Vegan Recipes for Your Next Cookout

Celebrating Juneteenth with Charity Morgan’s Unbelievably Vegan

Join me in celebrating Juneteenth with 18 other Black culinary creators. This year, we are honoring 19 Black American cookbook authors by recreating their recipes, amplifying their work, and sharing our connections to Freedom Day. Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day, the final emancipation of those enslaved in the US announced in 1865. Share these recipes with your family and help us continue the legacy of celebrating progress. Additionally, you can easily follow each participant by using the hashtag #JuneteenthCookout2022 on Instagram. 

Summer is here and cookout season has begun. While Memorial Day may be the first cookout of the year, Juneteenth kicks off the first week of summer. Juneteenth, sometimes called Jubilee or Black Independence Day, is the combination of June and Nineteenth. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring freedom for over three million slaves. However, this declaration did not immediately free all slaves. Slaves in Texas did not receive the news about their freedom until June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas. When Texas slaves finally learned about their freedom they rejoiced, sang, danced, and ate.

Today Juneteenth is recognized as a federal holiday. African Americans across the country continue to celebrate Juneteenth with community and educational events, music, and cookouts. We take time to enjoy family and reflect on the past and look to the future.

Gathering for Juneteenth means all the cookout favorites plus the appearance of red specialties. Red food has become traditional celebration food for Juneteenth. Galveston, Texas was the point of arrival for many slaves. The incorporation of the color red is said to have come from Texas slaves descending from tribes where the color red symbolized sacrifice, transition, and power. Accompanying those red foods would be prosperity foods like corn, cornbread, collard greens, cabbage, black-eyed peas, pork, potatoes, yams, and sweet potatoes.

Charity Morgan’s new cookbook “Unbelievably Vegan: 100+ Life-Changing, Plant-Based Recipes” puts a creative spin on classic dishes and introduces us to some new ones. I have been flexing a lot as I try to find a more balanced diet — “diet” as in the food I put in my body— as I work on improving and maintaining my health. While I’m still a meat-eater, “Unbelievably Vegan” helps me to incorporate more plant-based meals, thus more vegetables, and fewer animal products. 

Collaborating with Eat the Culture to highlight Black cookbook authors, I knew I needed to reach for Charity’s book. I remember hearing her story on the Netflix documentary The Game Changers, and I remember how good that vegan food looked.

Being of Puerto Rican and Creole descent, Charity’s recipes are layered with flavor. Every cookout I like to try something new. For the Juneteenth cookout I went with incorporating a southern staple with a creative twist. Buffalo Cheezy Fries, sounded like a winner to me. With a base of sweet potatoes and covered with creamy sauces I knew the recipe would be a winner for adults and children alike. My recipe is inspired by Charity’s Buffalo Cheezy Fries, “inspired” because I made a swap for the hand-cut sweet potatoes and went with store-bought. For a cookout or just a larger event, this simple swap can be a time saver. The creamy sauces though, I made them from scratch according to the recipe. 

Starting with the Herby Ranch Dressing, the foundation is vegan mayonnaise,  incorporating fresh garlic, spices, and a bit of vinegar, topped with fresh herbs. I have never made ranch dressing from scratch and this recipe is a gamechanger, pun intended. Something that stands out in Unbelievably Vegan is the ability to use foundational sauces and seasoning blends in a variety of ways. For the cheeze in the cheezy fries, I used the sauce from Charity’s Buffalo Mac & Cheezy. The buffalo cheeze sauce is also the same base as the sauce for her Truffle Mac & Cheezy with minor alterations. 

On to the cheeze sauce. I have heard so much about vegan cheese, I have even tried some store-bought vegan cheeses. However, vegan cheese sauce, and from scratch, was a first for me. You start with cashews! Cashews are one of my favorite nuts and they do have lots of oils making them blend up smoothly. Charity actually shares a great method in her book to assist with quickly softening the cashews if you are not able to soak them for hours. I added some spices and a bit of hot sauce right into my blender and I was done. 

Frying my sweet potatoes to a nice little crisp and then drizzling on the Classic Herby Ranch Dressing and Buffalo cheeze sauce was reminiscent of loaded fries. I sprinkled on some chopped fresh herbs, celery, and carrots. I could not stop shoveling those fries in my mouth. The way the sauces played so well together was satiating. 

When cooking some of the recipes and just reading through the book, you can tell Charity is intentional about the way she pairs flavors, pulling from her time in culinary school and down-home meals from her grandmother. As I did my first flip-through of Unbelievably Vegan I saw recipes like Butta Biscuits, Mac & Cheezy Three Ways, and Pecan Sticky Buns.

Charity gives us permission to try something new while still making all the foods we love. The recipes are full of flavor yet easy to follow. Making staples from scratch makes me feel a sense of accomplishment, and I know all the ingredients in my food. If you are vegan or just looking to add a new dish to the table for your Juneteenth cookout, Charity’s cookbook “Unbelievably Vegan” is a great place to start. 

Eat the Culture is a catalyst for Black creatives in the food and beverage space to support each other in our efforts to uplift our culture. Be sure to comment below, pin, and share this recipe with your friends and family. Also don’t forget to take a look at some of my friends’ great recipes below:

Purple and White Potato Salad prepared by Big Delicious Life from the book Sweet Potato Soul

Jam Cake prepared by Britney Breaks Bread from the book Jubilee 

Mini Red Velvet Cake by Chenée Today from the book Life Is What You Bake

Soy Lime Beef Stir Fry by Coined Cuisine from the book Cooking Solo

Pinto Beans with Smoked Neck Bones by Cooks with Soul from the book Bludso’s Bbq Cookbook

Black Pepper Strawberry Slab Pie by Dash of Jazz from the book Watermelon and Red Birds

Grilled Pork Porterhouse Steaks  by Food Fidelity from the book Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ: Every Day Is a Good Day

Barbecue Baked Beans with Red Spice by Geo’s Table from the book Son of a Southern Chef

Jamaican Beef Patty by Her Mise En Place from the book My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef

Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Spicy Vegetable Relish by Kenneth Temple from the book In Bibi’s Kitchen

Red Velvet Cake with Blackberry Frosting by Lenox Bakery  from the book Grandbaby Cakes

Very Strawberry Shortcake by Mekio And The Dish from the book The New Orleans Cook Book

Pig-Pickin’ Cake by My Sweet Precision from the book Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking 

Blackberry Peach Crumble Pie by Peaches2Peaches from the book Carla Hall’s Soul Food

African Soul Rice Salad with Crispy Collards by Savor & Sage from the book The Cooking Gene

Grape-Tarragon Spritzer by Sense and Edibility from the book Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora

All-Green Everything Salad w/ Creamy Sage Dressing by That Green Lyfe from the book Vegetable Kingdom

Rum Rum Punch by This Worthey Life from the book The Red Rooster Cookbook