Craving empanadas but they have to be gluten-free vegan empanadas? Our mock empanadas will hit the spot! Why do we call them “mock empanadas”? Well that’s part of why they are fast and easy! Our mock empanadas are made with almond tortillas, specifically the Siete almond flour tortillas that one can get at Costco (although of course you get them elsewhere as well, including on Amazon). For the filling we crumbled up a Don Lee Farms black bean burger (also available at Costco) and added some peas. Easy peasy, literally!

Our recipe for Not Dogs tofu dogs is our favorite vegan hot dog recipe and, it turns out, our favorite gluten-free vegan hot dogs of all. (But they are not copycat Tofu Pups, because the ingredients are much cleaner.)

The third in our series of reviews of gluten-free vegan hot dogs is the Yeah Dawg review. Because all of the hot dogs reviewed in our series are vegan, they are also considered gluten-free veggie hot dogs (or gluten-free vegetarian hot dogs, if you want to be precise). Regardless of what you call them, Yeah Dawg is one of three brands of gluten-free vegan hot dogs available on the market: Yeah Dawg, Sweet Life, and Moving Mountains. Lightlife is not gluten-free, although they are headed in that direction (we have that straight from Lightlife, who cautions that while they are phasing out gluten, there is still stock out on the shelves that contains gluten).

This is the second in our series of reviews of vegan hot dogs that are also gluten-free. Sweet Earth hot dogs are not intentionally gluten-free, and maybe not even intentionally vegan, but happily they are both vegan and gluten-free. As we mention in our introduction to the vegan gluten-free hot dogs review series, there are three brands that are both vegan and gluten-free: Moving Mountains (available only at Costco online), Yeah Dawg, and these, Sweet Earth hot dogs.

We start off our review series of gluten-free vegan hot dogs (also called frankfurters or franks) with Moving Mountains brand vegan hot dogs. These are gluten-free by accident, meaning that Moving Mountains didn’t set out to intentionally create a hot dog that was gluten-free as well as vegan, but create it they did. While Moving Mountains started out in 2016 by creating vegan hamburgers (not gluten-free), and added vegan hot dogs (yay, gluten-free!) to their repertoire in 2019.

The winner of the best vegan hot dogs is…. There are a total of three brands of gluten-free vegan hot dogs or gluten-free veggie hot dogs (a/k/a frankfurters or franks) on the market right now (Lightlife are not fully gluten-free): Sweet Earth vegan hot dogs (which are gluten-free by chance), Moving Mountains vegan hot dogs (also gluten-free by chance, not as an intention), and Yeah Dawg, which are not only vegan but also gluten-free by design. In this review series we will review each of them one at a time, giving our impression of them (taste, texture, ease of cooking, etc.). We’d love to know what you think of them too. (Side note: Why the heck do so many vegan things have to have gluten in them?? :~( )

Ok you know what maple-glazed means, but, you may be thinking, what the heck is cedar-planked? Or maybe you are already familiar with the more traditional maple-glazed cedar-planked salmon, which was all the rage among foodies some years ago. Regardless, cedar-planked means that the food is literally baked or roasted on a cedar plank in your oven! It’s amazing because it imparts this slightly sweet, slightly smoky, slightly cedary flavor.

Wondering what to do with that Himalayan salt block that someone gave you for Christmas years ago? Cooking tofu on a salt block makes wonderful, delicious tofu! Of course we think tofu is wonderful anyways, but in case you’re on the fence, this is how to make tofu taste good. (Plus we include an awesome 4-ingredient marinade for tofu!) Some people have a hard time wrapping their head around cooking on a block of salt; it helps to understand that you are basically using the salt block as a griddle (and it will be just as hot as a griddle). While salt block cooking is typically thought of in the context of meat and grilling, cooking tofu on your big old block of salt, on your stove top in your kitchen, yields a tofu unlike any other.

Our homemade vegan pastrami recipe is so good that it has been judged “perfect” even by pastrami-loving carnivores! Have it plain, make a vegan pastrami reuben, or toss it with noodles and sauerkraut! And it’s not even complicated to make, in fact making our vegan pastrami recipe is easy! Now, of course, your vegan pastrami from Soy Curls won’t be in thin slices, but it will be in strips, perfect for putting on a sandwich with some delicious deli mustard, or with sauerkraut, vegan Russian dressing, and vegan cheese for that vegan pastrami reuben!

