Vegan Recipes Ideal for The Summer

Adhering to a vegan lifestyle shouldn’t stop you from enjoying delicious food this summer. When I first reduced my animal product intake, I found it difficult to find things to eat as I could be quite picky, but it actually helped me explore different kinds of foods that I’d not considered before!

I’ve listed three of my favourite vegan recipes below that I think would be perfect for the summer.

Delicious Falafel Salad

This is a recipe I first discovered when having a barbecue at my sister’s house, and she made the most delicious salad to go with the food. I’ve always struggled to make salads taste nice, but as an avid healthy eater, my sister has perfected this recipe. There are probably a couple of modifications to her original recipe, but after I remade this at home – it’s become my go-to for meals.

All the ingredients are to taste, so I’ll just list the basic ingredients you’ll need, but feel free to put in as much or as little as you’d like, and you can add any sauces or dressings that you want!

• Mixed Lettuce
• Red/Orange/Yellow Peppers
• Red Onions
• Spring Onions
• Grated Carrot
• Sesame Seeds
• Roasted Salted Peanuts
• Falafel quartered

Falafel Burgers 

Another falafel recipe (they’re very tasty, don’t judge me) that is great for the summer! These are a great alternative for the BBQ or a warm summer’s day and are paired great with chips and salad. 

I originally found this recipe on BBC good food and just tweaked a few things to make it more suited to my taste. If you’d like to see the original recipe, click here! 

You’ll need the following ingredients: 

• 400g of canned Chickpeas
• 1 Red Onion, chopped
• 1 Garlic Clove, chopped
• Roughly one handful of flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 a teaspoon of Harissa Paste or Chilli Powder
• 2 tablespoons of plain flour

Method:

• Start by draining the chickpeas using a sieve, then patting them dry with a kitchen towel. 
• Once they’re dried, put them in a food processor (if you don’t have one, I just use a blender) alongside the onion, garlic, parsley, harissa paste, and flour. 
• Blend this until it’s relatively smooth, you can then shape them into patties! 
• Fry them for about 3 minutes on each side in a nonstick pan (don’t forget to put some oil in the pan too!)
• You can serve it in a burger bun, pitta bread, tortilla wrap… anything you want really!

Lemon Cake

There’s nothing more refreshing in the summer than Lemons, and what’s better than a bit of cake after your dinner?

You can make this with or without the icing on the cake, I prefer not to, just to cut down on the sugar content. To view the original recipe, click here!

You’ll need the following ingredients for the cake:

• 100ml of vegetable oil
• 275g of self-raising flour
• 200g of golden caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• The zest of one lemon
• The Juice of half a lemon

You’ll need the following ingredients for the icing:

• 150g of icing sugar
• The juice of half a lemon

Method:

• Start by preheating your oven to 200C conventional, 180C fan, or gas mark 6. 
• Oil your loaf tin with some extra vegetable oil and line it with greaseproof paper. Alternatively, you can grease your tin with Vita-lite and omit the greaseproof paper.
• Sift the flour, sugar, and baking powder into a bowl, and add the lemon zest over the top. 
• In the same bowl, add the oil, lemon juice, and 170ml of cold water. Mix this until smooth, I’d recommend using the figure eight method to mix, as this helps to preserve the air in the cake, allowing it to rise nicely. 
• Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 30 minutes or until baked. You can check if it’s baked by putting a skewer or knife into the centre of the cake, if it comes out clean, it’s cooked! Allow the cake to cool fully before starting the icing. 
• To make the icing, sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and then mix in enough lemon juice to make the icing thick enough to pour over the loaf. If you add too much lemon juice it will go runny and won’t settle on the cake.