The Best Vegetarian Recipes

Leaving out the meat does not mean leaving out the flavor!  Contemporary chefs have come up with ingenious ways to replace meat and poultry in popular non-vegetarian dishes.  Take your vegetarian cooking to the next level with easy meat replacements and classic vegetarian recipes.

For cooks who love to treat their loved ones to popular world dishes, one of the best and little known secrets of meat replacement is seitan [SAY-tan].  Made from the gluten of wheat, seitan is chewy and very similar to meat in texture and look.  The food was first created in China, and is extremely popular among Chinese Buddhists.  If you are looking to purchase a package, your best bet would be a local health food store.  When preparing, it is recommended to add seitan toward the end of the cooking process to preserve texture.  Use seitan in anything from fajitas to Buffalo wings!

The most popular option for meat replacement is tofu.  Tofu has the texture of egg whites, and adapts well to a wide range of dishes.  Tofu has neither the look nor the texture of meat, and is used on its own as a good source of protein.  Although tofu is typically made from soy milk, there are black bean and even almond varieties available.  Tofu can be marinated to take on desired flavors, and like seitan, absorbs spices and flavors extremely well.  Popular in Asian dishes, tofu can be used in anything from a stir-fry to chocolate mousse.

Vegetarian cooks are some of the most creative out there, finding ways to cater the most exquisite carnivorous dishes with merely plant ingredients.  Not all, however, take the meat replacement route.  
While the meat-eating world perceives vegetarians as regular consumers of tofuturkey, this is not the case for a large number of vegetarians.  Many vegetarian purists rely on plants and grains solely for their nutrition, opting for the ethnic recipes of non-meat eating cultures.

It is estimates that in India, one out of four people are vegetarians.  Indian cuisine varies greatly by location and local religious beliefs, however locally grown spices and herbs give the country's dishes a distinctly Indian character.  A large vegetarian population and the use of a variety of flavors make the Indian kitchen a vegetarian wonderland.
 
Mexican cuisine offers a large array of vegetarian dishes.  Before the Spanish arrived in South America in the 15th century and introduced Western meats such as pork, chicken and beef, the Mexican kitchen consisted on mainly on corn, vegetables, spices and herbs.  Despite the Western influence, many traditional Mexican recipes have remained meatless, making them the perfect complement to a vegetarian diet.