Healthy Vegan Herb Stuffing! f you’re searching for the best healthy vegan stuffing recipe, this one is a must-make: it’s cozy, packed with flavor, and guaranteed to satisfy even the pickiest holiday eaters.
This Healthy Vegan Herb Stuffing is a flavorful, herbaceous holiday side dish that tastes like it belongs on every Thanksgiving and Christmas table. Made with classic diced onions and celery sautéed until fragrant, then tossed with bread cubes and a savory blend of herbs and seasonings, it delivers that warm, comforting stuffing vibe. Every bite is hearty, aromatic, and perfectly seasoned, with that irresistible balance of crisp edges and tender centers.
Whole Food Plant Based, Vegan, plant based, oil free, refined sugar free, no highly processed ingredients.
Hi there, Ameera here!
Mom and I consider ourselves stuffing connoisseurs! We LOVE stuffing, and we’ve been tweaking and testing this recipe for years—sooooo very long, in fact, that we even put the whole thing away when it didn’t feel “blog worthy.”
But we finally hit the jackpot, and we’re genuinely excited to share this one. This vegan herb stuffing is mighty tasty for sure, and our little taste-testers confirmed it instantly: Yasmeen and Yara devoured it.
If you want a holiday vegan stuffing that’s bursting with savory herbs and guaranteed to disappear fast, you gotta give this one a try!
Tips for Success:
- Flavor Profile: This Healthy Vegan Herb Stuffing is full of herbaceous flavors. Classic diced onions, celery, and bread cubes are flavored in savory herbs, it’s a must have for Thanksgiving and Christmas!
- Why use Cashew Butter? The reason we use cashew butter is to replace the butter which is found in a traditional stuffing recipe. The cashew butter creates a rich “buttery” flavor/fat and helps the spices from becoming overwhelming and can sometimes taste bitter. The herbs and spices should be an important feature of stuffing. In an effort to emulate traditional stuffing flavors, we used the fat from the cashews to help coat the tongue to create a more desirable herb and spice culinary experience.
- Dried Bread Cubes: The dried bread cubes should be hard, very similar to a crouton. Toast them in the oven until all the moisture is removed. It is best if this is done the day before you plan to make the stuffing. Or simply buy a bag of plain bread stuffing cubes from your local bakery or grocery store. It is crucial that the dried bread cubes are hard and crunchy in order to avoid a stuffing that simply disintegrates in the oven. You can use any style bread you wish as long as the end product of the dried bread cubes is a hard, crunchy crouton-style bread cube.
- Herbs and Spices: Feel free to adjust the herbs and spices to achieve the desired flavor.
- Poultry Seasoning: Poultry Seasoning creates great flavor. It typically is a combination of sage, thyme, onions, black pepper, marjoram, celery seeds and a little cayenne pepper. We love it.
- Amount of Onions and Celery: Feel free to adjust the amount of onions and celery. Our family loves a lot of onions and celery. Adjust the amount accordingly to suit what works for you and your family.
- White Onions: White onions have a milder flavor and work perfectly in this stuffing. If you wish, you can use yellow onions.
- Cashew Substitutions: You can try the typical substitutions like silken tofu, white beans, or other nuts or seeds with the understanding that the flavor and texture will be impacted accordingly. We have not tested any substitutions.
- Texture: We recognize that some individuals really enjoy a moist stuffing while others enjoy a drier stuffing. We think this stuffing is the perfect balance of moist, but not overly moist.
- Too Moist: Simply fluff the stuffing well, and place back in the oven uncovered for 10 to 20 minutes. Continue to fluffy and bake.
- Too Dry: If you find the stuffing is not moist enough, this is super easy to fix. Just heat ¼ cup of vegetable broth/water (equal parts) and add 1 tablespoon at a time into the end product (after removing from the oven), mix well, continue until you reach the desired texture. Additionally, after refrigerating, you can do the same to moisten up the dressing if it becomes too dry.
- Baking Dish: We used a 7 x 11 (by 2 ½ inch deep) baking dish. You can use any size you wish. If you enjoy a drier stuffing, use a larger pan, such as a 9 x 13 and leave the dish uncovered during the first 20 minutes.
- Broth/Water Mixture: Do not boil the broth/water mixture for a long time to avoid evaporation. Follow the times in the instructions.
