the vegetables just begin to soften.
5. Next, add the turmeric powder and dried herbs and stir through the vegetables.
6. Add the lentils, cooked grain, ground almonds and crumbled tofu and stir thoroughly.
7. Add the finely chopped parsley, natural salt, fresh ground pepper and other herbs here if you wish and combine thoroughly.
8. Lastly, combine the egg replacer with a small amount of water to make a thick paste, add to the rest of the ingredients and mix through.
9. Spoon the mixture into your loaf dish, pressing down firmly with the back of a fork or spoon to hold the loaf together.
   
10. Bake your Easy Vegetable Loaf for 45 minutes.
11. Eat hot or cold, as leftovers, with raw or cooked vegetables.

Note

Variations to the Easy Vegetable Loaf recipe You can adapt the herbs, spices and vegetables in this recipe to suit your tastes or what you have available in your kitchen. You could add some whole green peas to add a little pop to this recipe or include some chilli or Moroccan herbs to spice it up a bit. Of course, you can use an egg instead of the egg replacer, and for those with an aversion to soy products, you can take out the tofu. The loaf is slightly softer without the tofu, though, so I would suggest an additional egg to bind.