Vegan Green Bean Casserole

First, I must start by saying that I never knew that it would be so challenging to do a blog post everyday!   I signed up in October to be a part of the Vegan Month of Food with such good intentions. I was on a roll for a few days, and then I started getting very busy. So I am going to try to at least post a favorite recipe or something related to my plant powered life at least once a week, ok maybe once a month.  Don't hold me to it, but I will try.

Ok, so back to the Green Bean Casserole.  This has always been my daughter’s favorite Thanksgiving recipe. I even bought her a casserole pan with the recipe printed on the bottom! It was so simple she could just throw it all together and put it in the oven.

I realized that we have not made it since I became a vegan over 5 years ago. Sure, she has eaten it at other places, but I never thought to try and veganize it, strange since that is what I do for a living!

I have a client that requested it for Thanksgiving, so I got busy searching the web for ideas! I usually look at a recipe and say" that is a good idea, but I would do...".  While searching the internet, it looked like they all used soy milk to make the cream sauce. I love soy milk, just not to cook with. I think it leaves a very distinctive soy flavor.  I decided that vegan sour cream mixed with faux chicken broth would be a good start. After combing some nutritional yeast and worcestershire sauce (vegan of course), I think I have it pretty close. Actually better!

Green Bean Casserole

Vegan Green Bean Casserole

Green Beans- You can use fresh. 1 1/2 pounds. Just trim and cut into bite size pieces and cook. I used a big 50 oz can just to make it easier

Sauce
1 8 oz tub of vegan sour cream. I used the tofutti brand.
10 oz baby bella mushrooms
3 cloves of garlic
1 TBS Earth Balance Butter
1 TBS Vegan Worchestershire sauce (krogers store brand is vegan)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 TBS flour. I used rice flour to make it gluten free
1/2 cube of vegan chicken bullion cube
salt, pepper, onion salt


Topping
3 oz can french fried onions

1. Pre heat oven to 425
2.  Clean the mushrooms and chop them very small or put them in the food processor for a rough chop. 
3. Place the vegan butter, mushrooms and garlic in large skillet. Cook on medium until mushrooms are soft. Stir in the worchestershsire sauce
4. In two seperate bowls, add 1 cup hot water to each. In one bowl, place the un chicken bullion cube and whisk until disolved. In the second bowl, add in 3/4 of the container of sour cream and whisk until it is the consistency of milk. Add the flour and nutritional yeast to the sour cream mixture and whisk together.
5. Add the broth and sour cream mixture to the mushrooms and cook for 5 mins until thickened  stirring constantly.
6. Add green beans and stir to coat. Add salt, pepper and onion salt to taste. 
7. Pour into a 9x13 casserole pan. Pour french fried onions on the top.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes.