Plastic Free pantry staples to help you this Veganuary
/We’ve been mainly plant based for our diet for a couple of years now, we actually started following a Veganuary challenge! We’re pretty flexible when we’re out and about but at home we tend to stick to vegan plant based meals. We thought we would share our store cupboard staples that have helped us convert to being plant based, all available plastic free from Incredible Bulk:
Vegan Bouillon: a ready to go stock mix for when you’re pressed for time and have run out of home made.
Gravy: again this ready to go vegan gravy is great for when you need something quick.
Nutritional Yeast: an absolute game changer! If you haven’t tried this yet you need to give it a go! Adds a delicious cheesy flavour. Great sprinkled onto pasta dishes, you can make a vegan parmesan with it, use it to make vegan cheese sauces and vegan cheese! It also has Vitamin B12 which is hard to come by naturally in your diet.
Tamari: this brings all the Unami flavour! Great for using in stir fries, making rich stocks, coating nuts and seeds to make delicious savoury snacks and additions to salads and other meals.
Shea Butter, Olive Oil and Rapeseed Oil: all great replacements for butter. You can mix together and let set to make your own vegan spread or use individually as needed. We often swap out butter for any or a mix of these and play around with the recipes until we find the right mix.
Soya Beans: great for making your own soya milk and tofu (which allows you to avoid hard to recycle tetrapaks and also gives you the bonus of okara and whey to use in your cooking!). Great vegan milk to use when making your own milk kefir too.
Oats and Cashews: we find these are great for making quick vegan milks, yoghurts, creams, cheese and cheesy/ white sauce. As the oats and cashews are softer than other nuts pre-soaking is not necessary or you can do a quick 30min hot soak if you feel you need to.
Apple Cider Vinegar: your secret ingredient for making vegan buttermilk, simply add a tablespoon to your vegan milk, let it sit for a few mins and then its ready to use for your baking!
Chia Seeds and Linseeds: your egg replacements, simply mill/ground and add water, usually on a 1 seed to 4 water ratio, let sit and you have your vegan egg substitute!
Walnuts, Almonds, Pumpkin and Sunflower Seeds: great to add crunch to a meal and also delicious cooked with tamari to up the Unami flavour of a meal.
Chickpeas: great to make your own hummus, falafel or burgers. Use the leftover bean water (either from cooking your own or tinned) known as Aquafaba, as another egg replacement.
Sosmix, Sunflower Mince and Vital Wheat Gluten: your vegan meat substitutes! Sosmix is a ready to go vegan sausage mix which is super easy to make and very tasty! Sunflower Mince is a very nutritious mince alternative, again very easy to cook with. Vital Wheat Gluten is your key ingredient to make your own seitan and also to add to Sunflower Mince to make your own burgers!
Red Split and Dark Speckled Lentils: Great for making vegan versions of shepherds pie, bolognaise and chillis, mixes easily with sunflower mince to make wholesome dinners.
Bean Mix: great for making vegan chillis and burgers.
Sun Dried Tomatoes: another Unami hit! Great to add to chillis, bolognaise, salads or simply to eat on their own as a kind of vegan beef jerky!
Dark Chocolate Buttons: our dark chocolate buttons are vegan friendly and make the best treat and desert!
Omega 3 Snack Mix: A mix of Pumpkin Seeds, Walnuts, Almonds, Pecans, Cranberries and Sour Cherries offer a great snack mix that’s high in Omega 3. We like to turn ours into energy balls dipped in melted chocolate!
Excited to try some new ingredients? Head to our full product list page where you can find further info and order forms.
Want to find out more about the link between zero waste and a vegan diet? Check out this blog post!