Hey-hey-hey, my lovelies! I have a very special treat for you today. I've been dreaming of making this vegan pierogi casserole for a long time now. Pierogi are my love's number one food (along with cookies), so figuring out different versions how to eat them, is very much needed. His favorite way is to just pan-fry them, but he really loved this casserole too!
I also devoured it, because it was delicious, packed with veggies and covered with a creamy cashew sauce. You can definitely use sunflower seeds to make the sauce, too. I'll be honest - the cashew sauce is better, but if you have a nut allergy or the cashews are too expensive, then you still can make this recipe. I used store-bought potato pierogi. They are also selling mushroom gyozas here, so they would fit too. Basically every filled vegan dumpling could go in here. If you have more time, I strongly recommend to try to make your own dumplings. Use this pot stickers recipe or this super simple basic pierogi recipe.
To make this casserole extra juicy, I added loads of spiralized carrots and zucchini. If you don't have a spiralizer, you can just coarsely grate the veggies. They fit perfectly here, making the dish more moist, healthy and of course tasty.
Tomorrow we are celebrating Shrove Tuesday in Estonia. That means we eat loads of homemade sweet and fluffy buns with whipped cream (my favorite is the good old coconut whipped cream). Also, split pea soup is a must have tomorrow. But one could also make this very similar and quicker red lentil and vegetable soup. Then we also have a very important Estonian Independence Day on the 24-th of February. Our little and brave country will be 100 years old! And I will be 29 years old next week, yay! So February is packed with awesome holidays and it's a nice and short month. I will definitely take time to enjoy this time of the year when we finally have a lot of snow and these beautiful sunny winter days. And Spring isn't far anymore! Let's celebrate with this perfect wintery casserole :)
Time: 1,5 hours
Serves: 6 people
Sauce:
- 1 cup / 150 g cashews (or ½ cup / 75 g sunflower seeds)
- 4 cups / 950 ml cold water
- 1 ½ - 2 tsp salt
- (3 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes)
Casserole:
- 2 - 3 Tbsp oil
- 3 onions (cut into four and sliced)
- 2 - 3 garlic cloves
- 2 huge carrots (8 cups / 450 g when grated or spiralized)
- 1 bigger zucchini (4 cups / 300 g when grated or spiralized)
- 1 ¾ - 2 tsp salt
- 2 x 14 oz / 2 x 400 g frozen vegan pierogi (I used potato filled pierogi) or make your own pierogi using THIS or THIS recipe
Directions:
If you don't have a powerful blender, soak the nuts or seeds for a couple of hours or boil them for 15 minutes. Then blend them with cold water, salt and nutritional yeast (if you want) until you have an even white liquid.
Pre-heat the oven to 400 F / 200 C. Heat up a deeper pan. Add oil and onion slices. Cook for a couple of minutes. Add chopped garlic. Cook for a minute. Add spiralized or coarsely grated carrots. Cook for a minute. Add spiralized (if you spiralize, cut the zucchini ribbons into half after, so they will mix better with other ingredients) or grated zucchini and cook for about 5 minutes, until the veggies have shrunk and are a little softer. Taste and add more salt, if needed. Mix the veggies with frozen pierogi.
Grease a medium deeper baking dish (or a few smaller dishes) and pour in the pierogi-veggie mixture. Pour the cashew sauce over everything and bake the casserole for at least an hour or a bit less, if you are using multiple smaller baking dishes. I recommend to taste one pierogi and see if the dough has baked enough. Then you will know if the whole casserole is ready.
