Gourmet Vegetarian Kitchen

Healthy Vegetarian & Plant-Based Foods

soup

vegan porridge

This Vegan Porridge is a healthy version of a famous rice porridge or “Jok” from Thailand. With only a little bit of grains, a fair amount of legumes, and lots of vegetables, this can be a healthy breakfast, lunch or dinner!

Missing a trip back to Thailand during this pandemic, I crave all kinds of Thai foods. To make me feel at home, I started to cook Thai foods more often. 

However, the Thai foods I cook are not exactly the same as Thai foods in Thailand. Why?

First of all, not all the ingredients I need can be found where I am right now. Second of all, I don’t eat animal products anymore, so my Thai food versions are meatless. Third of all, I prefer to substitute some ingredients that are shipped directly from Thailand with ingredients I can find locally. 

Even though my version of Thai food is pretty different, I try to maintain the key ingredients and make it taste as similar as I can. The flavors of Thai food are comforting and bring me closer to home—regardless where I am.

With this Vegan Porridge, instead of having just rice as the main ingredient, I add all kinds of vegetables I like. 

I make this with sprouted brown rice, white rice and rolled oats.They all work great, but white rice and rolled oats are easier and faster to cook. Brown rice takes longer to cook and make it soft the way “Jok” is. I usually sprout it first to make it more digestible.…

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vegetable and bean soup

Are you looking for a ways to consume a variety of vegetables at the same time? This Vegetable and Bean Soup is what you are looking for then. It’s so flavorful from different kinds of fresh vegetables, and packed with the plant-based protein of beans. Simply put everything together, season it with only salt and cumin, and you are set for a tasty & healthy meal. Is it that simple? You bet!

I make this soup almost every week, it’s a reliable meal when it’s time for something easy & fast. It can be eaten as a bowl of soup with homemade bread, or it can be served over pasta if you prefer.

There are 2 main parts of ingredients in this Vegetables and Beans Soup. One is vegetables, and the other part is beans.

The vegetables I use in this post are to guide you, but you can use any kinds of vegetables you like. However, there are two kinds to always keep in the mix:. onions and tomatoes. …

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vegan lentil soup

Vegan Lentil Soup is healthy with no doubt, but if you want to go the extra mile, making ordinary, lentil soup extraordinary–try this!

Even though it looks just like normal healthy lentil soup with a lots of vegetables, the lentils have been fermented, and are sure to be easily digestible.

I used to prepare it with dried lentils, but when I learned how to prepare whole grains, beans and legumes in a traditional way, I started to ferment lentils first too.

The fermentation process gives the Vegan Lentil Soup extra flavor too, although it does require some planning. Since I learned the benefits of fermenting, it’s been hard going back to using dried lentils. Let’s try it together….

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enjoy it with some sautéed vegetables

Lemon & Lime Soup is the best way to eat lemon and lime rinds that are loaded with health benefits, that most of us are not aware of. It’s a very fresh, tangy, aromatic, and most of all healthy soup!

In Thailand, the land known for its delicious and healthy foods, I grew up eating a soup dish called chicken & pickled lime soup, or in Thai “Gai Toon Manao Dong.” That was a long time ago when I was still a meat eater.

In the soup, they use whole, pickled limes, chicken, Thai winter squash, and shiitake mushrooms along with other spices. Then, they slow cook it ‘til everything is soft, and well-blended with incredibly aromatic smells. Even though the taste is quite bitter, it’s very delicious in a unique way.

It’s known to be one of the best healing soups when you are sick. Most Thai people believe that bitter food is good for you, and we have a saying to makes us feel good when eating something bitter: “bitter is medicinal.”…

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season it with the sauce the way you like and enjoy

Hot Pots are one of the easiest and healthiest dishes in Asian cuisine. There are so many different kinds of Hot Pots in restaurants to choose from: Japanese shabu-shabu, Sukiyaki, and Taiwanese style. These meals are a fun way to eat with a big group of friends and family.

The ingredients of Hot Pots are mainly soup stock, protein from meat or plants, and vegetables. As each individual chooses what to put into theirs, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian friends can eat together as each Hot Pot can be fixed differently.

Eating and having fun conversation, sometimes we can easily stuff ourselves. The good thing about overstuffing ourselves eating Hot Pots though is we don’t feel bad afterwards as most of what we eat are vegetables and soup broth.

However, eating Hot Pots at home can be intimidating if you don’t have all the equipment and ingredients to make the sauce the same way they do in restaurants. I don’t have the equipment, and I can’t find an similar healthy replacement for the sauce. So, I have come up with an easier and more practical way to eat it home. It’s also fun, healthy, and tasty.

Whenever I feel like eating a light, but warm and easy dinner with a lot of vegetables, I make Hot Pots. The first few times of trying to make it at home, I followed every step I learned–even preparing soup stock first. However, I realized that the soup stock is not really necessary. The way we eat Hot Pots is to cook everything including vegetables in boiling water, and the water automatically turns into stock, so we get the stock in an easier way….

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vegetable stock

I still remember the first time I tried to make soup by following a recipe. I ended up putting my project away and cooked a different dish entirely because I didn’t have either stock or broth on hand. I was so afraid to cook anything if I didn’t have all the ingredients mentioned in the recipes, and most soup recipes required either stock or broth, so my soup dishes were on hold for a while.

To be honest, I was a little confused about stock and broth. I didn’t know the difference between them, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. My desire to make beautiful soup like I saw in cookbooks kept coming back to me, so I decided to really look into the stock and broth terminology.

Here is what I found out:

To make vegetable stock, prepare the main ingredients, which are vegetables. Slow cook them in water until everything is cooked thoroughly, then remove the vegetables. The liquid that is left after removing the vegetables is called “stock.” The stock is plain, but highly nutritious.

Broth is cooked the same, but we don’t remove the vegetables when it’s done. We do add some seasoning such as salt and pepper or other spices. The seasoned, cooked vegetables with the liquid is called “broth.” We can drink the liquid, and also eat the vegetables at the same time. Broth is also very nutritious.

When I finally understood the difference between stock and broth, I started to make my own. I like making broth as I feel a little bit silly throwing away the cooked vegetables afterwards. Although, I do separate and save some liquid once in awhile if I plan to make some dishes that require stock….

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