This is a very delicious and healthy, but decadent stuffing recipe you can use for Thanksgiving or Christmas! It contains no butter, margarine or earth balance, and you won’t even notice! It’s full of flavour and very moist and tasty with so many colours and textures to enjoy.
We ate it along with my Baked Maple Yam Pecan Casserole and Decadent Vegan Pecan Pie. Make sure to book mark this!
This photo above was my first time making it and it turned out very well and since then it has become the stuffing recipe that I use from now on. I wanted something with cranberry and pecan in it, and then threw in mushrooms, celery, apple and apple juice as well. In fact my family DEMANDS that I make this savory stuffing recipe each year and no one minds not having turkey flavoured stuffing at all!
This recipe makes a large casserole pan full, so definitely only do the full recipe if feeding a family. If you’re a small family or a single you could half the recipe if you’d like to make less. It definitely won’t disappoint and everyone will rave about how tasty this home made vegan stuffing is.
Fat Free Vegan Cranberry Apple Pecan Stuffing
Ingredients:
15 cups large cubes of bread
1 large onion, diced
2 stalks of celery, sliced
2 cups mushrooms, diced
1 cup cranberries
2 apples, diced
3 1/2 cups apple juice
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable broth
2/3 cup pecans
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 1/2 tsp crushed dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried margoram
1/2 tsp dried savory
Directions:
1. Toast bread crumbs at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until dry. Check after 10 minutes to prevent burning. Alternatively you can spread on a cookie sheet and dry out overnight.
2. Slice pecans halves in half. (This makes them spread farther and keeps the recipe lower in fat) Toast pecans at 350 for 5 minutes. Watch carefully to prevent burning.
3. Soak dried cranberries in 3 cups of apple juice for 30 minutes.
4. Saute onions, celery and mushrooms in vegetable broth over medium heat for 8-10 minutes until soft.
5. Saute diced apples in 1/2 cup apple juice, brown sugar and cinnamon until soft.
6. In a large bowl combine ingredients and mix thoroughly until all the herbs are spread out and the bread is moist. If your bread is still a little dry you can pour a little extra apple juice in the bottom of the roasting pan to prevent burning and drying out.
7. Spread out in a large lasagna size roasting pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until heated through.
I just made it without the nuts. It was so good!!!! Definitely a keeper!
This sounds amazing. We have some nut allergies in the family. Could any type of seed be used or maybe I could make it without. It sounds like a delicious recipe. I will attempt to make it anyway. Thank you and Merry Christmas!
Darlene
My husband unfortunately despises mushrooms. Can I leave them out? Everything else would be perfect 🙂 if they’re there for a specific purpose, is there a substitution?
Of course you can leave the mushrooms out.
It sounds very interesting, but forgive my novice question: what do you DO with it? In my mind, stuffing goes inside a chicken or turkey. Naturally that is not happening HERE! So do you just eat it as a side dish?
… And Merry Christmas to all!! (It’s 01h03 in South Africa)
Yes, many people make additional stuffing, not just what goes into a Turkey. So this stuffing is eaten on the side, I usually pair it with some cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes.
This is yummy! I used fresh cranberries, but chopped them up VERY small in my Vitamix
I have some fresh cranberries, would I still use 1 cup and leave out the apple juice? Want to make this for thanksgiving fro the family.
Thanks 🙂
Annette
I am not sure how fresh cranberries would be, they are extremely sour, so you may want to sweeten them by cooking them in some apple juice or sugar first. I wouldn’t throw raw cranberries into it and bake it. Unless you really like the taste of tart cranberries.