Jackfruit Christmas Roast Dinner
This ultimate vegan Christmas dinner recipe will help you make everything you need for your festive feast. With crisp potatoes, tender baby carrots and Brussels sprouts, and the star of the show – a flavourful jackfruit roast!
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Keep turkeys off your plate this Christmas and opt for a deliciously seasoned jackfruit recipe for your Christmas dinner instead.
Not only is it cruelty-free, but it is also more flavoursome and has a more appealing texture than turkey so will be a hit with vegans and meat-eaters alike!
What does jackfruit taste like?
While ripe jackfruit can be a little on the sweet side, with a subtle, tropical flavour, young green jackfruit has a much more neutral flavour, making it perfect for seasoning up to replicate various meat flavours. This is why the young green jackfruit is ideal for this recipe.
This recipe suggests using pre-shredded jackfruit for convenience, but canned, or even fresh jackfruit can also be used, it just requires a little more preparation.
Onion, garlic, sage, and thyme season this jackfruit roast perfectly for a festive flavour that will take ex-meat eaters back to the turkey roasts of their childhoods.
Is jackfruit a healthy alternative?
Compared with a roasted meat, jackfruit is a much healthier alternative. Besides the obvious like a lack of saturated fats and other nasties found in meat, it’s also loaded with good nutrients.
Jackfruit is a source of vitamin C, calcium, iron, and fibre, and it’s not lacking in protein either.
This jackfruit roast also makes a great alternative to store-bought vegan Christmas dinner options, which are often wrapped in pastry or filled with nuts, breadcrumbs and other hearty ingredients.
While filling, hearty meals aren’t always a bad thing, this jackfruit roast is a little lighter, leaving you with plenty of room for an extra helping of roast potatoes!
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings: 2
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings: 2
Ingredients
Method
Ingredients
(Servings: 2)
- For the jackfruit roast
- 100 100 g BONSAN Shredded Jackfruit
- 0.5 0.5 tbsp olive oil
- 0.25 0.25 tsp salt
- 0.25 0.25 tsp pepper
- 0.25 0.25 tsp coconut sugar
- 0.5 0.5 tsp dried sage
- 0.5 0.5 tsp onion powder
- 0.25 0.25 tsp garlic powder
- 0.25 0.25 tsp dried thyme
- For the roast veggies
- 25 25 ml olive oil
- 200 200 g maris piper potatoes
- 4 4 baby carrots
- 4 4 small parsnips
- 50 50 g Brussels sprouts
- 0.5 0.5 bulb garlic
- 2 2 sprigs rosemary
- 4 4 sprigs thyme
- salt and pepper to taste
- sage and onion stuffing (optional)
- For the gravy
- 1 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 1 tbsp plain flour
- 0.5 0.5 tbsp tomato purée
- 0.5 0.5 tsp Marmite
- 100 100 ml red wine (optional)
- 250 250 ml vegetable stock
- salt, pepper, and sugar to taste
- To serve
- cranberry sauce
- 0.5 0.5 sachet plant-based sage and onion stuffing (optional)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200c.
- Peel the potatoes, and wash the carrots and parsnips. Cut the potatoes into quarters, and half the parsnips. Remove the skins from the sprouts.
- Put the potatoes in a large saucepan, cover with cold water, add a generous pinch of salt, put the pan on the stove, turn the heat up high, bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes, add the parsnips and carrots and cook for a further 5 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the stove and drain the vegetables into a colander. Separate the carrots & parsnips with a pair of tongs and set them to one side.
- Toss the potatoes in the colander to fluff the sides and set them to one side to dry and cool. Put the potatoes in the roasting tin, drizzle with a good glug of olive oil, a generous pinch of salt and a grind of pepper. Shake the potatoes around in the tin making sure they are covered in oil. Throw the garlic gloves in with the potatoes and bake for 25 minutes.
- Bring another pan of water to the boil and add in the sprouts. Cook for 5 minutes, drain and set aside.
- Pour the olive into a pan until it sizzles, add the jackfruit, herbs, salt, sugar, and stir together well until the jackfruit is covered in the flavourings. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes. With a pair of spatulas, mould the jackfruit roast as best you can into a loaf shape, slice into thick slices, set aside but keep warm.
- Take the tin out of the oven, turn the potatoes and push them to one side and add the carrots and parsnips in the tray, drizzle with oil. Place the stuffing into the oven at this point too if using. Sprinkle over rosemary and thyme over the veg and place back into the oven for 30 minutes.
- While the vegetables are roasting, make the gravy. Remove the roast garlic from the roasting tray and crush into a paste. Warm 1 tbsp olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat, add the garlic, tomato puree, marmite and plain flour to the saucepan and stir for 2 minutes to make a thick, flavoured roux, pour in the red wine and turn up the heat for 5 minutes, pour in the vegetable stock into the pan and simmer again for 8 minutes to thicken. Turn the heat right down and keep the pan on the stove to keep warm.
- Take the pan out of the oven, plate up the dinner, pour over the gravy and serve immediately with the cranberry sauce.
Want to add even more to your festive spread? Try one of these vegan Christmas recipes
Featured photo © BONSAN
