This festive Nut Roast is the perfect vegetarian centre piece for Christmas Day. It can easily be made using a blender to shorten prep time and can be made ahead to reduce pressure on the day. Find out more below.
Make Christmas dinner simple!
One of the most stressful meals you will ever cook is Christmas dinner. Suddenly your family has doubled in size. You've extended the table, got out the emergency chairs and got out the spare plates and cutlery. With more and more people eating a plant based diet you might also be juggling a turkey roast as well as a vegetarian or vegan main course!
When I became vegetarian (and then vegan) I was well aware that I was adding extra stress to the day by wanting a plant based meal. But, it doesn't have to be that way! Sure, you could buy your main course, but I'm here to show you that you can make a delicious vegetarian main course that doesn't require tonnes of prep on the day.
I've made nut roasts for regular Sunday lunches lots of times before. But this Christmas nut roast recipe is packed full of festive flavours. There are three layers: roasted parsnips, the herby nut roast, and then a layer of cranberry source. Every mouthful just screams Christmas!
There may be a lot of different ingredients in this nut roast but they all play a part in making this an extra special Christmas main course fit for meat eaters and vegetarians alike! There are no less than five vegetables in this dish so you'll get your five a day in just one sitting! The lentils and breadcrumbs add bulk, the fresh herbs give an earthy flavour and the cheddar cheese makes this extra rich. The spiced cranberry sauce cuts through the decadent nut roast and the buttery roast parsnips.
Preparation is key!
Turning out a feast fit for a king is no mean feat and requires precision timing, hours of prep and lots of patience. I'm always looking for ways to cut down on the amount of preparation I have to do, whether it's cooking my Christmas pud in a slow cooker, making my red cabbage weeks before, or using a gadget or two to speed up the whole process.
For this recipe, a high speed blender is going to be your best friend. By using the pulse setting you can chop the vegetables, grind the nuts and grate the cheese. There's even no need to clean it in between as it all ends up in the same place.
How to chop vegetables in a blender
This festive nut roast uses a lot of different vegetabless. There's celery, carrot, onion and mushrooms! (Not to mention the layer of roasted parsnips) To finely dice each of these ingredients individually would take hours. Especially as the key to this recipe is to dice them really fine. We don't want a chunky texture.
My Vitamix blender is my best friend when it comes to prep. If you don't have a Vitamix, don't worry, any blender will do.
Whichever blender you use, here's what you need to know:
- The advice from Vitamix is to process a maximum of 175g at a time, though I think you get the best control and more even results with no more than 150g.
- You can chop different vegetables together to speed things up but in this recipe I've done each separately.
- The higher the speed you use, the finer the dice you'll get.
- I like to use the pulse setting which gives you a more rough and ready mix of sizes and textures and avoids over processing into mush!
How to grind nuts in a blender
Grinding nuts in a blender is super easy just add them to the food processor and pulse. It's that simple. Just don't overdo it or you will end up with nut butter!
Extra time saving tip: buy a bag of ground almonds and chopped hazelnuts instead of grinding your own nuts. These two nuts taste great and you get the contrast in big and small pieces of nut which is great for the overall texture of the dish.
How to chop herbs in a blender
If you have a large blender like me, you might find that it's a little tricky chopping them in the blender as they will just be pushed to the outside of the blender jug or bowl.
My best advice? Chop them at the same time as the nuts!
How to make breadcrumbs in a blender
The best way to ensure you get even sized breadcrumbs is to do a little at a time. Don't just load up the blender with the bread. Tear the bread into chunks and the add it to the blender while the blades are running through the access hole at the top. Keep it running until you have evenly sized, coarse breadcrumbs.
Time saving tip: buy store bought breadcrumbs! I won't tell anyone...
How to grate cheese in a blender
The trick to grating cheese in a blender is to make sure the cheese is really cold - ideally frozen.
Cut the cheese into cubes and then pulse on a high speed. The reason we use a high speed is because we don't want the cheese to have time to thaw or warm up.
I've also tested this method with vegan cheese. Violife, Applewood and Koko vegan cheese all grate well in a blender. The softer the vegan cheese is, the more difficult it will be to grate so just think carefully which brand you buy. Coconut based cheeses seem to work best.
Prep ahead
You can prep your ingredients in advance and leave the cooking and assembly until the next day if you wish. If you do this then you will need to do them in the following order:
- Cut the parsnips and submerge in water. Place into the fridge until needed. You could even roast them in advance, wrap in foil and keep in the fridge until it's time to assemble.
- Prep the celery, carrot and onion. Add to a bowl, cover and keep to refrigerated.
- Prep the mushrooms and keep separately from the other vegetables in the fridge.
- Prep the nuts, herbs, breadcrumbs and cheese. Mix together in a large bowl, cover and keep refrigerated.
How to build you Christmas Nut Roast
The parsnips need cooking separately to the rest of the nut roast. Once these have been roasted, lay them in the bottom of the loaf tin.
The nut roast ingredients need cooking before adding to the tin. Once they have all been combined in the pan, they can then be spooned on top of the parsnips. Push it down gently until all gaps have been filled. You should have enough mix to fill your tin completely.
