Gourmet vegetarian recipes: from starters to desserts

Original, healthy dishes packed full of natural colours and flavours. Gourmet vegetarian recipes are an excellent alternative.

If you’re looking to cook something a little bit fancier, these gourmet vegetarian recipes might just do the trick. Cook a full three-course meal using just vegetables, legumes, cereals, and fruit.

Here are four simple recipes for a delicious gourmet three-course meal.

Delicious vegetarian recipes: a starter by Pietro Leemann

One of the best-known gourmet starters in the vegan world was created by the well-known Swiss chef Pietro Leemann, who owns the award-winning Milanese restaurant, Joia. The starter essentially consists of a sphere of vegetables cut into very small cubes and placed on a two-tone sauce.

The ingredients are simple: cauliflower, stale bread, tomatoes, radishes, cannellini bean purée, celeriac, celery, carrots, and red cabbage. The vegetable sphere is topped off with wasabi, raspberry sauce, strawberries, yoghurt, extra virgin olive oil, white and balsamic vinegar, salt, and saffron.

The result is a creamy, spicy centre covered with a bread ball studded with a mirepoix of crunchy vegetables. 

Refined vegetarian menu: conchiglioni stuffed with a summer vegetable tartare

Here’s a delicious vegetarian main by Marco Salvini, a great creator of haute vegetarian cuisine. For his stuffed conchiglioni, you’ll need fresh courgettes, tomatoes, peppers, carrots and aubergines, flavoured with spicy oil, lemon zest, sweet paprika and hazelnut milk.

It’s important to cook each vegetable separately. The carrots must be stewed and julienned, the peppers should be sautéed and sliced, the courgette brunoise should be seasoned with citrus zest, the tomatoes should be blanched and peeled before being diced and combined with salt and pepper, and last but not least, the aubergines should be peeled, steamed and seasoned with spicy oil.

The conchiglioni should be al dente and filled with the five tartare vegetables. Once stuffed, they can be popped in the oven. Before serving, add some sweet paprika and a hazelnut milk foam.

Gourmet vegetarian main courses: quinoa and lentil burgers with a yellow datterini tomato ketchup

How could we forget this gourmet vegetarian main course by Marco Bianchi? Food mentor and collaborator of the Umberto Veronesi Foundation. It’s a balanced dish, boasting all the benefits of the Mediterranean diet.

To make these vegetable medallions, sauté some onion, quinoa and lentils in a pan before blending them together with pecorino and parsley. Leave the mix in the fridge for a couple of hours. Once you’ve shaped the mix into burgers, cook them in a pan until golden brown.

To make the ketchup, cook yellow datterini tomatoes, white vinegar, sugar, onion, carrot, celery, salt and pepper for about 50 minutes. Halfway through cooking, add a tablespoon of cornstarch, as well as some mustard, ginger, cloves and cinnamon (for fans of spices).

Avocado and cocoa mousse

To finish off your refined vegetarian meal, try making this dainty dessert: a velvety vegan chocolate mousse by Mario Parmeggiani, who is a big fan of raw, cruelty-free dishes.

Blend a large, ripe avocado with two tablespoons of maple syrup, three tablespoons of cocoa, a quarter cup of almond milk, and half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts or pistachios. 

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