I really like omelettes and being Spanish I used to prepare Spanish omelette quite often before becoming vegan. I would like to try to make one again so I was wondering, how can I replace the eggs when making an omelette?
I am looking for answers that use "common" products instead of commercial egg replacements. Also, I am more interested in getting the right texture than in getting a flavour similar to that of eggs.
A common alternative is to replace the eggs using chickpea flour. The idea is to mix the chickpea flour with water (two times more volume of water than of flour), a bit of vinegar (to reduce the bitterness of the chickpea flour) and salt. You should get a liquid mixture which you can use as an egg replacement.
A few examples:
I often make omelettes from chickpea flour, but I find the texture is a little bit heavy for a French-ish-style omelette To soften it up, I add a little bit of silken tofu, beaten until smooth in the batter. My base recipe is:
100g or 1 cup chickpea flour
50g silken tofu
smoked salt or black salt if you can get it (for egg-like flavour)
(or use any seasoning you like)
2-3 tbsp nutritional yeast (also adds umami)
~200ml soya milk (or enough to make a loose batter)
Beat it until very smooth, then fry on a medium-low heat in a non-stick pan.
Here's my full recipe for a quick Spanish-style omelette / tortilla without potato (you can add some slices of pre-cooked potato for something closer to the real thing of course)
200g firm tofu sold in water
1-2 tbsp tamari or 1-2 tsp herb salt
1-2 tsp crushed dried chillies
1 tbsp olive oil
1 green bell pepper
1 sweet brown onion
2 large ripe tomatoes
2-3 cloves garlic
1 cup chickpea flour or gram flour
2 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried oregano
3-4 tbsp nutritional yeast
Handful sweet black olives
Lemon juice & black pepper to serve
Tip water from tofu into jug or mixing bowl (if tofu sold in water is not available, no problem) and chop tofu into small cubes. Put in a small bowl and pour 1/2 the salt or tamari over the tofu, add the chilli flakes and leave to absorb flavour while continuing prep
Dice green pepper and fry in most of the olive oil. Grease a flan dish with the remaining oil.
While the pepper is cooking, grate the onion and add and larger pieces left over to the pan. Reserve the grated part
Chop the tomatoes and add to the pan, followed by the tofu. Crush the garlic and add that too.
Turn on the oven
Add the flour to the tofu water along with the paprika, herbs, nutritional yeast, remaining 1/2 of tamari or salt and sufficient additional water or milk to make a loose batter. Add juices from the pan if there seem to be a lot.
Turn off the heat and stir the grated onion into the vegetable tofu mix
Pour the batter into prepped dish, followed by the veg mix. Stir it all around evenly
Slice the olives and sprinkle over the dish.
Bake for about 30 min in medium oven or until browned to your liking
Squeeze over lemon and sprinkle with black pepper to serve
While chickpea flour omelette has already been mentioned a couple of times, I'd like to add two other variations for vegan 'omelette'.
These are Rava Chilla and Oats Chilla. The recipes sometimes use Indian names for ingredients, but quick Google search will usually clarify this.
While the Oats Chilla uses gram (chickpea) flour as well, substantial part of the recipe are oats and they offer a flavour variation.
The Rava Chilla uses semolina instead of chickpea flour.
I have never been a big fan of omelette and have just faint memory of how it tastes, but these recipes taste good enough for me to recommend. Enjoy your meal.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Just Egg yet. My partner loves it, and I've been seeing tons of people raving about it in vegan Facebook groups.
I use medium hard tofu. I crumble it in a pan with sautéed onion and stir it in with the spices of my choice (saffron is great) . During cooking I may add a bit of hot water to alter the texture but the replacement is pretty good just as it is. Hope this helps you :)
