Stuffed Onions Recipe (Vegan)

Prepare to delight your taste buds with these soft sweet caramelised onions stuffed with herby fragrant rice and vegetables. They are vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and great for dinner, get together or potluck.

These stuffed onions are perfect make ahead casserole recipe for holiday season or thanksgiving and can be served as entree, appetiser, starters with some creamy dip or as side dish.

The recipe shared here is loosely inspired from greek stuffed onions dish ‘Salantourmasi‘. I found this Mediterranean greek dish to be pretty interesting & tempting but as most recipes were using beef or meat in the stuffing, I tweaked it and have tried to create my own vegan meatless version of it.

Though it is easy to cook and made with simple pantry ingredients but it may seem that it is taking a little extra effort or time but trust me the end flavours are totally worth the wait. The filling can easily be customised by adding veggies, protein, herbs or spices of choice.

This roasted stuffed onions recipe is-

Nut free
Soy free
Dairy free
Has no eggs
Great as appetiser, starters or side dish

Ingredients you’ll need:

Onions: There are many varieties of onions available in market like red, white, yellow or sweet onion. I have used white onions here as their flavour is mild in comparison to red ones. To use them in this recipe, we will first boil them and then separate their outer layers.

Vegetables: I love to add as many veggies in my recipes and here also I have added garlic, mushrooms, carrots and red bell peppers in filling. Mushrooms helps in getting the meaty flavour and texture to the dish.

You can use other veggies like peas, sweet potatoes, sweet corn etc or can even add plant based protein like lentils or soy chunks aka tvp (textured vegetable protein). I have not added any nuts in here to keep the recipe nut free but some toasted pine nuts or cashews can also be included.

Rice: Use any short grain rice variety like arborio. Long grain rice varieties can also be used but they take longer to cook and you will have to increase the amount of water used in the recipe.

Spices: The onion filling is scented with warm aromatic spices like cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, black pepper and clove. You can use store bought ground spices or roast the whole spices and then grind them in grinder jar or mortar pestle. If you wish, you can add paprika or bay leaves also.

Herbs: Herbs like parsley, cilantro or mint adds freshness and vibrancy to the dish. As mint was not available at the time when I was making this dish, I have used only parsley and cilantro (or coriander).

Tomato Paste: The tangy taste of tomatoes compliments the slightly sweet caramelised flavour of onions. It is used twice in the recipe- inside the filling and then later to make a broth in which we cook onions.

How to make roasted stuffed onions?

The recipe can be broadly fragmented in three parts- Prepping the onion, preparing the stuffing and then baking stuffed onion.

To prep the onion we peel them, chop their top & bottom, partially slit them and boil. This helps in softening and removing the outer layers.
To make the stuffing we first sauté all the vegetables including the inner core of onions (left after removing outer layers). We then add spices, rice, tomato paste to it and partially cook the rice. Though in authentic recipe, the rice is cooked while baking only but I prefer to ‘half cook’ them before to reduce the baking time later.
In the last step, we stuff the onion & bake them. Before baking a diluted mixture of tomato paste, oil & water etc is poured over them which is absorbed by rice during cooking in oven.

Serving Ideas:

These baked stuffed onion can be served as vegan or vegetarian entree, appetiser or starters with creamy dips like sour cream or yogurt based dips like yogurt mint garlic dip. It can also be served with mashed potatoes or as side dish with green salad.

More vegetable recipes you might like:

Ingredients:

White Onions- 5 (medium size)
Rice (any short grain)- 1/2 cup
Olive Oil- 2 tbsp + 2 tbsp (divided)
Garlic cloves (minced)- 4
Mushrooms (diced)- 3/4 cup
Red Bell Pepper (diced)- 1/2 cup
Carrots (diced)- 1/3 cup
Parsley (chopped)- 1/4 cup
Cilantro / Mint (chopped)- 1/4 cup
Tomato Paste- 2 tbsp + 1/4 cup (divided)
Salt- 1/2 tsp + 1/2 tsp (to taste)
Black Peppers- 1/2 tsp + 1/2 tsp (to taste)
Ground Cumin- 1/4 tsp
Ground Coriander- 1/4 tsp
Ground Cinnamon- 1/4 tsp
Ground Cloves- 1/8 tsp
Ground Nutmeg- 1/8 tsp
Lemon Juice / White Vinegar- 1 tbsp
Water (or vegetable stock)- 1/4 cup + 2/3 cup (divided)

Directions:

Step 1:
Wash and rinse rice 2-3 times. Soak them in water for at least 15-20 minutes. In the meantime you can do other steps.

Step 2:
Peel the onion and chop their top and bottom part. Make a slit in onions on one side starting from centre top to the base (shown in image). This step helps in removing onion layers later.

Step 3:
Fill a large pot with water and bring it to boil. Add onions to boiling water and cook them for 12-15 minutes till they soften up.

Step 4:
Once the onion are cooked, drain them and let them cool a bit. When they are cool enough to handle, start removing their whole layers one by one. Keep their centre part aside to be used in filling later.

Step 5:
Dice the centre parts of onion. Heat oil in a pan. Add mushroom and sauté for 2-3 minutes till they start changing colour. Add chopped onions, garlic and sauté for a minutes. Add red bell pepper and carrots and sauté for 1-2 minutes more.

Step 6:
Drain the rice and add them to sautéed vegetables along with salt, black pepper, tomato paste, 1/4 cup water (or veg stock), spices and herbs. Mix gently. Cover and simmer for approx. 7 to 8 minutes till all the water is absorbed and rice is partially cooked.

Step 7:
Let the rice filling cool down slighlty. Place roughly 1 tbsp mixture in the centre of separated onion layer and roll gently. (do not wrap it too tight as rice grain size increases while baking). Place it in a greased shallow baking dish. Repeat this for other onion layers.

Step 8:
Preheat oven at 200°C (400°F). By the time oven is preheating, prepare a thin broth or sauce by mixing 2/3 cup water (or stock), 1/4 cup tomato paste, salt, black pepper, lemon juice and 2 tbsp olive oil. Pour it in the onion baking tray.

Step 9:
Cover the baking dish with aluminium foil and bake in preheated oven at 200°C (400°F) for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and brush the sauce in baking dish over onions to prevent them from drying. Bake for another 20-25 minutes without covering (you can broil in last 1-2 minutes to get colour on top).

Garnish these baked stuffed onions with more fresh herbs and serve with lemon wedges on sides.

Tips:

If you are using vegetable stock, add salt mindfully as most store bough stocks have already salt in them.
Do not wrap the onion layer too tight around the filling as the rice expands while cooking.
To cut short the cooking time, you can make advance prep by boiling the onions and preparing the stuffing a day before.
Feel free to experiment by adding veggies, herbs or protein of your choice like tvp (like soy chunks).
Any leftover can easily be store in fridge for 2-3 day in fridge. To reheat them, add a splash of water and microwave.

More casserole dishes you might like to try:

Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie
Broccoli Cheese Casserole

Pin for later:

(P.S: The post was originally published on 9th July’2017 and has been updated with better recipes and new images.)

If you try this baked stuffed onions recipe & share pics on social media, then don’t forget to tag on Facebook, Instagram or use #kuchpakrahahai.

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