Paella per se is the traditional dish of the spanish region Valencia. The term actually derives from the word patella meaning a big "bowl" made of metal. That is also traditionally in what the paella is cooked in. So if you want so: The paella is made inside of paella.

When people speak of traditional paella they often refer to the Paella Valenciana. However you need to be aware of that a discussion about "What is Paella" is really senseless since Paella comes in a lot of variations. Still, traditionally people refer to the yellow-colored rice (through saffron) with Seafood ingredients plus sometimes chicken breast, red bell pepper and whatnot...

So let's face it: A traditional paella comes fishy and meaty. So how are we going to create a Vegan Paella then? That's the big question ain't it?

Well there is multiple tricks involved here. First is that we will use my other base recipe: Vegan Fish Stock. With the Vegan Fish Stock we will make sure that the paella gets the taste from the sea. Secondly we will try to imitate traditional Ingredients: Vegan Scallops, Chorizo and Chicken Breast.

Vegan Chorizo Alternative nowadays can be found in pretty much all organic shops (hopefully) and most of them quite often resemble the original taste quite well if fried thoroughly and used within a bigger recipe. So we got that.

The same actually goes for Chicken Breast. I cannot speak for the whole world but for chicken breast there is such awesome vegan alternatives based on soy or pea protein that you probably won't be missing a single thing.

So let's jump into the ingredients and create an awesome Paella 😋

Prep Time ~15 Minutes
Cooking Time ~25 Minutes
Yields A Family amount of Paella

Ingredients

  • 250g Risotto Rice
  • 1,5-2L of Vishstock (if you are too lazy to do this you will miss out on special taste but you can replace it with Vegetable Broth then)
  • 1 or 2 Vegan Chorizo Sausages (Most organic markets have those on stock. In Germany I can recommend those from "DM")
  • 200g Cherry Tomatoes
  • 1 big Red Onion
  • 1 Yellow Bell Pepper
  • 1 Red Bell Pepper
  • 50g Olives, cut in slices or halves
  • A big handful of (frozen) green peas
  • 1 Organic Lemon
  • 100ml White Wine
  • ~7 Saffron Threads
  • 1/4tsp of Tumeric Powder
  • 150g Vegan "Chicken" (optional. Tastes also awesome without it)
  • 1 Nori Leaf (optional)
  • Olive Oil

Ingredients for the Vegan Scallops

  • 2 Big King Trumpet Mushrooms
  • 1tsp Sugar (best: Palm Sugar)
  • 1tbsp Mushroom Sauce (alternatively Soy Sauce)
  • 1tsp Dulse Algae Flakes

So what makes this recipe better than some of the other Paella recipes is the fact that we do not cook everything for 30 minutes until everything is as soft as cream 😅.

We will try to make this paella taste as fresh as a paella can be by cooking and frying separately. Before we will start the cooking session we will do the preps to not get overwhelmed with multitasking whilst cooking ☝🏽.

Preparations

  1. Take a small glass and add 3tbsp of water, the saffron threads and the tumeric and stir it in the glass.
  2. Cut the Onion into quartered slices.
  3. Cut the bell peppers into big, sliced chunks.
  4. Cut the lemon in big slices.
  5. Cut the Trumpet Mushrooms into 2-3cm (~thick as a thumb) thick round pieces. With a sharp knife scratch the pieces 4 to 5 times on the surface roundabout 1mm (as if you were trying to make an invisible pattern on it).
  6. Cut the Chorizo in round, flat pieces.

Recipe Instructions

Making the Paella Rice

  1. Take a big pan e.g. a Wok and add a good amount of Oil (~7tbsp) and heat it up to medium-high heat
  2. Start frying the raw risotto rice together with the onion and stir well such that it will get slightly brown. Do this for ~3mins.
  3. Add the white wine and deglaze the rice with it
  4. Add the saffron-tumeric mix that we prepared in the glass
  5. When the rice has soaked the wine we will start adding the broth and the nori leaf. For that we will always only add around 200ml and then let the rice soak the liquid. Once the rice has soaked the broth add once more 200ml and so on and so forth until all Broth (Vishstock) is gone. Whilst this process we will make sure that the rest of our ingredients gets ready.

Cooking the Ingredients

We are cooking the ingredients separately to maintain the best taste and consistency overall.

  1. Take another pan and start frying the peppers such that they get a barbecue-grill-like texture. Put them aside.
  2. Do the same with the small tomatoes and give them a brownish skin by frying them.
  3. Fry the chorizo pieces.
  4. Fry the "chicken" pieces.
  5. Take the sugar, the mushroom sauce and the algae and marinate the mushroom pieces for 1 minute. Then put the marinated mushroom pieces aside. We will fry them right before serving.

Finishing up the lovely Paella

  1. Once your broth is fully soaked by the rice and the rice has a good soft consistency we will add all of the side ingredients on top of it.
  2. Add the frozen green peas and fold them in the paella rice and slightly cook altogether for 2 minutes so that the peas can thaw properly.
  3. Add the olives, the chorizo, the "chicken", the pepper and the lemon pieces now and stir.
  4. Add the tomatoes into the paella now.
  5. Lastly fry the Vegan Scallops (your marinated mushroom pieces) on each side for 1 minute.
  6. Now serve the Paella on plates with the Vegan Scallops on top of it.
  7. Enjoy your selfmade Paella 😌 🌱