Get ready to love this new instant pot recipe. You’ll get that hearty, rich flavor of beef bourguignon but in a healthy vegan dish.
Not only does it give you all the benefits of being a meatless meal, but you skip the calorie bomb of mashed potatoes and instead reap the benefits of a delicious and creamy cauliflower and potato mash.
As mentioned, this is also an instant pot recipe. The new cooking trend is a huge hit and is revolutionizing the home kitchen. This electric pressure cooker combines the benefits of a traditional pressure cooker and adds the settings of a slow cooker for ultimate convenience.
You can now set your meals to cook according to your own timeframe and still get the juicy, uniform finish that you want from a one-pot meal.
Benefits of a Vegan Meal
Whether you’re vegetarian, vegan, or a certified meat-eater; eating a meatless meal once a week has several benefits for you and for the environment. This concept has taken off and become the international campaign, Meatless Monday.
Some of the benefits you may discover when you add more vegetables to your repertoire and adopt a meatless lifestyle, or even just a meatless meal can include:
♦ Reduced risk of disease.
♦ Improved nutrition when including more fiber and nutrients.
♦ Weight control with lower-calorie options.
♦ Reduce your carbon footprint by conserving water and decreasing fossil fuel emissions.
♦ Save money by avoiding expensive meat purchases.
Learning to eat and enjoy vegan or vegetarian meals is just the beginning.
How Ingredients Equal Benefits
Let’s take a look at the ingredients to see how they can positively affect your health.
Mushrooms: Mushrooms are a superfood that is high in fiber and plant protein. They also provide vitamin B, selenium, potassium, copper, and antioxidants. They’re great to boost your immune system, help you lose weight, improve your digestion, and more.
Mushrooms also make a great meat substitute, adding a complex and rich flavor. They can also add a delicious bite to hearty meals.
Cauliflower: Cauliflower is enjoying its time in the sun with a surge in popularity. It’s no surprise cauliflower is so trendy, it’s filled with phytonutrients including many different glucosinolates and several antioxidants. These plant nutrients give you numerous health benefits and help the body fight disease and illness.
In addition to all of the nutrition that cauliflower brings, it’s become a favorite low-calorie, carbohydrate-free, and gluten-free substitute for a lot of staple foods.
This particular recipe doesn’t take out all of the potatoes you crave, it uses half-potatoes and half-cauliflower, so you get some of the benefits but still retain some of that creamy potato goodness.
Carrots: Carrots used to be touted as a top vegetable, but they’ve dropped a little in popularity as people have focused on cruciferous vegetables. Expect that to change as people rediscover how incredibly healthy carrots are.
Carrots can lower cholesterol, reduce your risk of cancer, boost eyesight, arrest memory loss, prevent diabetes, and support bone health.
Garlic: You’ve probably heard that garlic is full of nutritional benefits and that it’s been revered for thousands of years. The allicin in garlic is full of antibacterial and antifungal properties, something we recognize today as being very important parts of a healthy diet.
Garlic also has several B vitamins, vitamin C, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and zinc.
| Related: 6 Top Reasons Why Garlic Is Phenomenal for Your Health |
Vegan Mushroom Bourguignon and Cauliflower Mash in Instant Pot
This meal is cooked in the Instant Pot with the pot in pot approach.
Ingredients for Mushroom Bourguignon:
2 teaspoon oil
½ medium onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
10 ounces sliced mushrooms
¼ cup brandy, whiskey, red wine, or broth
¾ cup carrots, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
¾ teaspoon dried thyme or 1 tablespoon fresh thyme
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon soy sauce, tamari for gluten-free, coconut aminos for soy-free
2 teaspoons tomato sauce
½ cup water or broth
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed in 3 tablespoons water
1 cup spinach
Ingredients for Cauliflower Potato Mash:
1 larger potato, cubed
1 heaping cup cauliflower florets
1 tablespoon olive oil
2-4 tablespoons non-dairy milk
¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
¼ teaspoons garlic powder
Black pepper, to taste
Directions:
1. Heat the Instant Pot on saute and add oil. Once the oil is hot, add the onion, garlic, mushrooms, and a pinch of salt. Cook for about 3-4 minutes until fragrant and edges begin to turn golden brown. If browning too quickly, add a tablespoon of salt.
2. Add brandy (or substitute) and mix well. Cook a few seconds to remove the alcohol.
3. Add carrots, celery, thyme, and garlic. Mix well then add soy sauce, tomato paste, 1/3 tsp. salt and mix. End saute.
4. Place a steamer basket on top of your bourguignon. Add potato and cauliflower florets. Close the lid and pressure cook for 9-10 minutes.
5. Let the pressure release naturally, then open the lid carefully and remove the steamer basket.
6. Put the pot back on saute and add cornstarch/water mixture and stir well.
7. Finish with spinach and black pepper to taste. Then bring the entire mixture to boil to thicken. When it’s reached the desired consistency, cancel saute.
8. Transfer potato and cauliflowers to a bowl and mash together. Add garlic powder, salt, pepper, olive oil, and non-dairy milk. Mash again until desired consistency.
9. Serve mashed cauliflower with bourguignon on top.
The Bottom Line
This recipe is very hearty and flavorful, yet provides many health benefits over its meat counterpart. Look to the mushrooms to give you a rich, savory flavor that compliments the sweet, creaminess of the mash perfectly. All of these ingredients give you nutrients that boost your health without a lot of calories.
On top of all of that, this is a fun instant pot recipe that lets you create two separate parts of a dish at once. This saves you lots of time and still feels like a complete meal with different elements that have old world charm and class.
