6 creative side dishes

Potatoes, pasta, rice. Yawn. With a little imagination and the right recipes you can easily add to the menu and literally bring color to the plate.

vegetable purees

A wonderful and mostly low carbohydrate alternative to mashed potatoes are vegetable purees. All vegetables and legumes are actually suitable: celeriac, sweet potatoes, parsley roots, parsnips, squash, peas, aubergines, savoy cabbage, white beans, chickpeas, Brussels sprouts, turnips, leeks, peppers, beetroot.

In principle, they are made like the potato model: cut vegetables into small pieces and cook them very soft in salted water, drain. Heat some milk (or cream) with butter and spices and either press in the vegetables through a press or crush directly in the hot milk. One can also boil the bond because of some potatoes. Or, what is recommended for sweet potatoes, cook the vegetables in the milk (or cream) and just crush. Pumpkin is best cooked in the oven, wrapped in aluminum foil with a little oil, which enhances the nutty taste.


It becomes oriental when you make a Moroccan eggplant purée. To do this, prick the aubergine with a fork and cook in the oven for about an hour until it is soft. Then fry onions, garlic, paprika and cumin in olive oil, add the diced tomatoes and the flesh of the aubergine and cook for 20 minutes.

Flans

Impressive on the plate, easy to make. Flans are also suitable for consuming vegetable remnants, because they are used for cooked vegetables.

The basic recipe: Per person / portion: about 75-100 g of cooked vegetables, one egg, 100 ml of cream / milk and pepper, salt, nutmeg and the spices that you like. You can also add some cheese.


The vegetables can be used either in pieces or mashed. Mix everything well, fill it in sachets and cook it for about 40-50 minutes in a water bath in the oven. but at a maximum of 150 degrees, the water should always boil only slightly.

vegetable pasta

Slicing vegetables into very fine strips, you have a nice alternative to pasta. Of course, the best are, of course, long? Varieties such as zucchini or carrots. To produce vegetable noodles, there are special spiral cutters to buy, but even with a peeler, you can make bandnudel-like structures. The raw? Noodles? can be processed easily: either directly in the pan or like real pasta in boiling water.

polenta

Polenta is an Italian maize porridge that goes very well with hearty meat and stews. Classically, you cook the grits with constant stirring for a relatively long time with water, broth or cream. Sounds elaborate? Fortunately, there are now? Instant? -Polenta, which is simply stirred into the appropriate liquid and allowed to swell for a short time. Season and refine with a little butter or olive oil? finished!

couscous

Couscous is no longer a complicated thing today. The small wheat balls are stirred into boiling liquid, preferably broth and refined after a short swelling time with butter. Small-cut vegetables or fresh herbs such as parsley or coriander give the couscous a special touch.

Yorkshire pudding

A Yorkshire pudding is the classic Sunday side dish for roast beef in England. In principle, it is a salty, liquid pancake batter that is baked in muffin cases. He should rest for half an hour before baking. The molds must be filled with plenty of fat, preferably buttered in the oven and only when the fat smokes, the dough is poured. For a muffin tray with 12 wells you need 2 eggs, 150 ml of milk, salt, pepper, a pinch of sugar and 130 g of flour. Bake at 200 ° C top / bottom heat for about 30 minutes. Yorkshire pudding can be blended very well with herbs, e.g. Flavor thyme.

9 Satisfying Side Dishes | April 2024