We call this easy tofu marinade and sauce our “6 x 1” marinade (pronounced “six by one”, or just “six by”) because it consists of one tablespoon of each of six ingredients (plus some water). It’s super simple, in fact deceptively simple. We say “deceptively” because it’s one of those recipes that people will think you spent waaaay more time and effort on than you actually did. We love those kinds of recipes.

If you have been putting off making vegan sushi (or maybe never even thought of making homemade vegan sushi rolls), stop it! It turns out that making vegan sushi rolls at home is really easy! Stymied for vegan sushi filling ideas? Guess what! You can use almost anything as a filling for vegan sushi! Is it authentic? Who cares! It’s delicious, and fun! We’ve used string beans, rehydrated dried mushrooms, and baby corn (because that’s what we had on hand), as well as ordering and using more traditional things such as ume. There’s even a vegan unagi (eel) sauce you can get to replicate vegan unagi (hey, it’s all about the sauce)! On a side note, who here remembers the ‘unagi’ episode of Friends? (Are we dating ourselves?)

So many vegan tofu recipes seem the same, are we right? That’s what makes this tofu dish so unexpected! Figs and cashews in an asian-style tofu dish? Whodda thunk it! (Us, that’s who!) Not only is this tofu recipe a refreshing change from the expected, but it’s delicious! Serve it over brown or white rice, with some steamed bok choi or spinach on the side, and you have an incredible meal! We use the House brand tofu from Costco for this, as well as the unroasted cashews from Costco, and the organic dried figs from Costco.

This awesome tofu marinade works in your air fryer as well as in your oven. It makes tofu cubes that are as versatile as they are delicious, with perfectly done outsides and incredible creamy centers. There are as many marinade recipes for tofu as there are, well, maybe not stars in the sky, but there are a lot of tofu marinade recipes, and we will put this one up against any of them. The secret to this easy, incredible marinade and its fabulous, magical alchemy with tofu is in how you press the tofu, and then letting the tofu marinate for a good long time. For this recipe it is imperative that you use the type of tofu that is found packed in water, in the refrigerated section. We use the House brand tofu from Costco for this, and it’s perfect.

Want to make a gluten-free vegan shepherd’s pie but don’t have any leftover mashed potatoes, and don’t want to go through the trouble of making mashed potatoes just for shepherd’s pie? (After all, isn’t the whole purpose of shepherd pie to use up leftovers, or at least to be able to easily throw something together without having to, you know, cut, boil, and mash potatoes?) Well our “inside-out” vegan shepherd’s pie is just what you need, and it’s naturally gluten-free too!

This is seriously the best ever 2-ingredient vegan gluten-free flatbread recipe. It also happens to be the best ever 2-ingredient gluten-free vegan thin pizza crust recipe! It’s two, two, two recipes in one! This recipe is so easy, all you need is almond flour and quick-cooking oats. Ok, you also need water, so we guess that technically there are three ingredients, if you count the water as an ingredient. Then, once its cooked, you can either use it as a flatbread (we most recently topped it with homemade pistachio butter, which was out of this world!) or a thin-style pizza crust (see picture).

If you are looking for a fast, easy gluten-free dairy-free no-roll pie crust dough (gosh look at all those hyphens), this is it! This vegan pie crust recipe uses no shortening, and because the “flour” is made from uncooked oatmeal oats (so technically it’s an oatmeal pie crust) you can make it sweet or savory, as an oat pie crust is as perfect for quiche as it is for a dessert pie or bars. You can also prebake this no-roll oat crust!

Whether you call it vegan shepherd’s pie, vegan cottage pie, or vegan hachis parmentier, this easy and delicious gluten-free vegan recipe will delight you! Made entirely with shelf-stable products, the majority of which we get from Costco, this is a perfect recipe to make from things you have on hand in your pantry (and so it is both a ‘quarantine recipe’ and a ‘Costco recipe’).

Here’s how to cook your pasta right in the sauce with your Instant Pot or other digital, electronic pressure cooker! With this method you can create a wonderful one-pot meal in no time, and with no fuss! It’s so easy, and it works for both regular and gluten-free pasta!

So many people have asked “Can you cook pasta right in the sauce in the Instant Pot?” and the answer is yes! You can cook the sauce and pasta together at the same time in an Instant Pot! Here’s how! We call this a Costco recipe because we use one or more ingredients from Costco, but of course you don’t have to.

We did it! We veganized honey walnut shrimp, that dish found coast to coast in Chinese restaurants and made popular by Panda Express! And we can’t wait to tell you how we did it! There are a few steps to this (pressing and marinating the tofu, preparing the sauce, preparing the sugar syrup which takes the place of the honey) but we promise you that it’s easy, and well worth it!