Best Recipes of 2020
The year 2020 was significant for many reasons and one of them is that it was the first year of www.YourVeganFamily.com! It really was the perfect year to deepen our family connections with creativity in our kitchen. With many of us sheltering in place, food became a focus and comfort, an adventure, and a way to improve one's health when other self-care avenues were shut.
As a busy family, we're sharing the real recipes we make for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Many nights you'll find us in the kitchen, music on, wine poured, cooking from a recipe on this blog that we pulled up on our phone. These recipes are part of our family, from our family to you.
We've looked over the 46 recipes we've published so far and want to share the 13 most popular Your Vegan Family plant-based recipes of 2020 with you.
Our readers have a sweet tooth :-)
Your Vegan Family 13 Top Vegan Recipes of 2020
Click on the recipe titles or images to go straight to the recipe. As you read, don't stop at the recipe! Keep going and you'll be able to share the recipe, get a shopping list, and discover how nutritious these plan-based recipes are with a nutritional analysis. You'll be surprised!
1. Vegan Ginger Cookies
These spicy vegan ginger cookies are crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. They're perfect for dipping into a Vegan Chai Latte. The oil used in these cookies is heart-healthy olive oil and freshly grated ginger! This is my favorite vegan cookie! In just ten, minutes you can have them baking in your oven.
2. Our Favorite Vegan Nut Pie Crust
Crispy, not too sweet plant-based pie crust with a perfect graham cracker and nut balance. It's quick to make in a food processor. We like the texture of macadamia nuts, but you can replace them with any other you prefer. Pair this with our delicious Dairy-Free Chocolate Cream Pudding recipe, or any of your favorite sweet pies.
3. Vegan Chai Latté
Unlike the chai latte from a coffee shop or the dreaded sugar-saturated chai mix from the store, your own homemade vegan chai lattes can be as sweet as you like. You can even choose to add caffeinated black tea or not!
Making your own vegan chai is not only simple, but it's also inexpensive. You can make a whole pot of chai (9 servings!) for the cost of a single chai latte from a coffee shop.
If you're feeling like making a special tea time, try dipping our Vegan Ginger Cookies in this perfectly spicy, vegan, dairy-free chai latte.
4. Vegan Sweetened Condensed Milk
Vegan sweetened condensed milk, really? Yes! It's creamy, thick, rich, sweet, and slightly coconutty. This is one of the easiest recipes in the world. You simply cook the coconut milk and cane sugar down to your desired consistency and store it in the refrigerator. It will thicken further when cooled and taste like a caramel topping. It's so good that I find a high number of taste tests are necessary to ensure quality at every step along the way :-) Give our Coconut Rose Ladoo recipe, aka Rose Coconut Bliss Balls recipe a try!
5. Vegan Instant Pot Three Lentil Dal
If we could choose only one dish to eat every day for the rest of our lives, this one would make our shortlist.
This vegan dahl serves up 13 grams of protein and 23% of your RDA of iron in one serving! See the nutritional analysis at the end of the article. You will be surprised by its high vitamin content! It's also low in fat, sugar, and calories (only 205 per serving) and high in fiber. Pulses are known to provide a feeling of fullness and curb cravings for a significant amount of time. It's perfect for weight loss and for athletes going for lean muscle.
6. The BEST Vegan Pesto
Our dairy-free pesto tantalizes your taste buds with lime and garlic while it satisfies your craving for cheesy richness. We use a combination of pine nuts, macadamia nuts, and walnut to add depth and a variety of textures. We use this for vegan pesto gnocchi or pasta dinners, on toast in the morning, and to add magic to our Vegan Lasange recipe and red sauces. It even finds its way into coconut Thai curries. The oil used in this pesto is heart-healthy olive oil. You can be snacking on this delicious pesto in 15 minutes.
7. Garden Fresh Salsa
Garden fresh salsa with homemade vegan Refried Black Beans is a match made in heaven! This salsa will take you 15 minutes to make, and then is best if you let it rest 30 to let the flavors blend. Well worth the wait, as it is infinitely more delicious than anything from the store!
It's delicious served with our Vegan Refried Black Beans, another 2-in-1 meal recipe.
