Categories
Veg*

The Beggars’ Banquet: Vegetarian Stroganoff

Because of my family’s particular food commitments, my beef stroganoff cravings were just going unanswered. Until now.
I found this Paula Deen recipe for Beef Stroganoff online and wondered if I could make it work as a vegetarian thing. Lo and behold, I did indeed. Here’s how I made it work.
Ingredients:
  • Replace 1-1/2 pounds cubed round steak, cut into thin strips, with 2 packs of Trader Joe’s Beefless Tips.
  • Modify House Seasoning to just 1/4 cup pepper (we used white instead of black) and 1/4 cup garlic powder. The Beefless Tips are already somewhat seasoned, and we found the salt in the house seasoning was a little overpowering
  • All-purpose flour
  • Double the olive oil and butter to 4 tablespoons each (the Beefless Tips don’t give off the kind of fat/dripping/extra lubrication that regular steak would)
  • 1 medium onion, sliced
  • 8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
  • 1 (10-3/4 ounce) can vegetable broth
  • 1 (10-3/4 ounce) can cream of mushroom soup (I used a “Healthy Choice” option from Campbell’s that seemed to have lower fat/sodium levels)
  • I completely omitted the additional salt and black pepper
  • 1 cup sour cream (we used light, but use whatever)
  • Cooked egg noodles (we had our leftovers on brown rice, though, and it was just as good!)
The dish is possibly named after this hottie.
Directions:
Make sure your Beefless Tips are totally thawed before “seasoning” in the modified House Seasoning, then dust with flour. In a large skillet, quickly brown them on both sides in the olive oil and butter. If you want to start with just half of my recommended oil + butter to brown the Tips, this will work fine. Just add the rest in before the next step.
Add the onion slices and mushrooms to the pan drippings. Saute for a few minutes, until the onion is tender. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon flour. Put the steak back into the pan with the onion and mushrooms. Add the mushroom soup and veggie broth. Cook over low heat for about 30 minutes, covered. (Covered is very important.)
If you need salt and pepper, you can add it here, but we found the seasoned “beef” was adequate. Stir in the sour cream during the last few minutes, right before you serve. Serve over cooked noodles/rice.
Obviously, we’re vegetarians who are fine with eating dairy (among other things that people on the various stops along the vegan-to-vegetarian-to-pescetarian sliding scale), but I am confident that others could make this way-too-delicious recipe work for them, too, no matter what their dietary needs.

By Meghan Young Krogh

Meghan had a number of quality writing mentors over the course of her education, which just goes to show that you can't blame the teacher for the way the student turns out. Team Oxford Comma represent.

7 replies on “The Beggars’ Banquet: Vegetarian Stroganoff”

When I wen vegetarian, this was one of the few things I though I would miss eating. My dad, through trail and error, came up with a vegetarian version that is probably one of my favorite foods though I’m not sure about justly calling it stroganoff. We use my great-grandmother’s recipe. My great grandmother’s recipe is bright orange and uses a pint of sour cream. It is one of the most awesomely awesome thing ever

This makes me so excited, I can’t even tell you. I love stroganoff-type dishes but really haven’t had a good vegetarian one yet – I made one with portabellas, and I normally love me some portabellas, but the whole thing turned this really unappetizing dark gray and just wasn’t very good. I’m definitely going to try this! :)

Leave a Reply