Gluten free moussaka recipe for Veganuary
Happy New Year to all our lovely followers, customers and friends! Thanks again for all your support over the past year. We hope you’re managing to stay safe and cosy.
Here at Honeybuns HQ we’re keeping the January lockdown blues at bay by planting lots of native trees and hedging plants in the fields surrounding our bakery. We’ve already seen a positive effect on the local wildlife. The small wood we planted in 2014 is now home to voles, field mice, butterflies, moths & a host of other insects. A barn owl now comes to hunt at dusk most evenings which is a truly magical sight to behold.
Tree planting is also an excellent way to keep warm whilst getting some outdoor exercise and burning some of the Christmas excess off!
Once you come inside after a day of getting muddy and wind swept, thoughts (in my case at least) soon turn to food. I’m all for a jacket potato with a healthy filling of veggie chilli or a steaming bowl of home made soup but things can soon get a bit samey if you know what I mean-..?
So, partly motivated by my own self interest and also as a gift to you this Veganuary, we’ve adapted our gorgeous veggie Moussaka recipe to be 100% vegan. Just the ticket if you’re after a hearty, vegan and gluten free supper dish.
Please check out our Honeybuns All Day Cook Book for other easy recipes, both sweet and savoury. All the recipes are gluten free and many are vegan. I’ve included substitute ingredients suggestions (in brackets in the ingredients section) to help you make the most of the ingredients you might already have in your trusty store cupboard.
Being situated out in the gorgeous sticks of Dorset, we understand full well how tricky it can be to get out to the shops in lockdown and how creative you have to be if the shelves are a bit ‘Mother Hubbard’ bare.
Let’s get started on making this gorgeous gluten free, vegan Moussaka
What kit will I need to make this Moussaka?
- An ovenproof dish or tin measuring approx 30cm x 25cm x 10cm deep
- A second roasting tin – this can be a shallow one
- A pastry brush (not essential)
How quick and easy is this supper recipe going to be?
Aside from a bit of vegetable chopping, the oven does the legwork. If you budget around 10 minutes for vegetable prep plus a total of 45 minutes oven time, that’ll be pretty accurate.
Please do not be put off by the three sections of ingredients. Once you get the hang of this dish and you’ve stocked up on the herbs etc, this is such a lovely, simple supper dish to put together. Everyone here at Honeybuns Bakery HQ loves it.
What gluten free and vegan ingredients do I need for this dish?
For the roasted aubergines:
- Olive oil for brushing (any vegan friendly oil is fine: sunflower, rapeseed, hemp etc).
- 2 x aubergines, raw weight approx 500g. (Butternut squash or sweet potato work well- just slice them more thinly as they take longer to cook than aubergine).
- 1 tsp cumin seeds (crushed coriander seeds would also work well).
For the mince and veggie filling:
- 300g frozen or fresh or re-hydrated gluten free, vegan mince. (Meatless Farm and Quorn work well but there are loads of brands and supermarket own label versions- just remember to check the allergens and vegan accreditation on pack)
- 2 large tomatoes, chopped
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 tsp fresh oregano, chopped (fresh thyme works well too. Fresh herbs do make a big difference. Personally, I don’t enjoy the taste of dried but you can now get frozen mini packets of most herbs in supermarkets which are excellent)
- 2 tsp capers, chopped (capers in a jar, tin or frozen are all good)
- 400g passata (or tinned chopped tomatoes)
- Soy sauce (or Worcestershire sauce, a vegan and gluten free version) to taste.
- 2 tbsp olive oil (or any vegan oil)
- 3 tbsp black olives pitted and chopped (or use 1 tbsp of black olive tapenade or pesto)
- ½ tsp fennel seeds
- 10 fresh mint leaves chopped
- 100ml red wine (or simply swill out your can of tomatoes with water and use 100ml of that instead).
For the topping:
- 1 x jar Sacla vegan and gluten free white sauce. There may well be other brands that work but this is the one we use.
- 100g grated vegan cheese. We love Violife’s extra mature version of cheddar.
- Extra cumin seeds to sprinkle.
Here’s your step by step guide to making your moussaka
1. Preheat your oven to 180°C / Gas 4
2. Wash, top and tail your aubergines and slice them lengthways. Aim for slices approx 2 ½ cm thick. Brush the aubergine with oil using a pastry brush or just drizzle the oil over. Sprinkle with cumin seeds. Pop them in your deeper roasting tin in the oven for 10 mins then turn them over and cook for another 10 mins. Don’t worry about the seeds falling off; they can stay in the tin.
3. Pop all the mince and veggie filling ingredients into your other tin or dish and pop in the oven for 20 mins. You can lay the aubergine slices over the top of this mixture and roast everything together. I prefer doing them in separate tins because you get a lovely caramelisation of the aubergine if they’re done on their own (pedantic I know, but the devil is in the detail).
4. Once your aubergine is roasted and the veggie mince is done you can leave the aubergines where they are and spoon all the veggie mice over the top of them.
5. Spoon all of the white sauce over the top of the mince mixture.
6. Add your grated ‘cheese’ and cumin seeds and bake for another 10-15 minutes until the cheese has melted and everything is piping hot.
7. Dig in and devour!
Top Tips
- If you fancy making your own vegan white sauce, then try mixing Violife’s cream ‘cheese’ with a plant based milk to loosen it up. Then spoon this over your mince filling.
- For added protein you can add pre toasted chopped nuts to the mince filling, or chopped boiled egg.
- This supper recipe lends itself to adaptation. If you fancy more veggies- just add fresh or frozen chopped spinach to the mince filling. Peas work well too.
- Cook two or three batches and freeze for up to 3 months. This is such a fab, delicious vegan meal solution, you’ll thank us later!
This recipe is adapted from Mog’s Moussaka recipe in the Honeybuns All Day Cook Book. Find this and our other cook book on our online shop for more easy free from baking recipes.
