Vegan Veggie Shakshuka

We are all about packin’ in as many veggies as possible, and this dish definitely delivers. This beautifully spiced Vegan Veggie Shakshuka is bursting with flavor and boasting a fun veggie twist. Features nutrient-rich veggies including zesty onions, fresh red bell peppers, sweet carrots, earthy garlic, and hearty cannellini beans all bathed in vibrant aromatic tomato sauce and topped with zucchini zoodles. This tasty soul warming dish is full of feel good ingredients, herbs, and spices. Perfect for a savory breakfast or dinner and is sure to leave you satisfied and happy!

Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten free.

Every now and then, we get requests from our readers asking if we can convert their favorite dishes to Whole Food Plant Based. We always carefully examine every request to see if we can find a way to convert it. Some can be converted, while others just don’t translate well over to WFPB. It can kinda be hit or miss, but we give it our best shot!!

However, when reader, Ellen, asked us if we could convert her much-loved Shakshuka over to WFPB, Mom and I sat down to see how we could approach conversion.

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Shakshuka is a Middle Eastern dish, and also known as “Eggs in Purgatory.” Eggs are poached in a spiced tomato sauce. Shakshuka is a common breakfast or dinner dish and typically spiced with harissa, top with lebneh and eggs, sprinkled with za’atar, served with pita or flatbread.

One of the challenges of converting this dish is balancing and reducing the acidity of the tomatoes without sacrificing flavor.Since we don’t use oil, finding a good counter-balance was serious business! LOL

This dish uses tomato paste, tomato sauce, and petite diced tomatoes. That’s a lot of tomatoes, but tomatoes are a key ingredient in this dish. Our solution for all this acidity was to try to neutralize it a tiny bit by adding ¼ teaspoon of baking soda, which worked perfectly. You get all that tomatoey goodness, without of the bite of acidity.We were rocking and rolling after that.

Next was our quest to find a good egg substitute. It is an egg dish after all. Most people would probably use marinated tofu, tempeh, or soy curls, which are all awesome options. But we decided to make a big twist (figuratively and literally) with little nests of zucchini zoodles. They added a refreshing flavor to the spicy tomato sauce, and we are all about trying to add more veggies.

You could also use yellow squash zoodles too. OR, if you don’t have a spiralizer, you could cut thin slices of zucchini and stack them up. We loved it and we hope Ellen does too!!

The best part is you can totally adjust the spices to suit your own preferences as every Shakshuka is spiced a little differently region by region.

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Description

Whole Food Plant Based, vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients, and gluten free.

Ingredients

Scale

½ cup yellow onions, fine dice
½ cup red bell peppers, fine dice
½ cup carrots, grated
1 Tablespoon garlic, finely minced
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 – 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 ½ cups water (or broth)
1 – 14.5 oz. can petite diced tomatoes
¼ teaspoon baking soda*
½ teaspoon liquid smoke
2 – 15 oz. cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

Seasonings/Spices Ingredients:

1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 Tablespoon dried minced onion flakes
2 teaspoon chili powder*
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 ½ teaspoon groundcumin (+/-)
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon dried oregano
Pinch cinnamon(optional)
1 teaspoon sea salt(+/-) *
¼ teaspoon black pepper (+/-)

Other Ingredients:

1 medium zucchini, zoodles (or squash)
1/8 to ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flake(or Harissa Powder) (+/-)

Other Optional Ingredients:

Sprinkle of za’atar(we didn’t use)
Sprinkle of sweet paprika(we sprinkled on the zoodles)
Freshly chopped parsley
Flatbread or Quinoa Flatbread
Dollops of WFPB cream cheese (we didn’t use)

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Instructions

In a small bowl, add all the Seasonings/Spices Ingredients (do not add the crushed red pepper flake – this will be added later), mix to combine, set aside.
In a large ceramic/enamel-lined Dutch oven, skillet or similar stock pot, add the onions, red peppers, and carrots; sauté over medium heat until they begin to soften, approximately 5 to 7 minutes. Add a tablespoon or so of water if they start to stick and/or to prevent burning.
Add the minced garlic, sauté for 30 seconds, add the tomato paste and Seasonings/Spices Ingredientssauté to release their fragrance, about 30 seconds to one minute. Then add the petite diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, liquid smoke, and water, bring to boil, add the baking soda, stir well, then immediately lower to a simmer.
Take one can of the cannellini beans and roughly mash them, then add them to the mixture, stir well to combine, then add the 2^ndcan of cannellini beans (unmashed) to the mixture. Stir well to incorporate all the ingredients, simmer for 10 minutes, then add the crushed red pepper flake, stir to combine. Then test the flavors, add more spices, if necessary, to achieve the level of flavor you desire. Remove and discard the bay leaf.
Next take the zoodled zucchini (or squash) and create 6 small piles of zoodles (these are to represent the eggs of the authentic dish) and place them on top of the mixture, (optional: sprinkle the zoodles lightly with sweet paprika), cover the pot with the lid on and cook for 10 minutes. Simmer until the zoodles reach the desired level of tenderness.
Serve immediately with chopped parsley and a side offlatbread. If desired, sprinkle with some za’atar spice.

Notes

*Baking Soda: The baking soda is often used as a neutralizer for dishes that contain a lot of acidity, typically from tomatoes. We use it in this dish to remove some of the tomato acidity without losing the tomatoey flavor. When you add it, the mixture will bubble up, then settle down as it neutralizes the acidity.

*Chili Powder: We enjoy Penzeys Regular Chili Powder.You can use any chili powder you wish, just note that a “mild” chili powder works best for this dish.

*Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.

*Makes: 4 servings

*Storage: Refrigerate, use within 5 days.