It doesn't matter what diet or plan of eating you're trying to follow — Paleo, Primal, Keto, WeightWatchers, Noom, you name it — there's a pretty good chance it involves trying to get more veggies on your plate. And you might be trying to eat less meat, too.
That quest gets a little easier with the arrival of Big Vegan Flavor, a monster of a cookbook that seems destined to become the new bible for vegan and plant-based cooking. It's huge, weighing over five pounds and contains over 150 recipes aimed at making it deliciously easy to embrace vegetables as well as venture further into plant-based eating.
While the title may say vegan, omnivores are welcome here, said San Diego-based author Nisha Vora, a Harvard Law School grad who left law to become one of the biggest names in vegan cooking.
(Her family was initially skeptical. They are now onboard, and make humorous cameos in her online content).
Vora's Rainbow Plant Life brand has over a million followers on YouTube and almost as many on Instagram, and estimates that 50% of her audience is not vegan. But all are on the hunt for tasty plant-based meals and ways to level-up their veggie intake.
"I wrote this book for anyone who enjoys and appreciates good food and wants to enjoy and eat more vegetables," she said. "As long as you are open to eating plant-based foods, I think you’ll find something in this book."
Big Vegan Flavor is very much a "How to" book that you'll want to read as much as cook from: There are chapters and sections on food textures, food pairings, coaxing flavors out of your greens, how to menu plan and so on. The cookbook is full of glorious photography, which is helpful for new cooks.
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Author Nisha Vora is signing copies of her new cookbook from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 4 at Now Serving in Chinatown, Far East Plaza, 727 N. Broadway, Unit 133, Los Angeles.
The author, who became vegan as a young adult, said she struggled at first because she was just shoveling in the vegetables and then wondering why she didn't feel satiated.
“Instead of asking, ‘How many vegetables can I fit onto this plate?’ I started asking, ‘How can I build flavor at every step of the cooking process so that this vegetable tastes as delicious as possible?” she writes.
Trying it out
I made three recipes from the cookbook — lemon-garlic brussels sprouts with rosemary, a pomegranate molasses vinaigrette, and smashed cucumbers with a yogurt tahini sauce drizzled with a jalapeño faux honey. It's a testament to the flexibility of the recipes that in all three cases I didn't quite have all the ingredients on hand. I used regular yogurt instead of vegan yogurt, for example. And I used dried rosemary instead of fresh and I had to sub in lemon zest for the preserved lemon called for in the vinaigrette.
But all the recipes turned out great, and I'd make them all again.
Vora approved of my substitutes. She said she wants her cookbook to be a guide, an inspiration and a framework for those leaning in to plant-based eating. It will prepare you for walking into the farmers market or a supermarket and picking up some seasonal fresh veg with the confidence that you can riff off of one of her recipes and create a meal around your purchase.
"I really want my audience and anyone who buys the book to feel confident in the kitchen and to feel creative and to feel like they can cook a delicious nourishing meal, even if they're not following a recipe," she said. "And I want them to have the groundwork knowledge of cooking good food without dairy or meat."
Her big tip
Asked if she had one single tip to help us all eat more veggies and less meat, Vora had a genius answer: Flavor boosters.
Um, what's a flavor booster?
Well, she has an entire chapter dedicated to them — think sauces, vinaigrettes, crunch toppers and the like — that can "jazz up" a bland meal. A few examples from her cookbook are Italian basil and parsley salsa verde, a whipped pistachio butter, a Korean BBQ sauce and a Caesar salad dressing. She says that she likes to spend some time on the weekend whipping up some of these flavor boosters so she has them at the ready.
Then, when the work day goes long, or the lunch hour is short, she can grab some basic pantry ingredients or some leftovers in the fridge and still get something tasty on the table.
Even if you're not vegan you can see the brillance of this method. Scramble up some eggs, make a basic grilled cheese, or toss a salad with the veg wilting in the back of your fridge: If you have an extra special salsa or dressing waiting in the wings, you're more likely to eat in than order in. That has to check some "healthier eating" boxes right there!
Or, as Vora puts it: "It's going to be like, 'Oh, I'm looking forward to eating this salad that came together really quickly because past me was thinking about future me and did a little bit of upfront work."
Shifting your mindset
Simple sauces and toppers are also an easy way to begin experimenting with trying vegetables you might not be familar with, she added. A simple sauce, a simple cooking method — like roasting in a hot oven — and you're done.
"I feel like there's this temptation to just try to shove vegetables into stuff because they're good for you or to sneak them into things, instead of letting a vegetable shine and really showcase the flavor and the texture of that specific vegetable," she said.
She added that we need to shift our mindset around what vegetables are and what space they can take up on our plate.
"We shouldn't eat them just because they're good for us," she said. "We should also eat them because they can be fantastically delicious. And I think once people start to understand that by having vegetable dishes that taste amazing, they'll start to move more in that direction of like, 'Oh, I want to eat cauliflower.'"
Make a note now: This cookbook would make a great holiday gift, especially for those just heading off to college, setting up their very first kitchen, or just trying to level up their eating — or for yourself.
