Vegan New Year’s Black Eyed Peas and Cabbage

My first piece of advice to people interested in eating a more plant based diet is to google your favorite recipes with the word “vegan” in front of it. Usually, you come up with countless blog posts of recipes from people trying to make their favorite dish vegan (yes, there is even a vegan bacon cheese burger).

I ran into a problem. I wanted to make black eyed peas and cabbage for New Years. I hit the internet. And NOTHING….. I was amazed. There are a couple soup recipes but I didn’t want soup. I wanted sauted cabbage, black eyed peas and rice.

  Again, I find myself doing something I don’t normally do, writing a recipe. I’m not going to break down the exact cost of this recipe because the most expensive ingredient is already missing, pork. If you use bacon, that’s $2.50 or more. If you’re a ham person, you can spend $3 or more on a ham hock. With that gone, this meal becomes incredibly cheap. 

 Black Eye Peas

1 small onion – diced

2 stalks of celery – diced

12 ounce bag of frozen black eyed peas (see notes)

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

1/2 tablespoon paprika (preferably smoked but regular works fine)

1 teaspoon thyme

vegetable broth

salt and pepper

-Saute onions and celery on medium until starting to brown

-Add peas and enough broth to cover the peas completely. Add remaining ingredients. The salt you use will vary depending on if you use store bought broth or homemade. Store bought has a lot of salt already, so you may not need much.

-Bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower temperature to low, cover and simmer until peas are done. That is about 40 minutes.

*Note*- You can easily replace the frozen beans with 1 can of drained and rinsed peas. This will lower the total cooking time. You can, also, use 1 cup of dried beans. Either cook before hand and have ready or throw everything in a pot and cook all day. You will need more liquid for this.

Cabbage

1 small onion – sliced

2 cloves garlic – minced

1 head of cabbage – chopped

2 tablespoons of vegan Worcestershire sauce

1/2 teaspoon of ground sage

salt and pepper

-Saute onions and garlic until translucent on medium. Add cabbage and the rest of the ingredients. Saute, stirring regularly until cabbage is cooked through.

Let me know if you give this a try. What do you think? What would you change or add?