50 vegetarian Christmas dinner recipes
A bumper collection of 50 delicious vegetarian Christmas dinner ideas, that can all be served alongside your favourite roast potatoes, vegetable side dishes, and gravy!
It can sometimes be a bit tricky to come up with a vegetarian Christmas dinner idea that’s (first and foremost) delicious, and that’s special enough for The Big Day. I often end up going for a ‘fake meat’ product, which I enjoy, but it’s not that exciting. If you feel like getting more creative on Christmas Day, here are 50 of my favourite vegetarian Christmas dinner ideas!
When I ask about vegetarian Christmases, I often hear people suggesting things like tomatoey pasta – which is delicious and all, but in my opinion, that’s not Christmas dinner. You can’t have roast potatoes and gravy alongside tomatoey pasta (though if you do, you’re kind of my hero). So I’ve made a special effort to make sure that all of the following recipes will go perfectly with the usual roast potatoes, vegetables and (copious amounts of) gravy – there’s no need to stick out like a sore thumb alongside the meat-eaters, and you can still have all the trimmings!
So here goes – let me know which of these vegetarian Christmas dinner recipes is your favourite and whether you’re planning on making any of them this year!
(by the way, I’ve marked on which recipes are explicitly vegan, but keep in mind that lots of the other ones could also be made vegan with just one or two really easy substitutions!)
Lentil-based recipes
Goat’s cheese and potato lentil gratin (pictured above)
Cheese and onion lentil rolls
Spinach and ricotta lentil slice
Mini cheesy lentil loaves
Creamy lentil and aubergine stack (pictured above)
Cheesy potato and lentil pie
Cheesy lentil slice
Cheesy pumpkin lentil pot pies
Bean-based recipes
Carrot and white bean veggie cutlets (pictured above)
Chestnut and chickpea roast
Smoked cheese and bean vegetarian sausages
Vegetarian ‘fishcakes’
Cheesy bean roast (pictured above)
Mushroom and kidney bean koftas [vegan]
Cheesy carrot nut roast
Bean and vegetable crumble with cheesy pesto topping
Cheesy chickpea cake
Mushroom-based recipes
Mushroom stroganoff pie (pictured above)
Mushroom and gruyere tart
Mini mushroom picnic pies
Mushroom and chestnut pie
Cheesy garlic mushroom cake (pictured above)
Mushroom and walnut stew with cheesy cobbler topping
Kale and mushroom savoury baklava
Mushroom and brie stuffed Yorkshire puddings
Vegetable-based recipes
Vegetable toad in the hole (pictured above)
Very veggie oat bars
Cheesy aubergine stacks
Herby risotto stuffed peppers
Pesto crusted aubergine [vegan]
Vegetable cobbler (pictured above)
Pesto and ricotta aubergine parcels
Caprese stuffed aubergines
Stuffed aubergines with spinach rice and halloumi
Pastry-based recipes
Roasted veggie en croute (pictured above)
Cheese and onion plait
Spanakopita pot pie
Smoked cheddar, walnut and broccoli tarts
Creamy vegetable and halloumi pie (pictured above)
Vegetarian haggis and mushroom wellington [vegan]
Easy mushroom and goat’s cheese wellingtons
Homity pie bites
Thai butternut squash filo spirals [vegan] (pictured above)
Roasted aubergine and ricotta tart
Cauliflower cheese tart
Easy 5 ingredient pesto tomato tart
Other recipes
Honey and mustard sticky sausages (pictured above)
Sage and onion homemade seitan roast [vegan]
Homemade cheese and onion crisp bakes
Leek and feta croquettes
…and that’s it! I hope I’ve inspired your vegetarian Christmas dinner this year with plenty of ideas!
Your MS paint wreath is 10x better than how I can actually draw so kudos to you! :) This is my first veggie Christmas so I was looking for some new ideas. I’m about to head to the grocery store… thank you
Haha thanks! Hope you managed to create an awesome vegetarian Christmas dinner :D
Thanks a lot for the yummy and delicious recipe. This would be the perfect dinner for Christmas.
Hi – I have to tell you that my nine year old daughter and I made your veggie pot pie pasties for our father-daughter Christmas eve dinner this year, and it was a big hit. Pasties are simple and unassuming, but the flavors of your recipe are wonderful and with our side dishes, filled out a marvelous dinner for the two of us. My daughter recently declared that she is vegetarian and I’m a happy to say we’re off to a great start changing our menus. Thank you!
Thanks Erik, so glad you both enjoyed them and that you’re so supportive of your daughter’s new diet! :)
Love these recipes! Have been a vegetarian for 8 years, and each Christmas I find myself looking for recipes or alternatives to meat only to find side dishes. Although nice, I was always craving a hearty, vegetarian main meal I could enjoy along with the sides. With this list I don’t need to look anywhere else. So many choices to satisfy my large Christmas appetite :) Thankyou!
