Vegetable skewer. Rita E. / Pixabay.com / 2018 / CC0 1.0
Vegetables are the workhorses of our kitchens, carrying the burden of filling the plates while a small piece of meat gets all the glory. Usually shunted off to the side of the plate, they rarely get to shine in their own right.
One of the issues can be is that while we all know we should eat our veggies, we run out of ideas for different ways to prepare them. Here are some ideas that entail a little, but not a lot, of work to jazz up the vegetable dishes that come out of your kitchen.
Incredibly flavourful stuffed roasted peppers. Serve with a side salad and some good bread.
This is an easy, yummy side dish: ends up sort of like cheezy scrambled egg with corn in it.
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A rich, luscious but easy way to serve leeks.
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This one recipe makes both the main course and the side salad! Nice chewy French or Italian bread works well for this. Toast bread wouldn’t cut it.
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This is a very colourful, and tasty vegetable side dish, and very easy to prepare, with a flair of a traditional French to it with the braised lettuce. Cooking lettuce might seem a jarring idea, but the French do cook lettuce as well as eating it fresh.
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Easy peasy, but you have to make it at the last minute.
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A good introduction to fennel.
A sophisticated but really easy vegetable side dish. If you end up liking it, you’ll have it easily committed to memory in no time flat.
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How many this recipe serves depends on how many leeks you have or buy, which will of course depend on how many you are planning on feeding.
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A very tasty cabbage side dish. Lovely with mash and something else.
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This is a very hearty vegetable side dish, with the right amount of melted cheese and crispy bits to give it a big comfort food factor.
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Looks as great as it tastes.
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This is a side-dish that you can make entirely in the microwave, making it ideal for times when your stove is already full-out committed — or just for times when you don’t want any pots or pans wash-up.
This Butterscotch Bean recipe is an usually tasty recipe for Lima Beans, rather than being for the variety of bean called Butterscotch Bean. It’s very good, as you can imagine just by looking at the ingredients, but it’s very rich.
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A hearty, tasty rendition of Brussels Sprouts.
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A delicious combination that makes cauliflower look and taste interesting.
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This is a very hearty vegetable side dish that has everything going for it comfort-food wise: a cheese sauce, bacon, and even buttered bread crumbs on top. You can even make this ahead.
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This is a creamy purée of cauliflower enriched with cream and butter, and seasoned with nutmeg. It makes for a very nice side splodge on your plate.
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A dead-easy way to make bland cauliflower into an asked-for dish.
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The only real bit of work in this is making the crumble, but the crumble topping is worth it.
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Nice served with side salad, bread and a glass of wine for a simple meal.
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The parsnips in this recipe taste rich and sweet enough to convert parsnip haters.
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These tomato slices have great taste, and texture.
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Tinned cream corn suits most people just fine, but every once in a while it’s nice to make it from scratch. It’s an easy side dish, and easily presentable to guests when you have made it yourself.
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For many people, a creamed spinach dish is often pivotal in getting them to give spinach another chance, after a childhood of being served boiled spinach out of a can.
A really tasty way to enjoy cauliflower, and it’s not that much work. If you’re not in the habit of keeping all the spices required, you can just use a mild curry powder instead in roughly the same quantities.
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A great Indian side dish.
If your eyes popped at the thought of this, imagine your friends. This dish is served at some bbq places and state fairs in the American south.
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Some baked onion recipes seem to think you have an army of sous-chefs to back you. This recipe will taste just as impressive.
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You can serve this hot, or at room temperature, making it an hour in advance.
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This is a medieval English recipe. The plain frumenty can be used as a breakfast dish.
A classic North American 1950s dish to make and take to feed a crowd at gatherings. It was dubbed Funeral Beans because it was a stand-by crowd-pleaser for gatherings after funerals.
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These roasted, caramelized root vegetables taste fantastic.
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For green beans, you can use whatever you call green beans: Runner Beans, Wax Beans, French Beans, Green Beans, etc.
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You can use any kind of greens you like: mustard, beet, chard, etc. Good as a side to meat or pork.
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All the work here is up-front, chopping the veg.
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A recipe from the American south.
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Really tasty mash, worth the little bit extra effort.
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This is a Greek recipe. They will use the large lima beans called “gigantes.”
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A very tasty way to present peas.
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A slow cooker recipe for very delicious, tasty, deep-brown baked beans with a thick hearty sauce. The recipe really only requires about 20 minutes of attention from you at various intervals.
This is a savoury cheese and tomato bread pudding from the Beatrix Potter cookbook. The custardy texture of the bread, with the melted cheese, and tomatoes and basil, makes this a very morish, comfort-food dish that people are sure to reach for seconds of, yet it costs very little to make
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Exotic and rich-tasting cauliflower side dish.
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Lovely with gravy on them.
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You can make this a few hours ahead, and then reheat using a bit of milk or butter.
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Goes well with ham. In America, this is more likely to be referred to as pease porridge.
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Most stuffed pepper recipes take hours just to make the filling; these you can have in the oven in under 15 minutes.
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This is a fantastic tasting vegetable side dish. You could also serve it as a starter on its own.
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This is a nice side dish with lamb or beef.
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It’s so easy to make your own pickled ginger!
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You make this recipe on a barbeque.
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A very tasty and interesting vegetable side dish.
As stuffed, roasted peppers go, this is one of the easier recipes, and the ricotta cheese stuffing makes for a nice change from the usual stuffing of rice. Plus this is a rare, healthy stuffed pepper recipe: it’s low-fat, low-sodium, low-carb.
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A good way to jazz up everyday runner beans.
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A classic way to serve sprouts.
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A good, tasty winter veg recipe.
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Excellent to serve with barbeque.
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Sprout lovers will go mad for them in this recipe.
This is a creamy, spicy, rich-tasting, very morish eggplant sauce. It’s great on rice, noodles (try it on Shirataki noodles for a super low-cal meal), or just in a bowl with a spoon, maybe with a sprinkle of parmesan on it, it’s that good on its own.
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You’re on your own for proportions. Basically, cook up as many frozen carrots as you figure you want to serve per person.
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A very tasty spinach side dish that will rival what you get in Indian restaurants.
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A gorgeous and really healthy curry.
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Give celery root a try. This is a great winter vegetable dish.
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Classic, simple recipe for a side dish of squash.
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This is dead easy, but it does need to be done at the last minute so it can be served hot from the pan.
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Looks fabulous and the tastes are great!
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This is a vegetarian take on the classic toad in the hole recipe.
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A really interesting, yummy baked pasta.
And you thought boiled, sliced carrots were another word for boring? Not these ones: very good, very sweet, even the older ones that have been stored a few months.
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A rich, yummy side-dish.