What if I want to un-vegan a recipe? - And other tips to stop playing by the rules.
I am going to start adding to this blog post as I find and think of ways to adjust recipe to taste, availability of ingredients, adjusting for the non-vegan (which is also me), and other insights around how to make cooking less strict.
If a recipe calls for a plant based milk, you can use cow milk instead. 2% would probably work the best. Equal amounts as needed. This also goes for using dairy butter or yogurt instead of a plant based butter or yogurt. Same with dairy sour cream and cottage cheese. I like to define these products as being diary (animal based, come from cows or goats) products rather than “real”. As the plant based product selections have increased and more people are adopting them into their diets, what is “real” or one person is not “real” to another. Dairy, in my mind, helps define the product more completely.
Using dairy parmesan or other cheese instead of nutritional yeast or plant based cheese is also okay. Many vegan recipes that use nutritional yeast are trying to get that umami flavor commonly found in parmesan into the recipe. Depending on a person’s level of comfort and opinion surrounding how much processing goes into making plant based dairy alternatives, one could ease into veganizing an older recipe using nutritional yeast, or un-vegan one by using dairy parmesean.
Many plain meats, just like plant based proteins like beans, lentils, and tofu, are just flavor vehicles. There are so many Indian, African, and Asian recipes that are plant based without being labeled as such. If you still favor the mouthfeel of meat that mostly comes from the saturated fat content (think ground beef) and fiberous nature of meat (think chicken) (not to be confused with actual fiber), it may be a big mental stretch to leave these out of a meal. Going 50/50 and substituting half of the plant based protein with a meat that can serve in a similar way is okay. You will get the same enjoyment out of the flavor, and may elect to try the dish again with 100% plant protien as it was designed.
If the dish calls for cubed tofu, add some cubed chicken. Be mindful that the chicken will need to be fully cooked, while this rule is less enforced with tofu.
If the dish calls for lentils, adding ground meats can be done. Again, meats need to be fully cooked to avoid the risk of food poisening. Plant based proteins do not have the rule.
Take the plant based meal and put the meat based sauce on it. One of the first steps some have taken when starting to eat more plant based is to make the meal like a rice bowl or sandwich and used the same sauce (think BBQ) or spread (think Mayo) they would have used on the meal if it had contained meat or other animal foods. Most of us don’t guzzle sauces and are mindful of the quantities we use, so if using the sauce or spread helps to get the palate ready, go for it.