Thanks so much for your message, glad you found the post useful! :)
Oh wow I am so happy to have found your amazing blog while Pinterest surfing. I look forward to trying all your gorgeous recipes, I am also mad about advocado’s lol.I am now following you over at Pinterest too :) My blog is mainly about card making and jewellery though……with the odd recipe thrown in sometimes.
ps. For Xmas I always make a casserole type thing using Vermicilli, lentils, cheese, onions,garlic,breadcrumbs, herbs, eggs. Tastes yummy :)
Thanks so much Viv! That casserole sounds amazing, I’d love to see your recipe! :)
I found your list and tried the vegetarian nut loaf for our Christmas Eve dinner. It was amazing! (Especially with cranberry sauce on the side!) The meat eaters in my family insisted it had sausage in it. Which it most certainly did not. :) Thank you for helping me find the recipe! I have tried so many nut and lentil loaf recipes over the years and while they were all really tastey, none held together like an actual loaf. I was so proud of this one that I served it on a giant platter.
Yay I’m so glad I helped you find something that you all enjoyed so much :) thanks Elizabeth!
I’m a bit late getting over here. Not been on much over the festive period. A great roundup and one I think I’ll be having a look through next Christmas, Thanks for including my recipe and I hope you had a fabulous Christmas and Santa was good to you x
My parents and brother – who are pescatarians – have salmon on Christmas Day and so did I, until about six year ago when I gave up fish as a New Year’s resolution and never looked back! Since then, I’ve always had either a nut-loaf (which the rest of the family have on Boxing Day in our second roast opportunity!) or a pepper stuffed with rice and veggies…not everyone’s idea of a festive meal, but it’s perfect for me!
I am sure this list is a vegetarian’s delight. You have done a great job compiling it all together!
I’m not a vegetarian, my traditional Christmas dinner is pot roast, but my in-laws are coming this year, and they don’t eat red meat. I could rerun Thanksgiving and do turkey, which is what they’re used to, but instead I thought it would be fun to do something completely new and different. One of my family’s favorite dinners is a squash lasagna recipe that I found yeas ago in a magazine as a vegetarian suggestion for Thanksgiving. I thought I’d go looking for a vegetarian Christmas recipe that would go well with cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, and roasted potatoes, and here I am. So many recipes so little time, what a delicious problem to have! I’m thinking mushroom and chestnut pie, or carrot and white bean cutlets, or mushroom thyme and lentil pies…
It’s great that you’re trying something different! Hopefully if you serve it alongside your usual side dishes, people won’t mind that it’s vegetarian :) I find it interesting that your usual Christmas dinner is pot roast – here in the UK we obviously don’t have Thanksgiving so everyone has turkey at Christmas (apart from us veggies obviously!)
So here’s the update – I auditioned a couple different options for my husband and kids last week, and stuffed zucchini was the clear winner (I used the recipe I found here for starters, with a few variations). On Christmas I served stuffed zucchini, rice pilaf, sweet potato casserole, green beans, and cranberry sauce for nine (my husbands parents and grandparents, as well as our 3 kids). The dinner was a hit. I wish I’d taken a picture of a plate dished up. It was so pretty, and made for quite a feast. Thanks!
That sounds awesome :) glad it worked out well!
These all look great!!!! I love the layout of the post, too. Pinning!
Thank you so much for sharing this on today’s DBB!
– Brooke –
Wow these all sound so good. We’ll be having a nut roast this year (first vegan christmas), so I will be coming back to these ideas in the future!
A rare collection. Share in my facebook group. Have a nice day
I had to wipe my mouth at the mushroom and chestnut pie. Awesome collection :)
great round-up, it just made me super hungry though lol
Jen
These are all lovely warming wintery delights. In Sydney Australia we’ll be sweltering on Christmas day so I’ll save these ideas for a winter celebration dinner.
Oh no, I’m sorry :( I always think of Christmas as being a ‘winter wonderland’ – I forget that for some people it’s actually the hottest time of year! I hope you’ll keep these recipes safe until your winter rolls around because they’d all be great on any day of the year, not just Christmas :)
Thanks so much for this, Becca! I’ve been trying to decide what to make this year and your list will certainly help! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and an absolutely perfect 2014.
Thanks so much Rachael, hope you have a great Christmas too! :)
this is an amazing round up. so many ideas and recipes that i want to try.
This is a fantastic list – thank you!!
My family’s traditional Christmas dinner is lasagna, so there’s at least some of us who go the tomatoey pasta route. ;)
Haha well if that’s what all of you are having then it works, I just wouldn’t want to be sat there watching everyone eat roast potatoes and gravy knowing I couldn’t have any!
Wow, what an incredible list! There are so many things I’m now dying to make from this list…starting with your lovely sundried tomato and pine nut sausage!
Thank you so much for including me! xo
What an awesome list! This is just the thing I’ve been looking for. Most of my family members are carnivores but I want to open their horizons with a vegetarian entree this Christmas.
I hope they like whatever you choose! Let me know the verdict! :)
What a wonderful list!! You make vegetarian beautiful and delicious!
How many Becca? You are spoiling us, deliciously. I particularly like your bean and quinoa categories x