Italian cuisine, as every good cook knows, is besotted with vegetables (The artichokes! The eggplant! The tomatoes!), so it’s barely a stretch to approach it from a plant-based perspective. That’s one of the reasons I knew there would be a hefty proportion of Italian-style recipes in my new cookbook, Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking: Vegan Recipes, Tips, and Techniques.
The other main reason, of course, is that I’m similarly besotted with Italian cooking itself. It’s become so ingrained in my everyday thinking about food that it’s just as natural as the Middle Eastern cooking of my heritage or the Tex-Mex cooking of my upbringing.
In the pasta and casserole chapters of my book, I offer recipes for noodles with nearly any “melted” vegetable you can think of—for a take on cacio e pepe where chickpeas take the place of the cheese (I call it ceci e pepe), for an Italian-American classic, baked stuffed shells, and more.
But I’m proudest of the collection of recipes that can add up to a stunning, vegan take on classic Tortellini en Brodo. You can choose your adventure and commitment level: Make each of the elements (including the "egg" pasta, pumpkin seed ricotta, and cashew parmesan) from scratch, or employ store-bought versions that let you focus on building the broth, which gets its deep flavor from charring the onions and carrots.
Whether you make one, some or all of them, they’ll show you that plant-based Italian cooking can be delightful, satisfying, and just plain delicious.