8. Easy Baked Indian Potatoes
With crispy onions, garlic, and an Indian kick, these vegan roasted potatoes pair well with any meal, including breakfast. One-pan cooking makes clean up a breeze and gives you time to make our Savory Vegan Crepes and Ginger Pickled Onions, delicious accompaniments to our Easy Baked Indian Potatoes.
9. Your Vegan Family Lasagne
This might be the most popular recipe in our household. It's creamy and chunky, each layer offers a distinct flavor profile, it's a super satisfying comfort food, and each serving gives you nearly half of the nutrients you require for a day. It can take a bit of time to prepare, but it offers 16 generous portions and freezes well. Serve with a side salad and you can trust you're eating an incredibly healthy meal.
10. Vegan Polenta Pie
Do you avoid Polenta because of its lack of flavor? I did. Then we made our own recipe.
Packed with vegetables, this vegan polenta pie also has protein from black beans and vegan cheddar shreds! We packed it full of onions, garlic, carrots, broccoli, swiss chard... anything we had on hand. We added our favorite Latin American seasonings like chili powder and cumin and mixed it all together. This was a polenta I could eat! But that wasn't enough...
With a spread of our Instant Pot Vegan Refried Black Beans, a sprinkling of colorful capsicum and cilantro, creamy melted vegan cheddar shreds, and our Garden Fresh Salsa this recipe bursts with flavor, vegetables, and nutrients.
11. Vegan Refried Black Beans
Black beans are incredibly healthy because they're nutrient-dense. Just 1/2 cup of cooked black beans gives you 7 grams of protein, 8 grams of fiber for happy digestion, they're a good source of magnesium, iron, and some B-vitamins, and only 109 calories!
This refried black bean recipe will knock your socks off with the garlic, onions, spices, and cilantro. You'll be eating these beans by the spoonful! We make refried beans from half the cooked black beans and we make a black bean soup with the rest. A 2 in 1 meal!
Use them for burritos, tacos, nachos, on toast, in a polenta pie, or even just plain. You will love them! Serve with our Homemade Garden Fresh Salsa recipe. You can easily make it in your Instant Pot Cooker while the beans are cooking!
12. Vegan Pad Thai
This delicious Vegan Pad Thai is bursting with lime, chili, cilantro, and coconut. This is one of our "Quick, it's 5:30 and the boys are already hungry" dinners. It doesn't take long to make and you can use any vegetables and protein sources you have handy. It's the sauce that holds it all together.
13. Spicy Tomato Chutney, A spicy Indian Tomato Achar
This Spicy Tomato Achar is a rich, thick, creamy, spicy, complex, and satisfying tomato chutney for a big crispy Indian crepe and Idli (a moist, fluffy, steamed little savory cake), for spicing up a dal and adding a gentle heat to a variety of non-Indian cuisine.
We spread this spicy tomato achar on toast and sandwiches, and serve it atop crackers with vegan cheese and a Kalamata olive, and anywhere else we can think of. We always have it on hand.
Join Your Thriving Vegan Family Community!
LEARN MORE HERE
Written by Your Vegan Family
Stacy and Markus live a thriving vegan lifestyle with their two young boys. They write articles and offer courses to inspire you about plant-based cooking, teach you how to stay healthy and stay vegan, and moderate a private online Thriving Vegan Family Community where you can interact directly with them, other families, and plant-based enthusiasts about a vegan lifestyle, nutrition, and raising vegan kids.
They earned degrees in molecular biology and acupuncture, consulted over decades for healthcare companies and individuals, created businesses in Asian medicine, eco-tourism, cultural immersion, and taught yoga in myriad venues. They also offer individual health and wellness coaching to individuals who are motivated to improve the quality of their lives.
We’ve learned a lot from eating a plant-based diet for 25 years and are eager to help you have fun going vegan and stay vegan. Learn more on our About Us page.
Eat. Thrive. Make a difference.
Your SUCCESS begins with YOU!
Find the High-Performance Health newsletter in your inbox every week!
Get weekly insights on how to build confidence in your capacity to fulfill your purpose, passions, and profession.
