Vegan Stuffing with Chickpea Sausage Crumbles

This Vegan Stuffing is made with homemade chickpea sausage crumbles and is hearty, wholesome, and packed with flavor! Serve it for your vegan Thanksgiving Dinner. Gluten-free option.

No Thanksgiving Dinner without Stuffing! This vegan stuffing is my current favorite! It is made with bread and homemade vegan chickpea sausage meat. It’s hearty, moist and flavorful on the inside, and perfectly crisp on the outside – just like any good Thanksgiving stuffing should be.

Comforting, flavorful, loaded with veggies and studded with nutrient-rich chickpeas. This is a vegan stuffing recipe that is wholesome and satisfying. A simple vegan side dish that is perfect for holiday gatherings.

This would be the perfect side dish to serve alongside my Vegan Thanksgiving Roast Or my Lentil quinoa meatloaf  or Nut Roast , along with some vegan gravy and mashed potatoes. 

And for Thanksgiving dessert

• Pumpkin Pie Bars
• Glutenfree Vegan Pumpkin Pies
• Classic Baked Pumpkin Pie with Rustic Crust
• Sweet Potato Pie Bars with Cinnamon Crust
• Apple custard bars
• Chocolate Pecan pie 

Ingredients for Vegan Stuffing:

• cubed bread – the best bread to use for stuffing is the kind that has a neutral flavor, and tight crumb. Good choices would be vegan white bread, vegan challah or vegan baguette or Italian bread
• the vegan sausage meat is made by processing  chickpeas and walnuts to form a crumbly sausage-like texture
• for flavoring the sausage, I like to add a blend of fennel seeds, oregano, thyme,  basil, garlic and powder, smoked paprika
  and black and red pepper
• lemon juice is added for freshness
• just like with traditional stuffing, I like to add some chopped onions and celery sauteed in vegan butter or oil to the stuffing
• ground sage and dried rosemary are my favorite herbs to add to vegan sausage
•  vegetable broth is added to moisten the  bread cubes

Tips & Substitutions:

• Stuffing may be refrigerated for up to three or four days, or frozen for longer storage.
• If you’re not a fan of chickpeas, you can try and use white beans instead
• sunflower seeds would be a great substitution for walnuts
• can be made gluten-free by using gluten-free bread

How to make Vegan Stuffing:

Cube up your bread and spread on a large baking sheet

Put the baking sheet in the oven at 350 degrees F (180 c) to bake until the bread is dried and is toasty. The bread should just start to get crisp and golden about 12-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, make your chickpea sausage: Add the walnuts and all of the spices to a food processor. Pulse until the walnuts and fennel seeds break down and walnuts are coarse mixture.

Then add in your chickpeas and lemon juice and pulse again until most of the chickpeas are broken into a coarse mix and set aside.

In a pan, heat up 2 tsp butter then add in the onion and celery and half of the salt and mix.

Cook uncovered for 4-5 minutes then cover and cook until the onion is soft and golden. It will take 6-8 minutes.

Cook uncovered for 4-5 minutes then cover and cook until the onion is soft and golden. It will take 6-8 minutes.

Remove the onion and celery from the pan then add in another teaspoon of butter. Add in the chickpea sausage mixture and cook to crisp up some of the portions of the mixture should start getting golden about 3-5 minutes. Then remove from the pan and set aside.

In a large 9×11 inch baking dish or similar size baking dish, grease the baking dish. Add your onion celery mixture, the chickpea sausage mixture. Now add in the baked bread. Add in the leftover salt, pepper, and sage, and rosemary and toss well.

Heat up your broth until it’s about warm hot and pour it in batches. I pour about 1/2-3/4 cup and mix it in so that just one portion of the bread doesn’t get all soggy. Continue to mix it in until the mix is evenly moist. Depending on your bread, you might need up to 2.5 cups of broth.

Also, it depends on your preference whether you like your stuffing more moist, you can add another 1/4-1/2 cup broth.

Cover the baking dish with foil and then put it in the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes then remove the foil and continue to bake for another 5-10 minutes or until crisp on top to preference.

You can also brush some butter on top if you like the stuffing to get extra crisp and golden, and then broil it for a minute or two.

Remove the stuffing from the oven. Let it rest for 5 minutes and then serve.