- Table Salt: If using table salt, you should use less table salt than the amount listed in the ingredients as sea salt crystals are larger than table salt crystals. Since table salt crystals are very fine, less table salt is required to season a dish. We would suggest starting with about 1/4 to 1/2 the amount of sea salt listed. You can always add more salt but cannot take it away. We recommend using sea salt as it is less refined than table salt.
- Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Leftovers and Freezing:
Leftovers will generally keep 4 to 5 days in the refrigerator. Store in a covered air-tight container.
This stuffing freezes well.
Pantry Products:
- Cashew Butter: We used Artisana Organics Raw Vegan Cashew Butter. Feel free to use your favorite raw cashew butter in this recipe. Read the label, make sure the only ingredient is raw cashews. Do not use a salted or sweetened cashew butter.
- Dried Rubbed Sage: We use a dried fluffy style sage. It has an almost fluffy texture when it comes out of the jar. Feel free to use your favorite brand of rubbed sage. If your sage is ground to a powder, consider using less than the recipe amount.
- Dried Crushed Thyme Leaves: If you can’t find dried crushed thyme leaves, you can use ground thyme but use half the amount.
- Poultry Seasoning: We used Frontier Co-op Organic Poultry Seasoning. Feel free to use your favorite brand of poultry seasoning.
- Vegetable Stock: We use Pacific Organic Low Sodium Vegetable Stock. We love this brand because it is Whole Food Plant Based compliant, as it does not contain MSG, has no oil, and does not contain any highly-processed ingredients.
- Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Kitchen Equipment:
- 7 x 11 baking dish (or 9 x 13)
- Large stock pot
If you try this delicious dish, we would love to know if you enjoy it as much as we do! Please leave us a review! Post a picture on Facebook or Instagram and tag us! We would love to hear from you.
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Healthy Vegan Herb Stuffing
- Prep Time: 15 Minutes
- Cook Time: 22 Minutes
- Total Time: 37 Minutes
- Yield: 6-8 Servings 1x
- Category: Side
- Method: Oven, Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This Healthy Vegan Herb Stuffing is a flavorful, herbaceous holiday side dish that tastes like it belongs on every Thanksgiving and Christmas table.
Ingredients
Base Ingredients
- ¾ to 1 ½ cups diced white onions, small dice *
- ¾ to 1 ½ cups diced celery, small dice *
- 1 ½ cups + 2 Tablespoons low-sodium vegetable broth *
- 1 ½ cups + 2 Tablespoons water
- 3 Tablespoons [raw] cashew butter *
- 1 Tablespoon nutritional yeast
Herb/Spice Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon dried parsley
- ½ teaspoon dried rubbed sage (+/-) *
- ½ teaspoon dried crushed thyme leaves (+/-) *
- ¾ teaspoon poultry seasoning (+/-) *
- Pinch dried rosemary powder (+/-) *
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ to 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt (+/-) *
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper (+/-)
Other Ingredients
- 10 cup (9 oz.) dried bread cubes *
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 F degrees, center rack.
- Place the Herb/Spice Ingredients into a small bowl, mix well to combine, set aside.
- Placed the diced onions and celery into a large skillet, sauté over medium heat for approximately 7 to 9 minutes until tender (or nearly tender). Add a splash of water (if needed) to prevent burning. Take off the burner and set aside.
- In the meantime, place the vegetable broth and water into a large pot and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Add the cashew butter and whisk until well distributed and emulsified into the broth.
- Next add the Herb/Spice Mix and the sauteed celery and onions into broth, mix well, simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, then turn off the stove. Note: Do not simmer for more than 10 minutes as to evaporate a lot of the broth.
- Pour the bread cubes into the pot (with the broth mixture), mix quickly and mix well until the bread cubes have soaked up all the broth.
- Then place the stuffing into baking dish (or similar dish – see notes). Cover with foil.
- Place in a preheated 400 F oven for 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes, remove the foil, fluff the stuffing, then place under the broiler for a few minutes until lightly browned on top.
- Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes to allow the flavors to marry. Serve and enjoy!
Notes
Please reference the blog post for Tips for Success, Pantry Items Used, Storage and Freezing, and Kitchen Products Used.
Sea Salt: Please adjust the sea salt based upon your family’s sea salt preferences and/or based upon dietary needs.
Servings: 6 to 8
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