Vegetarian Stuffing: Not Your Typical Side Dish
At Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other holiday meals, stuffing traditionally has a starring role. This traditional dish made of cubed bread, seasonings, and vegetables has been a staple at American holiday tables for as long as anyone can remember.
If you don't eat meat, though, you're usually left out of enjoying the stuffing. Since traditional stuffing is made with chicken or turkey broth and often baked right inside of the bird along with the giblets, it's off-limits (and downright unappealing) to vegetarians.
However, vegetarian stuffing is just as easy to make as traditional stuffing, and some would say it's even tastier than the original! There are plenty of ways to make vegetarian stuffing and plenty of ways to customize it to your individual tastes and the ingredients that you have on hand. Vegetarian stuffing doesn't lose any points for taste as a result of being baked outside of the bird, and it can be extremely creative and unique.
Options for Different Budgets and Levels of Cooking Skill
You can go a number of ways when you are making vegetarian stuffing, from the extremely low-budget to the complicated gourmet method. On the low-budget end of the scale is dehydrated vegetarian stuffing that's sold in a large box or bag and only requires hot water and some margarine to make. Buying instant vegetarian stuffing definitely requires attention to detail when you are reading the label, since they often contain meat products or meat stock.
If you would prefer to start from scratch and make your own gourmet vegetarian stuffing, plenty of recipes can be found either online or in vegetarian cookbooks. These range from the very simple bread and celery route to the creative gourmet recipes containing such exotic ingredients as shiitake mushrooms, pine nuts, kale, and wild rice. The type of recipe that you choose will depend largely on your cooking skill and your budget.
If you can't afford to buy expensive and exotic ingredients, there's no need to worry. You can spice up the inexpensive instant stuffing with some apples and walnuts, or use fresh sage and a good-quality cooking wine to make your vegetarian stuffing. With a few modifications and creative seasoning tricks, your guests will never suspect that you actually started with dried bread crumbs in a bag!
Vegetarian stuffing can be as simple or as complex as you would like it to be. You can make it on the stovetop or bake it in a casserole dish. You can even use it to stuff a tofu turkey! The greatest thing about vegetarian stuffing is that it's very customizable; you can take any stuffing recipe and easily turn it into your signature vegetarian stuffing.
