Vegan Eggplant Parmesan

As a former cheese lover I feared that while making the transition to a vegan diet I would struggle most with weaning myself off of it. After 1 month as a vegan I can honestly say that with a little creativity and lots of experimentation in the kitchen I don’t know that i’ll ever crave cheese again. I have successfully taken some of my favorite recipes and turned them vegan without sacrificing one bit and I cannot wait to transition more.  To date I have conquered  mac and cheese, cheesecake, ice cream, and pizza all without missing dairy one bit, my next mission… eggplant parmesan!

Vegan Eggplant Parmesan

adapted from Fat Free Vegan

Ingredients:

2 c prepared tomato sauce

½ large onion

3 cloves garlic

1/3 block extra firm tofu

1/4 c cashews

2 T tahini

½ c unsweetened almond milk

½ c vegetable broth

2 T nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp dried parsley

1tsp arrowroot powder

1 tsp salt

1 T sesame seeds

½ c breadcrumbs

1/4 c fresh basil

black pepper

Directions: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, slice eggplant into 1/4 inch disks and place on a baking sheet, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast 15 minutes per side until soft. In the meantime saute onion in a saucepan coated with 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat until translucent about 5 minutes, stir in garlic and sauce and simmer 20 minutes. While sauce is cooking prepare “cheese”  sauce by adding tofu, cashews, almond milk, vegetable broth, nutritional yeast, tahini, parsley, arrowroot, and salt to a blender or food processor, blend until smooth. Once eggplant has roasted and sauce has simmered 20 minutes turn oven down to 350. Coat an 8×8 pan with sauce and follow with eggplant. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, basil, then cheese sauce finally sauce repeating three times ending with breadcrumbs. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and bake 30 minutes or until bubbly.

Layer your eggplant parmesan starting with sauce and ending with bread crumbs.

Pop into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes until hot and bubbly!

Let the dish cool just a bit before slicing and enjoy  I could not believe how much this dish tasted like the cheesy, deep fried eggplant parmesan I once remember. I think Dutch even second guessed whether or not there was actually cheese inside as the texture and flavor were almost identical to real cheese. Needless to say dinner was divine and probably even better reheated the next day as the flavors had even more time to develop! Even if you love dairy I would suggest giving this a try as this dish is an excellent alternative and you won’t miss it at all. Here is a video that I think does a great job of explaining why you should cut dairy out of your diet and the reasons it is not as good for us as we have been led to believe!

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Don’t forget to check out Katie’s bake sale to help raise money for Japan, I donated a dozen nourish bars so if you are wanting to try them this is the perfect opportunity!

Also how are the abs workouts going? Mine are a little behind schedule as I have only done 2 workouts this week whoops

Here are my stats for day 5+6:

Single leg stretch: 22 per leg 3 sets

Bicycle: 20 per side 3 sets

Plank: 45 sec 60 sec 45 sec

Twist: 25 per side 3 sets

Reverse crunch: 25reps 3 sets

The Hundred- 100

Side Plank 45 sec each side

Side plank with twist: 15 per side

I have seen a little improvement in my strength and definitely am starting to notice a little more definition in my tummy I need to make sure I get in a workout tonight and tomorrow though! I am also still a little stressed out trying to transfer my blog to a self hosted domain anyone done it before? I can’t get my EPP code from wordpress and the only support I have gotten has just been links to websites that confuse me. I am thinking about just paying wordpress to transfer it and not deal with the hassle. Any tips?

Questions:

Opinions on dairy?

I also would love suggestions for recipe ideas this week, anything  you would like to see veganized?

Do you want to see more sweet or savory recipes coming up?

What is one thing you like most about spring?

I’m off to dry my hair and get ready for my night class, yay for 3 hours of blog reading haha

Have a fabulous night.

 

Tagged as: bake sale, dairy, eggplant parmesan, katie, spring, vegan, vegan recipes