This Brown Rice and Mushroom Bake Is the Coziest Dinner
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Okay, we can’t help but agree that the words “vegetarian loaf” don’t sound very sexy, which is how the blog Things I Made Today opens their post about this dish. But when you’re making something that tastes this delicious, looks don’t really matter.
“Nothing ending in ‘loaf’ can possibly capture your attention in a way that makes you think, ‘yes, this — this is what I want to make to impress friends and win competitions,” reads the post. And yet, this will make you win at the competition that is cooking a fairly healthful, not overly complicated dinner that will please vegetarians and omnivores alike.
The dish takes a simple sauté of onions, garlic, and celery as the base, then adds mushrooms, tarragon, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes — in a much more modern usage of them than the early ’90s trend of throwing them on every pizza and salad. Finally, you stir together eggs, mustard, and broth; combine it with the vegetables; throw in a little cooked rice; and pour it all into a greased loaf pan to bake.
The umami-rich mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes give the dish a super-sized boost of flavor, while the eggs bump up the protein; spinach provides the green, and rice lends the starch. It’s really the dish that has it all — including those oh-so-sexy browned edges and crispy bits that are always the best part of any dish.
But the crowning touch comes at the end, when you run a knife around the edge and flip it out onto a platter — the caramelized edges, green and red of the vegetables, and studding of mushrooms make this a center-of-the-table kind of dish, stealing the show from any side dishes.
Get the recipe: Mushroom, Spinach, and Brown Rice Loaf from Things I Made Today
