These dairy-free Meaty Mushroom Vol-au-Vents are fantastic hearty appetizers to serve at dinner parties, or to serve as side dishes with dinner.

Spring entertaining time is here, and once again, the almighty puff pastry comes to the rescue - with help of one of my favorite veggies!

I love making vol-au-vents for parties, or even for side dishes for family dinners.

Vol-au-vents are basically stuffed puff pastry cups. They are usually stuffed with some sort of meat and cream sauce, but today's recipe proves you do NOT need a lot of meat or heavy cream to make these hearty appetizers so delicious and satisfying!

Making Dairy-Free Meaty Mushroom Vol-au-Vents

Meaty Mushroom Puff Pastry appetizer recipe

This dish starts with store bought or homemade puff pastry sheets. Most common store brands are vegan - they use vegetable oil instead of butter - but you can check the label of your store brands just in case.

To make the puff pastry cups, you simply take two sheets of puff pastry, cut out 18 3-4" circles, then take half of those circles and cut out 1-2" center circles. Place the one with the cut-out circle on top of the whole circles, and that creates the cup as the pastry bakes!

I always like to make little designs with the extra puff pastry dough, and made some small stars, flowers, and leaves with this latest batch.

While the puff pastry is baking in the oven, it's time to make the filling.

Mighty Mighty Mushrooms

The star of this dish is in the main attraction in the filling: the mighty mighty mushroom.

I love mushrooms. They're fat-free, cholesterol free, low in calories, and provide important nutrients like vitamin D, B vitamins, antioxidants and potassium. I use them for my fast lunch recipes, to help bulk up chilis and stews, and love them simply sautéed with some white wine and vegan butter.

In recipes like this one, I blend finely chopped mushrooms with meat to create more delicious, nutritious and sustainable meals. This is also an easy way to get some hearty nutritious vegetables onto the plate!

The mushrooms, ground turkey, garlic, and herbs sauté up fairly quickly in vegan butter, and the puff pastry is usually done baking around the same time the filling is done cooking.

Allow the puff pastry to rest for a couple of minutes before filling. Then garnish with fresh tarragon, thyme, or micro arugula, as I did here.

Blenditarian Pledge

I love this dish for mushroom vol-au-vents because it's super delicious but also very satisfying, and doesn't involve too much meat. The mushrooms really help add some richness and depth to this dish, and bring out the flavor of the herbs quite nicely.

I've long been a Blenditarian - someone who combines mushrooms with meat in recipes - because I adore mushrooms, and it's important for me to always provide some vegetables at every meal. Blending mushrooms and meat into the main entree, side dish, or appetizers is an easy - and tasty! - way to accomplish that.

Are YOU a Blenditarian too? Make the pledge to be a blenditarian and share what drives you to do better! Plus: take the monthly Blenditarian Challenge (you could win $250!)