Last year our Christmas ended up being very low-key with only three extra family members joining us for lunch. This didn’t mean that I didn’t try to feed them as much delicious plant- based food as possible! The food I prepared fed five adults for three meals in total, which meant lots of relaxing during the days after Christmas. Things were a bit hectic leading up to the holidays, so my aim was to keep things as simple as possible, with minimum prep and cleanup on Christmas day. A bit of planning and pre-preparation made creating a large, delicious, plant-based meal achievable, and even fun!

Our Christmas Lunch Menu:

Mushroom & Sun-dried Tomato Pizzas

Spinach Salad with Strawberry Sesame Vinaigrette - Joel Fuhrman recipe

Easy Nut-Free Taco Salad - Oh She Glows app

Potatoes with hummus dressing

Barbecued Sweet Corn

Basil & Orange infused water

Homemade Snickers - The Happy Pear

Preparation & Breakdown

Christmas fell on a Sunday last year which made preparing our meal a bit easier. I had most of the day on Saturday to get everything organised. I did my food shop for all the non-fresh items the Sunday before Christmas and my fruit and veggie shop on Thursday the 21st of December. I was worried that the salad items might not be fresh enough for Sunday but everything lasted well. It was great not to have to face the last minute crowds at the shops on Friday or Saturday.

Mushroom & Sun-dried Tomato Pizzas

I chose having pizzas as our main dish with the aim to try and keep things simple and prep to a minimum. I’ve made beautiful vegetable lasagnes from scratch for previous family meals but the prep time is quite extensive (not to mention the dishes!). For these pizzas I used store brought bases and tomato paste. I topped the pizzas with fried mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted capsicums (from a jar), fresh basil and vegan cheese. I fried, cut, and grated everything the day before so on Christmas day all I had to do was assemble and bake them. They only took 15 minutes to cook and may have been a tad over done but were still delicious.

Spinach Salad with Strawberry Sesame Vinaigrette

This is now my summer signature salad! I discovered the recipe a few years ago from Joel Fuhrman’s book Super Immunity. The salad is very simple containing only baby spinach, strawberries and roasted pecans. The dressing is made from dates, balsamic vinegar and sesame seeds. I usually make more dressing than I need to and use it on everything for a few days beacuse it’s just so tasty. I prepped the salad dressing on Friday, the salad ingredients on Saturday, and assembled them on Christmas morning. Everything was still tasty and fresh, this has to be one of my all time favourite salads.

Easy Nut-Free Taco Salad

I only recently discovered this salad from the Oh She Glows app and it has become a favourite. It is quite simple and quick to prepare and the seed/sun-dried tomato crumble make it seem more hearty than a salad usually would be. The salad consists of three parts, a greens base, the crumble and a hummus dressing. I made each of the parts separately on Saturday and assembled them Christmas morning. I think this was actually my favourite part of the whole meal. The creamy hummus dressing takes the salad to a whole new level, yum!

Potatoes with hummus dressing & Barbecued Sweet Corn

To complete the meal we had two vegetable sides. Boiled new season potatoes (from our garden!) and barbecued sweet corn. I cooked the potatoes so they were ready just as we were about to eat and stirred over the dressing I had made the day before. The dressing was adapted from the Easy Nut-Free Taco Salad and contained hummus, lemon juice and dried dill. I husked the corn the day before and wrapped the corn in foil and Jase’s one job was to BBQ them on Christmas morning. Wrapping them in foil keeps the heat in so we didn’t have to worry too much with the timing of the corn. They took 20 minutes on the BBQ turning every five minutes to make sure they were evenly cooked.

Basil & Orange infused water

I wanted a non-alcoholic beverage to serve with the meal (I’m not a very good day drinker!), and kept it simple with some fruit infused filtered water. This needed to made on the day so it was as fresh as possible. It’s simple to make by filling some jugs with water and adding peeled chopped orange and some chopped fresh basil. It was the last thing I did before our guests arrived and I let it sit on the counter for about 20 minutes so the flavours could infuse.

Homemade Snickers

And no holiday meal is complete without a tasty dessert! I just love the Homemade Snickers from The Happy Pear and decided on making them for Christmas way back in August. They take a little bit of prep but are SO worth it, and the recipe yields quite a few pieces of deliciousness! They are made in three stages - the base, the caramel filling, and the chocolate top with each layer needing to be frozen for a bit in between. I prepped the base and caramel filling on Friday and finished off the chocolate top on Saturday. These were the other hit of the meal and requests were even made to take some home! They are stored in the freezer and easily could of been made a week or two in advance, I just wasn’t that organised.

Holiday Meal 🎉🎄🍒

That’s what our Christmas meal looked like, full of plants, bright colours and nourishment. Having a plant-based holiday meal means you might do things a little differently from tradition, but you definitely don’t need to miss out on anything tasty! Hopefully I’m creating new traditions for our family full of plants and nourishment. Sharing delicious, healthy, plant-based food with your family and friends is one of the best possible gifts you can give them. I hope this gives you some ideas and inspiration. Eating plant-based doesn’t need to be tricky or complicated. Practice some recipes, do some planning, and include a plant-based dish or two at your next family gathering!