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Vegetarian Sausage Rolls

Posted: December 5, 2024 | Filed under: Budget, Christmas, Pastry, Puff Pastry, Side Dishes, Traditional, Uncategorized, vegetarian | Tags: Christmas, sausage rolls, snacks, vegetarian |

Wotchers!

Its getting close to that time of year when all the old favourite recipes are hauled out for an airing, and sausage rolls must be one of the most popular crowd-pleasers.

Not everyone in this day and age wishes to partake of animal-based food and so with that in mind I bring you these vegetarian (alas, not vegan) sausage rolls which are, quite frankly, the most surprisingly delicious vegetarian version of a meat-based dish I’ve had in all my born days. And that’s saying something, on account of me having eaten a LOT of food over the years and also onna count of being so OLD!

This is an adaptation of this Australian recipe for Cottage Rolls. I have tweaked it to my tastes, but even if you ignore everything here and make the original, you’ll still have a good time. Unlike other vegetarian sausage rolls ‘out there’, this is neither heavily vegetable-y, nor lentil-y, nor bean-y. It looks like a regular sausage roll.  It TASTES like a regular sausage roll. OK, so admittedly the pastry and seasonings do some heavy lifting here, but even my unashamedly carnivore husband agrees that they are excellent fakes.

I like a herby sausage roll, so I’ve amped up the seasonings, with the emphasis on the sage, and added both tomato ketchup and paste for colour (otherwise, it tends toward an unappetising greige). The main ingredient in the filling is rolled oats. Choose whole-flake oats if you can get them, they are best for giving the mixture texture. I’ve made mine with the fantastic gluten-free oats from Morrison’s (because they were in the cupboard) and if you set the finished mixture aside for 30 minutes, they take up a lot of the moisture and make a firm paste comparable to regular sausage-meat.

During testing, I’ve used both curd cheese and cottage cheese (drained overnight, otherwise the mix becomes too runny) to bolster the protein, but I have also seen feta cheese recommended in some versions, as well as tofu. I’ve not tried Textured Vegetable Protein, but I think that is also a possibility. If anyone tries it, do let me know!

Other add-ins you might like to experiment with are:

• Chopped chives and/or spring onions.
• Diced apple – I recommend Bramleys if you can get them
• Chutney
• Diced Cheddar, Stilton, or any other favourite hard cheese
• Fresh herbs
• Mustards – English, Dijon, wholegrain, etc.

Vegetarian Sausage Rolls

1tsp salt
1tsp msg (optional)
1tsp dried rosemary
1tsp dried thyme
1tsp dried parsley
1tsp dried marjoram
2tsp dried sage
1tsp coarse ground black pepper
1tbs tomato paste
2tbs tomato ketchup
200g drained cottage cheese [1]
2 large eggs
1 onion – chopped
80g walnuts or cashews
1 tbsp soy sauce
50g panko breadcrumbs [2]
100g rolled oats 

• Put everything except the oats into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until smooth. Then give it an extra blitz – those nuts are sneaky! It will appear rather liquid.
• Transfer the mixture to a bowl and stir in the oats.
• Cover with cling film and set aside in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Making up into sausage rolls

This section details how to get magnificently-shaped sausage rolls from your filling. Feel free to ignore, but it does mean your sausage rolls will have perfect shaping. The pastry is pre-cut into individually sized pieces and the filling is piped. Whilst firm, the filling is not firm enough to endure slicing the pastry once filled, so the method below shows how to keep your rolls looking sharp.

2 sheets ready-rolled puff pastry [3]
1 batch vegetarian filling
1 large egg – whisked

• Unroll 1 sheet of puff pastry.
• Cut the pastry in half length-ways, then cut across in five equal-width pieces, dividing the pastry into ten pieces overall.

• Spoon the filling mixture into a plastic piping bag. Cut the tip off the bag so the width of the hole is about 4cm wide. This will pipe sausage-sized sections of filling.
• Pipe a ‘sausage’ of filling onto each piece of pastry.

• Dampen the central edges of the pastry and lift the outside edge up and over the filling and press the edges together.
• Transfer the rolls to a baking sheet liked with parchment paper.
• If you have filling left over, use the second sheet of pastry to make more rolls.
• Heat the oven to 220°C, 200°C Fan.
• Brush the rolls with beaten egg then use scissors to snip vents in the top of the pastry.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is puffed and golden. The rolls in the picture were baked for 25 minutes, but the filling is generous. Puff pastry always takes longer than people think to bake thoroughly, so check the undersides of the rolls are browned before removing them from the oven.
• Cool on a wire rack.
• Serve warm.

[1] Tip the cottage cheese into a sieve lined with 4-6 sheets of kitchen roll and set into the fridge to drain overnight.

[2] Gluten-free panko breadcrumbs are available online. A quick-fix substitute available on supermarket shelves is a box of Paxo gluten-free stuffing mix.

[3] Gluten-free if preferred.

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