With Christmas right around the corner, a lot of us will be hosting some dinners and parties. What comes with the planning is thinking up a menu and, when we’re busy enough as it is, it’s nice to make that part of the planning as easy as possible. Thankfully, a lot of festive appetizers are stocked in supermarkets around this time of year to make the cooking more effortless, but it can still be a bit difficult to cater for vegans. There is a tonne of ideas as to which vegan meals and snacks can be purchased or made at home, vegan sausage rolls being on the list. I’ve seen a lot of vegan sausage rolls on menus and online during the last few months, my favorites being the mushroom-based ones for their earthy flavors, so I decided to throw together my own version. It came out amazing and I’ve already had requests from friends about making them for my dinners over Christmas.
Makes 8 large sausage rolls, or more if chopped smaller.
Ingredients:
- Mushrooms, 1.5 punnets, 600 g
- Sheet of puff pastry, 2, 320 g (each)
- Onion, red, 2
- Garlic cloves, 4
- Breadcrumbs, 100 g
- Cornflour, 25 g
- Soy sauce, 1 tbsp (optional)
- Smoked paprika, 1 tbsp
- Sweet chili, 1 tbsp
- Cumin, 1.5 tbsp
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Unroll your sheet of puff pastry.
- Blend your bread crumbs if you haven’t bought a premade pack.
- Remove the skin from your onion. I used a food processor to chop my onion finely, but you can do it manually, too.
- Remove the skin from the garlic cloves and chop them finely.
- I also used a food processor to chop my mushrooms finely, but this can be done manually, too.
- Preheat a saucepan, drizzled with some oil.
- Once the oil is hot, add the chopped onions and garlic and saute them for 2 minutes.
- Add the chopped mushrooms, the cornflour, cumin, paprika, salt and pepper, soy sauce and, if using, the sweet chili. Saute for about 10 minutes overall or until the mushrooms are reduced and browned. The cornflour should help bulk up the mixture, but a lot of moisture leaves the mushrooms, so drain the excess if possible.
- Preheat the oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
- After 5 mins of cooling the sausage roll mix, add the breadcrumbs and mix into a thicker, more combined consistency (feel free to use more breadcrumbs if you wish)
- Unroll your pastry sheets and divide the mixture between both, placing a large sausage shape down the middle of each. Roll the pastry over the mixture, make slits down the top of teh pastry as seen in my reel and use a fork to make a pattern along the edges.
- Chop the long rolls into 8 pieces (or more if you wish), place them on baking trays lined with baking paper and bake for 18-20 mins or more if you want them more browned and crispier. Check the rolls in the oven every five mins.
- Cool for 5-10 mins and serve immediately.
The Food Anatomist 