With a vegan twist on a classic favourite this vegan paella is absolutely packed with veggies, protein and flavour!

A traditional Spanish dish, paella is usually cooked with fish or meat but there are as many variations of it as there are people that cook it!  Including vegan paella!  It has very humble origins being a farmer or farm labourer’s meal, cooked over a wood fire and utilising whatever ingredients were to hand.  It was also traditionally eaten straight out of the pan with wooden spoons!

Like its traditional counterpart, you can use whatever veggies you fancy or have around.  For this vegan paella recipe though, I wanted to go for bright, spring colours and flavours while packing a big protein punch.  And for that I’ve used chickpeas, Hodmedods dried Broad Beans and my new favourite snack – toasted Whole Grain Emmer Wheat!  These tiny little things are seriously crunchy and moreish!

The dried broad beans do need a little bit of attention the day before you want to make this paella recipe though.  But it’s as simple as soaking in plenty of water and forgetting about them till the next day.  Nothing too taxing 😉

One of the basic paella ingredients though is the rice.  Specifically short grain rice.  I used this Bomba Paella Rice but if you’re in the UK, Sainsbury’s and Tesco both have a Spanish Paella Rice available – and probably the other supermarkets do too!  You can also use Italian risotto rice and Japanese sushi rice.  You want the rice to easily absorb the liquid so that you end up with plump little rice grains full of flavour that won’t dry out.

Another essential paella ‘ingredient’ is the right frying pan.  You want something wide with a relatively thin base so that the liquid is cooked quickly and evenly.  You also don’t want to stir your paella like you would for risotto – that results in a creamy risotto like texture rather than tender, individual and distinguishable rice grains.

The liquid you use is also important in any paella recipe.  Good quality stock (and even a little white wine) will only impart fantastic flavour.  I’ll admit to laziness for this part though as I use Marigold Vegan Bouillon Powder.  It’s easy to use and has extra herbs and spices for, you guessed it, even more flavour!

And finally, the spices.  Paprika is practically compulsory but you can add turmeric for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties and of course that glorious sunshine yellow colour!

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