Simple Vegan Cornbread Dressing

One of the best parts of a good soul food dinner is a great dressing. Now, I know you’re thinking, Ryce, how can you make a vegan cornbread dressing to rival the traditional version? Stay tuned. This post will give you the cheat code.

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So I Veganized Something Else:

As the holidays approach, one of my biggest concerns was how we would have soul food without having dressing. I don’t know about you, but I love a good dressing (holiday or otherwise). Now, I won’t have any turkey or ham, but to me the stars of the show have always been the sides. I’ve shared how I veganized black eyed peas and greens, but I had to get some other sides going to have the traditional soul food meal.

How hard could dressing without meat or eggs be? Let me tell you, not hard at all!

Oh So What Do I Need for Vegan Cornbread Dressing?

The Base

One of the biggest obstacles to overcome making a vegan cornbread dressing is finding an appropriate binder for both the cornbread and the actual dressing. Enter ground flax seeds. When flax seeds are soaked in water, they make a gel-like substance that mimics an egg. It’s honestly like magic!  To make a vegan cornbread, you can use a flax “egg” and plant based milk. Just mix one tablespoon of flax seed with 2.5 tablespoons of water. It works great!

Next you’ll need some simple ingredients that you’ll likely be using anyway. If you have been making cornbread dressing for any amount of time, you may have been freezing the ends of loaves of bread in your freezer (it’s time to pull them out). This is a cost effective way to have “stale” or crusty bread. If not, places like Whole Foods have stuffing cubes that are vegan friendly.

The Vegetables

The veggies are pretty simple. You’ll need an onion, bell pepper, garlic and celery. Celery is the real MVP when it comes to dressing. The flavor it gives makes it taste like the holidays or at least a good meal. You can make your pieces as large or small as you like, but DO NOT leave it out.

The Seasoning

Of course you’ll need some spices and broth. If you really want it to have that holiday flavor, you have to include poultry seasoning. In addition to that, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper round out the basics.

One of the things I loved most about regular cornbread dressing was the chunks of chicken or turkey that would find their way into the mixture. So, if you want to be extra like me, you can make some vegan “chicken” shreds out of jackfruit.

Listen, you have to boil the jackfruit a couple of times to get that canned flavor out of them. After that, you can use a chicken flavored broth to give it a better flavor. I’ve made the dressing with and without this addition and it’s delicious either way. I’ll be trying it with a vegan sausage too and will keep you posted.

A Few Simple Steps and You Have Vegan Cornbread

Once you have all of the ingredients, you can get ready to prepare one of the soul food greats.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Prepare cornbread according to package instructions, substituting the flax egg and plant based milk. Cook for an additional 5 -10 min so that the cornbread dries out.
3. Reduce heat of oven to 350 degrees.
4. In a large skillet, sauté celery, onion, bell pepper and garlic in vegan butter until the vegetables are tender.
5. In a large bowl, mix cubed stale bread, crumbled cornbread, crispy onions (or bread crumbs) and sautéed vegetables. (Optional, add in jackfruit shreds)
6. To this mixture, stir in poultry seasoning, garlic and onion powder, salt, pepper and vegetable broth. Mixture should be moist. If necessary add additional broth.
7. Transfer dressing mixture to a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

NOTE: You can make the cornbread as instructed a day in advance.

 

Prepare to Wow Your Family

 

Finding alternatives for your favorites may prove to be challenging, but with a little creativity, you can make a vegan cornbread dressing that will have your family asking for more. Add this to some of my other vegan soul food faves like vegan greens and black eyed peas.

You can spice it up a bit by using some vegan sausage or adding more seasonable vegetables. Let me know what you try and drop the ideas below.