This vegan pate is made from lentils, aromatics, spices and miso for a full-bodied spread delicious for vegetarian banh mi!
There is a part two to the great vegetarian banh mi story and its name is vegan pate. We’ll skip past the part where I talk about despite this being made out of lentils it totally tastes like pate because, well, the truth is that I’ve never had pate. Never had the desire to eat meat ground into a paste, probably never will. So yes, we’re skipping that part.
But it’s just kind of fun to call this pate because authentic Vietnamese banh mi call for pate and so now we can eat authentic-ish vegan banh mi!
A lot of vegan pate recipes call for some kind of nut toasted + ground to add richness and body where meat would otherwise fill the void. Here we use almond butter!
The ingredients read like a list of the most unlikely combinations—miso and tarragon? Champagne wine vinegar and almond butter? But the flavors are surprisingly so good!
Lentil Pate
Ingredients
- ½ tablespoon olive oil
- ½ small onion diced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- ¾ cup green lentils rinsed
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 cups water
- 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
- ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 tablespoon white miso paste
- 1 tablespoon almond butter
- ½ tablespoon champagne wine vinegar alternatively: white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
- dash of pepper
Instructions
- Heat ½ tablespoon of olive oil in a medium pot over medium heat. Sauté the onion and garlic for about 6 minutes, or until soft. Add the lentils, bay leaf, water and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium and let cook for 20-25 minutes.
- Once lentils are soft (i.e. you can smush them with a spoon), remove pot from heat. Remove the bay leaf and add lentil mixture to a blender (let cool if necessary—I do not recommend blending very hot substances under any circumstances).
- Add all remaining ingredients and blend until smooth. Mixture should be very thick, but blendable. Add a tablespoon or two of water or olive oil if you’re having trouble blending it.
Jill Roberts
LOVE this! Gorgeous colors, and my kind of ingredients cuz i’m vegetarian. Looks great! Thx for sharing!
Jen
This is new..
As a Vietnamese who has never went out her country I’ve never seen a lentil in my life
Most of our vegan pate are made of mushrooms or soy
Will try this thou 😉
erika
Haha Jen, I would LOVE it if you tried this and let me know how you like it!! I need to hear how it compares to authentic vegan Vietnamese pate! 🙂
Emma
This recipe is amazing. Shocked me how much it reminded me of meat pate. Best vegan pate I’ve had
LadyGodiva
Tried this today – made half the batch exactly to your recipe, and half with Marmite and nooch in place of the Miso… I think I prefer your recipe, as the miso works beautifully (though your recommended white would be better than the dark miso which is the only decent stuff I can get atm!), but both are really lovely. I think I needed to steam off more of the water, as mine wasn’t as firm as I was expecting (from the recipe and your lovely pics), but it was fine: this is a great recipe, a lovely way to eat lentils, and disturbingly like how I remember (from my childhood) meat pate tasting like, lol! Thank you for the great share: I’m going to make it all the time – MUCH nicer and better for me than shop-bought vegan pates, and I can experiment with herbs and stuff in it too :o)
erika
So glad to hear you enjoyed it!! And that it tastes like the real deal–your comment totally made my day! 🙂
Agata
This is the most amazing and the easiest vegan pate ever!!!I
When I did it first time I followed the recipe and it was heaven!
However, just made it again and added good handful of mushrooms and half of red chilli (fried them with onions and garlic), added dark miso instead of a light one and added some ground sunflower seeds… It’s still warm but it’s almost gone 🙂 The beast thing ever! And even the meat eaters couldn’t resist it! 🙂
Thank you so much for this recipe!
And I have made pickled vegetables. It was supposed to be the same as for your vegetarian banh mi, but they don’t sell daikon in supermarkets here so I have replaced it with beetroot and added some grated ginger to the vinegar mixture… It really is amazing! 😉
erika
Agata, so sorry for my late response, but so happy to hear that you enjoyed the pate!! Your modifications sound fabulous!
Shelley
This recipe is a triumph! I did make some modifications, though. Since my daughter has a tree nut allergy, I swapped out the almond butter for coconut butter and ground pumpkin seeds. As I didn’t have white miso paste, I used brown miso paste instead and I also substituted 1/2 of a cup of the water for red wine to try and emulate the wine-flavoured pates I used to love before going vegan. Finally, I threw in a good tablespoon of powdered garlic before blending everything together at the end as I am a bit of a garlic but. The result is amazing, and I’m sure will be even better once it fully cools (we couldn’t wait and ate half out of the blender). Fantastic way to boost your iron intake also! Thank you SO much for this!
erika
Shelley, thanks so much for reporting back with your modifications!! Sounds delicious, and so glad you enjoyed! I might have to go make another batch now; you’ve awoken the cravings… 🙂
Victoria
Hi!! I just wanted to tell you the changes I had to make in case some other people find out they are short in the ingredients as I was! I swaped the miso for some marmite as I didn’t have miso! I also skipped the tarragon and increased the thyme instead! I don’t know how yours is, but mine turned out amazing! Thanks sommuch!!! 🙂
erika
Thanks so much for reporting back, Victoria! Those changes sound perfect since I think marmite is also a great source of complex salty flavor 🙂 So glad you liked it!