Easy Vegan Nacho Mince – Gluten Free

Nacho mince is such a versatile dish. You can obviously use it with nachos and their brother, haystacks, but it can also serve on sloppy joes, as pasta or spaghetti sauce, pie filling, a dish on it’s own, and no doubt many other things. You can make it based entirely on beans, but I like to add some vegan mince into it for a bit more textural variety, and it can also add some more flavour too.

The challenge though is that most vegan mince mixtures are not gluten-free. Many rely heavily on textured wheat protein which, of course, doesn’t go down well with those that have coeliac disease.

So, after much frustration reviewing the ingredients on all the myriad vegan mince products, we realised: patties are essentially made from similar mince mixtures, and there are a lot more choices that are gluten-free and vegan in patties.

So, we tried a bunch of different options for taste, texture and, of course, crumbleability (being patties they need to break up easily). We finally settled on our favourite: UnrealCo’s Italian Beefy Burger.

Unrealco Italian Beefy Burger

These burger patties are currently only available from Woolworths in a two pack. I use one pack (two patties) in this recipe.

Ingredients

  • 1x brown onion (diced)
  • 2x tbsp oil (we usually use rice bran oil but you can use others)
  • 2x tbsp minced garlic (or 2 cloves)
  • 1x pack (260g) UnrealCo Italian Beefy Burgers
  • 2x cans of mixed beans or equivalent dried beans rehydrated (approx. 800g of rehydrated beans) – If we aren’t rehydrating our own we usually use Woolworths Macro Organic Mexican Style 3 Bean Mix or the Macro Organic 4 Bean Mix.
  • 1x can of diced tomato (approx. 400g)
  • 2 tbsp tamari
  • 1 tbsp lemon or lime juice

Optional ingredients

  • 1x bottle passata (approx. 700g)
  • BBQ sauce

Method

  1. Put a large frypan on the stove on high heat and add the oil, diced onion and garlic. Fry until the onion is soft and translucent.
  2. Break up the burger patties and add them to the fry pan and cook until the pieces start to darken.
  3. Add the mixed beans, diced tomato, tamari and lemon juice.
  4. Mix together and fry until everything is heated through.
  5. Depending on your taste, add more lemon/lime juice and tamari until you are happy with the flavour. BBQ sauce is also a great addition to tweak the flavour.

Optional steps

  1. To make the mince go further and give it more of a tomato base for use with other dishes (eg pasta sauce), add 1x bottle of passata to the fry pan.
  2. Add BBQ sauce, tamari and lemon/lime juice to balance the tomato flavour coming from the passata.
  3. Keep on the heat until everything is heated through.

Notes

That’s it. Very straight-forward and easy to make.

If you don’t need your nacho mince to be gluten-free, you could use soy sauce instead of tamari, and you could use any other vegan mince.

However, I will say, the flavour that comes through with the UnrealCo Italian Beefy patties is (in my opinion) better than most other mince options anyway. You would need to add a blend of Italian herbs and spices to other mince options to get a similar flavour.

Instant Vegan Gooey Chocolate Cake

It’s winter, and we were looking for something warm and gooey, like a chocolate lava cake, that we could make with readily available ingredients and isn’t too bad for you. Wifey found this recipe on Veggieful for a 2-minute microwave chocolate muffin which we had most of the ingredients to make. I decided to give it a go and make a few adaptations based on what we had to see if it worked.

It came out pretty awesome. It’s soft, warm, gooey, chocolate goodness that comes together in no time at all from pantry staples. Continue reading Instant Vegan Gooey Chocolate Cake

Refreshing Green Super Smoothie

We got silver beet this week to try in smoothies because it was the cheapest green, and it often is. From what I understand it’s actually just as good for you as things like Kale. I’ve never used silver beet in a smoothie before, so I wasn’t sure how it would come out. After a little bit of experimentation I came up with this combination that I was really impressed with. It tastes great with the silver beet being a very subtle flavour.

Depending on how much water you use it’s more like a juice than a smoothie, and each of the flavours comes through to make for a green juice or smoothie that is filling, subtly sweet, and very refreshing. I found one glass (around 250ml) kept me full all morning.

Enjoy!

Continue reading Refreshing Green Super Smoothie

Soyless Kung Pao Noodles

Normally you would use a lot of soy sauce in Kung Pao noodles, unfortunately we ran out so I thought I’d experiment with something different. The taste is a little different to your typical kung pao, but it’s pretty good in my opinion and wifey loves it, so that’s a big plus!

Bonus number two is that it is really quick and easy to throw together using pantry items and a few fresh ingredients. Some of the pantry items are uncommon, but once you have them they last for a while and then you can just throw it together anytime. Continue reading Soyless Kung Pao Noodles

Is my shopping Aussie or not?

In light of everything going on with our Aussie dairy farmers, I thought when I went shopping for some pantry items on Friday I’d have a look at what is actually Australian made, grown or owned, and what isn’t. At the end of the day everything Australian contributes to supporting continued Australian production of food. Continue reading Is my shopping Aussie or not?

Roasted Peanut Butter

We had some shelled peanuts in the cupboards that have been there for quite a while. We don’t use peanuts in a lot of cooking, which doesn’t make sense since they are one of the cheapest nuts, and they are quite nice. I decided though since these ones have been there so long to have a go at turning them into peanut butter.

I’ve noted previously that most nuts you can just process into a buttery form, but after doing some reading it sounded like roasting peanuts gives them a stronger flavour as well as helping to release the oils to make the butter.

So here it is, roast peanut butter, and it is very cheap and easy to make. I think I’ll be making it in the future instead of buying it.
Continue reading Roasted Peanut Butter

Roasted Pumpkin and Coconut Soup

I really like pumpkin soup, really like it. I wanted to have a go at making it without cream. Turns out, it is really, really good. If you like pumpkin soup, I highly recommend trying it based on coconut like this, it is amazing.

Of note though, even though it is fairly healthy, the coconut content does mean it is high in saturated fat, so eat responsibly and enjoy. Continue reading Roasted Pumpkin and Coconut Soup

Brown Lentil Rolls

These brown lentil rolls are a quick and easy to make finger food that is light on and keeps you coming back for more!

Even people I’ve given them to who aren’t big on lentils seems to enjoy them.

I’d like to find an egg alternative so they are cholesterol free, but even so, they are high in fibre and iron which is great! I find personally I only really need 1 in a meal, perhaps with a salad or vegetables, if I have a second though I’ve well and truly had enough as they are very filling.

On another note, because they don’t use pastry, you can just replace the rye bread with your choice of gluten-free bread and in order to make them gluten-free. Continue reading Brown Lentil Rolls

Coconut Apricot Bread and Butter Pudding

Wifey absolutely loves bread and butter pudding, so I’ve been trying to find a way to make it a bit healthier for us.

A standard bread and butter pudding contains a lot of cholesterol, a lot of butter, milk and cream. There has to be a better way to make it though.

I’ve been doing some hunting around and I found a Thermomix recipe here that I really liked the sound of called a Coconut Caramel Bread and Butter Pudding. I don’t have a Thermomix so that’s a no go, but I thought I’d try adapting it.

The result?

Amazing. Continue reading Coconut Apricot Bread and Butter Pudding