HNY 🎉! Recipes to get your plant protein up ⬆️ (and biome fed)🪴
A delicious breakfast, lunch, and dinner starring chia, chickpeas, and a bag of frozen edamame. Easy dishes extracted from new vegan cook book by Gigi Grassia out tomorrow
Constant battle don’t you find?
Trying to eat less meat and dairy (especially now we hear that cows are being supplemented to reduce methane) and still get enough protein?
Protein provides the building blocks of the body - think of it like the raw material to build a house, which is you.
Your muscles, bones, hair, nails, skin, hormones and brain neurotransmitters are all made of it.
(This isn’t all about looks, may I add. Less muscle = less strength = less balance = less movement = less energy).
Plus if you are on appetite reducers Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro right now (apparently half a million Brits are currently), you’ll need to keep up protein to avoid muscle loss during weight loss.
Anyway, all this to say, as soon as I heard about Gigi Grassia’s forthcoming book (which is out tomorrow), Plant Protein, I started persuading my publisher Quercus to let us have an extract.
Result. I got hold of a pre copy, and love that Gigi Grassia solves the plant protein problem - and makes it taste good!
Gigi is an Italian vegan coach and personal trainer, and comes at this with a love of making food taste good while addressing health.
Looking through the book I see that your fibre and diversity of plants for your microbiome is automatically covered in many of the recipes.
So many nuts, seeds, beans, and pulses used in clever ways - many with a nod to her Mediterranean roots. She often uses flax seeds to glue food together in the absence of egg, and miso to add flavour plus some great uses of probiotic tempeh eg in gyros.
What is super useful is the protein count which has been done for each dish - which is what most of us need extra help with.
Without resorting to ultra-processed food options (you know what I mean, the methylcellulose-filled sawdusty plant sausages etc).
If you were to eat Gigi’s chia pudding for breakfast (14g protein), the chickpea and sweet potato soup for lunch (25g protein), and the pistachio and edamame pesto dish for dinner (25g protein) (all 3 recipes are detailed below) you would clock up 64g of protein in one day.
Add in one of her snacks (eg cookies in the book featuring flaxseeds and kidney beans no less) and you’ll easily get to 75g (which is a good rough estimate to aim for) in total.
I’ve made comments in italics alongside all the recipes - so you can see my thoughts as we go along, and I’ve made suggestions for gluten free if that’s you.
BREAKFAST
BLENDED CHIA
14g protein per serving
Serves 1–2
30g (1oz) chia seeds
2 tablespoons raw cacao powder
3 tablespoons maple syrup, plus extra for drizzling
160ml (51/2fl oz/2/3 cups) soya milk (look for unsweetened organic and a short ingredients list so no microbiome disrupting emulsifiers)
200g (7oz/generous ¾ cup) high protein plant-based yoghurt
berries, to serve (I use frozen this time of year as they are out of season, defrosted)
Put the chia seeds, cacao powder, maple syrup and soya milk into a food processor and blend until creamy. Allow to thicken for 5 minutes.
Serve by layering the yoghurt and fresh berries on top of your chia pudding base and finish with a drizzle of maple syrup.
Re soy milk and yogurt, in the UK I’m using organic Sojade brand (have a look for organic ones where you are). This avoids the pesticide load (potentially microbiome disrupting) that may come with the genetically modified soy - something to consider if you regularly eat a lot of it.
I’ve already made these chia cups twice this week - absolutely delicious, light AND filling. You could also use them as dessert to boost your protein intake, especially if your main course didn’t have much.
These are going to be a staple in my fridge!
LUNCH
SWEET POTATO GOCHUJANG SOUP WITH CRISPY CHICKPEAS
PROTEIN PER SERVE 25g.
Serves 3–4
1 small-medium onion, finely chopped
2–3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon gochujang paste (gluten free option here, for those ok with gluten, here’s a Waitrose one)
350g (12oz) sweet potatoes, chopped into 1cm (1/2 inch) cubes
450–600ml (151/4–20fl oz/scant 2–21/2 cups) vegetable stock
1 x 400g tin of chickpeas (garbanzos), drained and patted dry
1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon onion granules
300g (101/2oz) silken tofu
2–3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
200g (7oz) vermicelli rice noodles
Olive oil, for cooking and drizzling
Salt and freshly ground
black pepper
TO SERVE
Sesame seeds
Spring onions (scallions), finely chopped
Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan/425°F/Gas mark 7 and line a baking tray (pan) with baking parchment.
