Simple Vegan Jambalaya

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Preparation Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Freezable?: No

A vegan variation on a classic dish from Louisiana, (with its origins in Spanish & French cuisines), using beans to get the good intake of protein we all need. Easily converted to the original meat dish , see our ‘how to’ tips below.

Ingredients
Method

Ingredients

7 oz can of red kidney beans (a mix of chickpeas and/or kidney beans works just as well)
½ a green (or red) pepper)
1 tbs vegetable or similar oil
4 oz (115g) tomatoes
1 oz (3og) walnuts – leave these out if you’re in anyway allergic to nuts in any form!
1 oz (30g) desiccated (shredded) coconut
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp water
just under a teaspoon of Cajun seasoning to taste, (optional)
2½-3 oz (70-85g) of cooked brown rice (or white rice if preferred)

Method

First put your rice on to cook, following the instructions precisely to ensure your rice is cooked perfectly and the grains are separate. White rice takes around 18-20 minutes to cook, brown rice can take up to 45 mins or more.
Drain & rinse the beans
Heat the oil in a saucepan, chop up the pepper and saute in the heated oil for a minute or two
Skin & chop the tomatoes (the easiest way to skin tomatoes is to pour boiling water over them, leave for a minute or two, drain, rinse with cold water and pull the skin away)
Roughly chop the walnuts (leaving them out if you have any type of nut allergy)
Add the tomatoes, walnuts, coconut, tomato puree and water to the saucepan and stir well. Add the beans & Cajun pepper if wanted. Cover the pan and leave it all to simmer on a very low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour over the rice, mix it up very gently and serve

Cooks Tip: Add seafood or fried Chorizo to the pot towards the end of the cooking time if you want to convert this to a traditional Jambalaya

Recipe adapted from Vegan Cooking for One by Leah Leneman

IS VEGAN JAMBALAYA THE ULTIMATE MIX IT UP & SEE WHAT HAPPENS DISH?

When you’ve got all your ingredients together, putting your vegetarian jambalaya is easy and its the perfect opportunity to mix and match the veggies and spices to get the kind of dish you want. Unless the Jambalaya police are standing next to you, you can leave things out of the recipe if you prefer, opening up the fridge to see what veggies are in there that you can throw in, adding in a little bit of garlic, substituting Cajun pepper with a little bit of paprika or chilli powder – the worlds pretty much your Vegan oyster in this dish. Enjoy!