This then goes into the oven for 40 minutes (30 minutes covered and 10 minutes uncovered).
We don't add the cranberry sauce layer until it is time to serve.
You could buy a nut roast this Christmas but you'd be missing out! I've never come across a nut roast quite like this.
The recipe
Don't have a blender? Don't worry, you can chop all of the ingredients by hand. Just factor in an extra half an hour or so of preparation time. The end dish will be just as tasty and well worth the effort.
Christmas Nut Roast
Equipment
- 1 lb loaf tin
- A food processor or blender
Ingredients
For the roasted parsnips
- 150 grams parsnips roughly 2 medium parsnips
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
For the nut roast
- 1 large white onion
- 125 grams celery
- 150 grams carrot roughly 2 medium carrots
- 200 grams chestnut mushrooms
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 100 grams red lentils
- 300 ml vegetable stock
- 2 slices white bread
- 200 grams mixed nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts, brazil nuts, almonds
- 4 sprigs thyme
- 4 sprigs rosemary
- 1 handful flat leaf parsley
- 150 grams cheddar cheese or a vegan alternative
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
- 50 grams butter or a vegan alternative, melted
For the cranberry sauce
- 150 grams cranberries fresh or frozen
- 50 grams brown sugar
- 50 millilitres orange juice
- 1 star anise
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ nutmeg grated
Instructions
- Begin by lining a 1lb loaf tin with grease proof paper and place to one side.
- Cut the parsnips in half length-ways and roast in the oven with 2 tablespoon olive oil for 30 minutes while you prepare the rest of the nut loaf.
- Roughly chop the celery, carrot and onion by placing into your food processor/blender and pulse until you've achieved a rough, chopped texture.
- Place the chopped celery, carrot and onion into a pan with 1 tablespoon olive oil and a big pinch of salt and cook on a medium heat for 5 minutes or until soft.
- Next chop the mushrooms (again using the pulse setting of your food processor/blender) and add to the pan along with the minced garlic and cook for 5 minutes, stirring regularly.
- Add the lentils and stock to the pan and simmer on a low heat until all of the liquid has been absorbed.
- Set the pan to one side and allow to cool completely.
- Next, place the white bread into the food processor / blender. Turn it on a low, constant speed and blend until breadcrumbs have formed. Place the breadcrumbs into a bowl.
- Add the nuts and herbs to the food processor / blender and pulse until you've achieved a coarse, chopped texture.
- Add these to the breadcrumbs.
- Lastly, pulse the cheese in the food processor / blender until it resembles breadcrumbs and add to the breadcrumbs and nut mix along with salt and pepper.
- Stir the breadcrumb mix into the vegetables in the sauce pan until fully combined. Add the melted butter to bind.
- By this point the parsnips will be ready to come out of the oven.
- Place in a layer at the bottom of the loaf tin.
- Spread the nut roast mixture over the parsnips and smooth out until it is level.
- Cover the tin with foil and bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes.
- In the meantime, add the cranberries to a small pan with the sugar, orange juice and spices.
- Heat on low until a sticky sauce has formed.
- Once the 30 minutes is up, remove the foil from the nut roast and heat uncovered for 15 minutes or until the loaf feels firm to the touch.
- Remove the nut roast from the pan by flipping it out on to a serving dish and removing the grease proof paper.
- Top with the cranberry sauce, a few additional fresh herbs and enjoy!
Nutrition
Make it vegan
You can easily make this recipe vegan by replacing the butter with a non-dairy alternative like Flora plant based block. Use a hard vegan cheese in place of cheddar. Violife extra mature would be my favourite plant based cheese to use for this recipe.
More festive recipes
Make this Christmas Nut Roast a Festive Feast with these recipes.
The full Christmas recipe archive
Did you know you can search the blog by holiday? Whether you're looking for Halloween, Christmas or Easter recipes I've got you covered. For the full holiday recipe archive click here.
Becca @ Amuse Your Bouche says
Yuuuuuuuum. I do love a good nut roast. Using your blender to chop veggies is a brilliant idea!
Emma Walton says
Thanks Becca. Glad you like it. I was amazed at how much time it saved me.
Lucy says
I do miss my Vitamix - it was amazing at pulverising even the toughest stuff I threw at it! The nut roast sounds delicious – even as a meat eater I would love a big slice!
Emma Walton says
I certainly had more than my fair share and didn't miss the meat at all the last time we made it 🙂
Janice says
That sounds delicious, it's a long time since I made a nut roast but you have encouraged me to have another go!
Emma Walton says
I must admit Janice we don't usually make our own! Now I'm wondering why considering just how easy this is.
Elizabeth says
Such a gorgeous sounding recipe! I'm a meat eater too (and would totally go for thirds of the turkey!) but I'd definitely put a bit of this on my plate too. Can I come to yours for Christmas?! 🙂
Tsambika says
excellent recipe!!!! the best I have ever come across. Thank you for sharing this wonderful nut roast recipe.
Emma says
You're very welcome. I'm glad you like it!