Vegan corned beef hash? Yes! Gluten-free, too! Of course it won’t taste exactly one-hundred percent like corned beef, but it’s a reasonable approximation, and it also won’t have cost an animal its life. St. Patrick’s day is upon us as we write this, but of course you can make this easy recipe any time! Of course for St. Patrick’s day you will want to serve this along-side vegan, gluten-free green beer. But back to our vegan corned beef hash.

The unexpected main ingredient here is adzuki beans, and the key is to cook them up with ‘corning’ spices, which are the same as ‘pickling spices. You can get a pickling spice blend at most grocery stores, or, alternatively, we really like this pickling spice on Amazon the ingredients for which are cinnamon, bay leaves, chili flake, peppercorns, mustard seeds, fennel, berries, whole cloves, whole coriander, and dill seeds.

You will also need either a tea strainer ball that can go in the pot in which you are cooking the beans (be it Instant Pot or stovetop), or, if you don’t have a tea ball, you can use these empty fillable tea bags. The point is you need something to contain the pickling spice while you are cooking the adzuki beans with them, because you want the spices to flavor the beans, but you don’t actually eat the spices.

Adzuki beans, also referred to as azuki beans, originated in Asia and are usually cooked and served with rice. They contain a sweeter flavor than most beans, and are frequently used in a macrobiotic diet. You can find these beans at Whole Foods or your local natural foods store, or you can order them on Amazon here.

You start by cooking the adzuki beans using your favorite bean cooking method, with the spices. The key to making this hash-like is in how you cook up the combined ingredients in the end. You want to be sure that you let it brown up just like corned beef hash.

Vegan Corned Beef Hash