This Is the Most Popular Vegan Recipe on Pinterest
One of my favorite things about cooking for groups is finding new recipes that fit my friends’ dietary restrictions. I’m not vegan, but many of my friends are, and finding good vegan recipes that taste good without including eggs, cheese, or other animal products is a fun challenge.
I’m a very visual person, so one of my favorite places to look for recipes is on Pinterest. Recipes on Pinterest can be hit-or-miss (there’s a whole TV show about Pinterest fails, after all, and I still haven’t fully recovered from the fact that the most popular sandwich on Pinterest does not include any bread) but I like to look at pictures of food, and I like to have an idea of what a recipe should look like when I’m finished with it.
Just because a person is vegan does not mean they have to miss out on crispy, cheesy comfort foods, and it looks like that’s what people are looking for when they search for vegan recipes on Pinterest. Because the single most popular vegan recipe on the site is this one for vegan eggplant Parmesan from Minimalist Baker.
See it on Pinterest: Vegan Eggplant Parmesan from Minimalist Baker
This recipe has been saved over 170,000 times, and it only requires 10 ingredients — though two of those are store-bought marinara sauce and homemade vegan Parmesan, which is made from cashews, nutritional yeast, salt, and garlic powder. (You could also substitute nutritional yeast, or store-bought vegan Parmesan.)
The crispy texture is achieved by dipping eggplant slices into almond milk and cornstarch, then flour, and finally a mixture of breadcrumbs with sea salt, oregano, and vegan Parmesan. Once breaded, the slices are prepared with a two-step cooking process. First, the circles are baked in the oven, then they’re sautéed in oil, and then they’re returned to the oven to finish. Finally, they’re served with marinara sauce on top of pasta.
Browning the eggplant in the oven, then sautéing it, then browning it some more, seems a bit cumbersome and unnecessary, but people seem to love this recipe. The viral pin has 111 comments, and 65 photos showing how the recipe turned out for other people. One person even served this vegan eggplant Parmesan at Thanksgiving and declared it a huge success.
“Delicious!! Will make this again. Huge hit at Thanksgiving,” Dawn Daniels wrote.
More Delicious Vegan Recipes from Kitchn
What’s your favorite vegan recipe?