Heat a glug of olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat and fry the onion, garlic and gochujang paste for 5–8 minutes until the onions are soft and golden.
Add the sweet potatoes and a splash of stock to prevent sticking, then stir and cover. Cook for 20–30 minutes, or until fork tender, adding a little more stock to prevent sticking.
Meanwhile, toss the chickpeas in a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil, the paprika, cumin, onion granules and salt. Spread the chickpeas out on the prepared baking tray. Roast them in the oven for 35–40 minutes, then turn on the grill (broiler) and grill for 5–10 minutes to ensure they’re crunchy. Alternatively, if you have an air fryer, you can air-fry the chickpeas at 200°C (400°F) for 15–20 minutes.
In a food processor, combine the cooked sweet potato mixture, silken tofu, nutritional yeast, vegetable stock and a pinch of salt and pepper.
Blend until creamy. You might have to do this in batches.
Cook the rice noodles according to the packet instructions.
Assemble the bowls by ladling in the creamy soup, followed by the noodles.
Garnish with the crispy chickpeas, sesame seeds and finely chopped spring onions.
Honestly don’t be put off by there being several steps to this - I made it in under half an hour or so (ok cheat alert - I used a pressure cooker). If you want a short cut you could buy a bag of flavoured crunchy chickpeas eg like these from Brave to scatter on top. Lots of fibre. The gochujang gives it a taste kick and provides a plant chemical called capsaicin which feeds akkermansia gut bacteria (which may help reduce sugar cravings). If you have a jar of probiotic fermented live kimchi on the go - you could fork some of that over the top for your gut health too.
ZINGY SPAGHETTI WITH ASPARAGUS, PISTACHIO AND LEMON PESTO AND EDAMAME
Protein per serving 25g
Serves 2–3
250g (9oz) asparagus, woody ends snapped off
200g (7oz) spaghetti (use gluten free if you don’t tolerate gluten well)
100g (31/2oz) cooked edamame beans (I use frozen as more readily available in supermarkets)
50g (13/4oz) lightly salted pistachios, shelled
40g (11/2oz) nutritional yeast (I used half - a bit dry otherwise I thought)
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest, plus extra to serve
1 tablespoon tahini
20ml (11/2 tablespoons) olive oil
Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the asparagus for 5 minutes. They should still be a little crunchy. Remove from the water and dry with a clean dish towel. Do not discard the water.
In the same water, cook the spaghetti according to the packet instructions until al dente. If you’re using frozen cooked edamame, throw them in the water a minute before the spaghetti is done.
While the pasta is cooking, put the pistachios into a food processor and pulse briefly until coarsely chopped.
Dice the asparagus, leaving the tops intact for garnishing. Place the chopped stems into the food processor with the pistachios, then add the nutritional yeast, garlic, lemon juice and zest, tahini and olive oil.
Blend until a pesto-like paste forms. If it’s too dry, add a splash of pasta-cooking water. Season with salt and pepper.
Drain the spaghetti and the edamame once cooked, reserving half a ladle of pasta water.
Place the pasta back into the saucepan and combine it with the asparagus pesto and the pasta water. Stir over a low heat until warmed through.
I made this with gluten free pasta. By grating unwaxed lemon skin in there for the zest, you get additional antioxidants because that’s the richest antioxidant bit of the lemon.
I found the pesto deliciously tangy, but a bit rich. So in future, I think I would half the quantities and top up on protein at dessert (an excuse to have the chia cup above).
Next time I won’t make it in my Nutri Bullet - as it made it too thick and gluey. I would chop it all by hand. If you have a food processor (I don’t) - you would probably get a nice finely-chopped version.
Plant Protein by Gigi Grassia is published on 2 January 2025 and available here.
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Beautiful! I've just bought it, thank you! 💛
Hope you enjoy it Miguel and Happy New Year 🤗