Vegan Stuffed Grape Leaves (Yalanjee)

These middle eastern stuffed grape leaves are the perfect healthy appetizer for any time of the day, weekend and it’s a crowd pleaser in any gathering! They are naturally vegan, and gluten free friendly!

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This is such an old post, with bad photos that really needed an update. While the new photos are not extravaganza by any mean, but you can see the difference below. I love these grape leaves, but I love them more when I share them with others. This kind of appetizer is created to be shareable, and it even tastes better when you share it!

Here are some raw leaves from mom’s vine leaves. They look so good when you spend every afternoon under them sipping some tea or coffee with the family. See the photo below 🙂

I love how nutritious they are, I try to use natural ingredients as much as possible. I know the leaves may not be available where you live, but the ones with brine solutions are good too.

The leaves should be pressed in the pot, and you should put some weight above or a plate to keep them tight and not get flattened.

I’ve mentioned above that gluten free, because usually the filling is made of rice. But I used bulgur in this recipe, because it’s more nutritious and gives a nutty delicious taste. You can make the leaves soft or little crunchy by adjusting the amount of water and oil you are using. You can change or substitute items in the filling, but I recommend following the recipe as it as, to get that tangy yummy taste!

These leaves are tangy and really tasty and little be sweet because of pomegranate molasses. Enjoy!

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I’ve started a series “Arabic cuisine” featuring my traditional food. Today the dish is Vegan stuffed grape leaves.

I posted before a stuffed grape leaves recipes, this one is completely different. Therefore I’m dedicating another post to it. This type of recipe is preferable by women, since they prefer to have it as snack for mornings gatherings. Also because its freezer friendly, so you can make it ahead with a help of your daughter, mother, a friend or even the neighbor!

Here you can check how to fold the leaves. In this recipe it’s a bit tricky, since the bulgur is expanding through cooking.

These leaves are mostly eaten cold with a splash of lemon. They are totally vegan, and can be a gluten free too. But I used bulgur, because its a great whole grain that is versatile, and very nutritious.

Grape leaves 

You will find many variations of this recipe in the Arabic countries. This one is Syrian. There are the Iraqi one called dolma and Lebanese make it with a different filling using chickpeas. And I love this version with brown rice.

Remember grape leaves are:

• Low calorie food, and high in fibers. Which means they will fill you up without much calories.
• Also they are high in vitamins like A and K.
• And has good amounts of essential minerals like calcium, and iron.

Now invite a friend over, and make these delicious stuffed grape leaves together! Lets get to the recipe

Shop the recipe 

Yield: 4

Vegan stuffed grape leaves

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours

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Ingredients

• Half cup of uncooked bulgur or 1/4 cup of uncooked rice(for gluten free)
• 2 Tb of pomegranate molasses
• A bunch of parsley minced
• 1 medium Roma tomato minced
• around 50 grape leaves
• 1 tsp olive oil, and another Tb
• Juice of 1 medium lemon
• 1 small onion minced
• Pinch of salt.

Instructions

1. Soak the bulgur for 15 minutes with little water, and some lemon.
2. Wash the leaves, and drained them very well to get rid of the brine solution.
3. You can boil them for 5 minutes to make them tender. But you can skip this step( I did skip it).
4. Add the veggies, to the bulgur, and mix them.
5. Add lemon, pomegranate molasses, salt, and olive oil.
6. For every leave, put a tsp of filling, and fold it.
7. Put them tightly in a small or medium pot. cover the leaves with plate or bowl over, and the cover the pot with a tight lid.
8. Add just enough water to cover leaves and let them on the stove on high heat for 10 minutes, then on low heat for 1 hr.
9. Serve it cold, you can keep it for 2 to 4 days in the fridge.

Notes

It's better to use coarse bulgur, so it won't get mushy thru cooking

You can freeze the leaves before cooking.