These, my friends, are a work of genius. I have surpassed myself. Ladies and gentlemen, just in time for the weekend, I bring you Vegan Full English Breakfast Muffins…
Are these vegan breakfast muffins or are they vegan frittata or, maybe, mini vegan quiches? I’m not sure really, I think they are probably a bit of all those things! Made with an egg free batter of gram flour and water they have a muffiny texture with an uncanny egginess especially when served warm from the oven. Mr TS said that if I hadn’t told him they were egg free he would’ve sworn there was an egg hiding in there but there really isn’t – yes, I’m grinning!
Packed with flavour they are the perfect start to a weekend, make lots because they also make an excellent addition to weekday lunch boxes or quick snacks when you feel like a nibble in that afternoon slump. They are tasty hot, warm or cold, they freeze well and reheat nicely – can you tell that I am a bit pleased with them? I’m doing my very best to tempt my vegan boy back from his travels and to keep him here for a while once he lands. I reckon these are going to go down very well when he returns from Japan next month!
I urge you have to go at these whether you are veggie, vegan or just veg curious, they’re just delicious! I’ve used gram flour batter for so many things over the years from onion bhajis and vegetable fritters to deep-fried battered veg and full size vegan quiches so it made sense to try it for these vegan full English breakfast muffins/vegan frittatas/mini vegan quiches (What shall I call them, this is ridiculous?!) and it worked even better than I had hoped. I added some nutritional yeast for a cheesy kick, and fresh parsley for a herby start to my day, before pouring the lot over cooked mushrooms, onions and vegan sausages and popping them in the oven to bake. Do put a circle of baking parchment in the bottom of your muffin tins, it makes the whole process of extraction much simpler. If you can’t be faffed to cut out 12 circles just chop a piece of baking parchment into squares and stuff those into the muffin holes instead – does the trick.
Vegan Full English Breakfast Muffins
Ingredients
For the Batter
- 1½ cups/180g gram flour/besan flour/chickpea flour
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
- 1 cup parsley/35g chopped
- 1½ cups/300 ml water
- salt and pepper
For the Filling
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 small (about 50g) red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
- 200 g chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 1 small (about 50g) red pepper
- 2 vegan sausages (I used VBites Oregano and Basil)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200C/390F
- Grease a 12 hole muffin pan with a little olive oil and line each hole with a circle of baking parchment.
- Whisk together the flour, nutritional yeast and water to form a creamy batter, stir in the parsley, add salt and pepper, mix and leave to stand.
- Fry the red onion in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until soft and beginning to brown, add the mushrooms and red pepper and continue to cook for a further 5 minutes or so until the mushrooms are done. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon.
- Cook the sausages according to packet instructions. I added my VBites lovelies to the mushroom pan and fried them until they were brown all over. Add a little more oil if needed. Remove from the pan and slice each sausage into 12 thin slices.
- Pour a little batter into each muffin hole (just enough to cover the bottom), top with two slices of sausages and share out the mushroom mixture fairly - don't be greedy and overfill one just for you! (Do)
- Top up each muffin hole with the remaining batter mix and pop into the preheated oven for about 30 minutes until brown and beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan.
- Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before removing.
- Eat.
Serve these Vegan Full English Breakfast Muffins with a proper pot of tea. Using leaves. And a tea strainer. In tea cups. With saucers. Or pretty tea mugs. And almond milk in a little jug.
So – what do you think? Should I call them Vegan Muffins, Vegan Frittata or Vegan Mini Quiches? Or should I just eat them and care not one fig what they are called?
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These are genius Chris. Chickpea flour is such a wonder, but I’m not sure I’d have thought of this one. They sound delicious.
Oh bless you, I’ll take genius! 🙂 They are hugely popular in my house, such a good start to the day!
Hi,
Sounds nice. Are there any natural alternatives to the vegan sausage?
If you’re not keen on the sausages I would add in more mushrooms, maybe some shiitake mushrooms for a different flavour? I make a different version of these muffins with roasted sweet potato which you might prefer? Just chop a sweet potato into bite sized chunks, toss in a little oil and roast in a hot oven for about 30 minutes. Add them to the batter with the mushrooms and you’re good to go!
Hi Chris can these be frozen ? And if so, would you defrost and reheat in a microwave? Thank you x
Hi Jenny, yes they can (well wrapped, obviously)and yes defrost and reheat. I’d reheat them in the oven but I’m pretty sure they’d be fine microwaved – I’m a microwave avoider!
Can these be mixed the night before then bake in the morning or would it be better to cook right away then warm up in the morning?
You can absolutely do both! If you are making them the night before I would make the batter and the fillings separately and then combine them in the morning before baking them. The batter will thicken up a bit if left overnight so you may need to add a bit of water to thin it. Chris x