Quick Vegan Party Bites (part 1): Featuring Hummus & Bruschetta

Having a party or a bunch of friends coming over? Don't want to serve vegetables & veg crisps only?

Read this post and impress you guests with a couple of easy & quick vegan recipes. Your friends might even stop saying that vegans don't eat anything tasty after this. 

Vegan Party Bites part 1 contains two recipes - one for Italian food lovers and one for people that appreciate hummus a lot (like I do). Sounds good? Press the title and read the whole post!

P.S. I am planning to write many more posts about vegan party bites and snacks in the future, so stay updated and prove to others that vegan food can be extremely tasty, classy and innovative.

The idea to start a blog section called "Vegan Party Bites" came into my mind because others have a perception that there is no such thing as tasty vegan dish. You cannot even imagine how often people feel sorry for me that I am vegan and I have chosen not to eat certain things. Honestly, if every time I heard someone saying "so... what do you eat then?" I got a pound, I would be a millionaire by now. 

I just really want to show to more people that not only we do eat tasty but also, we are still able to impress our friends and guests with our cooking skills. And we do celebrate life as well, we just chosen not to use any animal related products in order to do so. So I hope you will enjoy reading this and maybe try something for yourself later on today since it is a Saturday!

1. Classic Vegan Bruschetta from Scratch

• 1/2 fresh ciabatta 
• 75ml light olive oil
• 4 large tomatoes
• handful of fresh basil
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• some sea salt
• optional: red pepper vegan pesto

2. Avocado & Jalapeño Hummus Bites

• 1 pot reduced fat hummus (my favourite is Co-op one, second favourite is Tesco one, and third favourite is Sainsbury's one)
• 1 large avocado
• 1 lemon
• 1/4 jar of green Jalapeños
• some fresh parsley
• some black pepper
• oat or rye crackers 

1. my vegan interpretation of a traditional Bruschetta Romana

Preheat the oven first (170C) and then prepare olive oil. Pour olive oil into a small bowl, add crushed garlic, finely chopped basil and sea salt. Mix everything well and then slice ciabatta bread. You should aim for 1-1.5cm thick slices and it's up to you how large you want them to be. If I am making bruschetta for myself I usually cut 10-12cm long slices, but if I am preparing them for a party I prefer to make them about 3cm long, because it's easier to serve and eat little bites. Place ciabatta slices on a baking tray and make few cuts in each one of them, then pour and rub in olive oil mixture into them. 

Pop slices into the oven for 5 minutes, meanwhile chop tomatoes and mix them with basil. Take ciabatta away from the oven and top every slice with tomato pieces. Place into the oven for 5 more minutes till tomatoes are nice and warm and bread looks golden and crunchy-ish. 

Take a large tray and place bruschetta slices onto it, and if you wish put some vegan pesto on top (I usually use red pepper pesto, because there is already enough basil for my taste, but you can always experiment and see which option you prefer most!). Decorate with fresh basil leaves and serve it.

2. for hummus lovers: innovative avocado & jalapeño flavours 

If you love hummus as much as I do, you might want to try it, because this variation is quite innovative. I mean... I don't know if there is a hummus flavour from the shops that I haven't tried yet :) by the way Tesco is really really good for interesting flavours, they have things like asparagus or extreme chilli hummus.

Also this is very enjoyable recipe to make. It doesn't require any frying, cooking or boiling therefore it's quite chilled and you can enjoy a nice glass of wine while making it :) First of all, blend Jalapeños with some lemon juice till you have a nice green paste. Pour it into reduced fat hummus and squeeze 1/2 of lemon into it. Add some black pepper and mix everything very well. 

Finely chop well ripped avocado and fresh parsley then place them into the bowl with hummus. You could put everything into food processor or use a blender if you wish, but I wanted paste to have actual avocado bits in it to make it more fresh and different. Therefore I have chosen very well ripped avocado and managed to smash and mix it in simply with a spoon and a fork. 

Original One

More Sophisticated One

Once hummus+avocado bowl is ready you can decorate it with some lemon slices and parsley leaves (if you are planing to serve it in a bowl), or place some crackers on the tray and top them nicely with the dip. If you want to go for more sophisticated look, blend the paste more and decorate with rucola and some mixed seeds

Thank You for reading!

Thank you very much for reading this post, hopefully you found it useful and interesting! I promise to give you more vegan party snacks ideas very soon, so you can impress your vegan and not so vegan friends and family. 

Enjoy your Saturday, have a glass of wine and see you soon!

With love,
VK