This Italian & vegan lemon scaloppini is our vegan adaptation of a very popular dish in Italy, "scaloppine al limone". Our healthy vegan meat cutlets have a perfect flavour, just like the original recipe. We cook them in a simple yet delicious and creamy lemon sauce.
For the vegans, lemon scaloppini is perfect if you are missing meat texture and flavour. For the aspiring vegans, this dish will blow you away, and it will give you an idea of the wonderful world of vegan cooking and eating.
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🥬 Ingredients & substitutions
Vegan meat cutlets: you will need to make these before hand to cook this Italian vegan lemon scaloppini. Don't worry, the procedure is easy, and you can follow our step-by-step instructions here --> "How to make vegan meat cutlets". Just make sure you do it a day or so in advance as the vegan cutlets need some time in the refrigerator before you can cook them.
Vegetable broth: use the broth left over from cooking the cutlets. It can be replaced with water.
Lemon juice: is a key ingredient in this recipe and will add acidity and flavour, so make sure you get freshly squeezed juice.
Seasoning: we use rosemary, thyme, sea salt and pepper for this recipe, as used in Italy in the original recipe of "Scaloppine al Limone".
Flour: we call for all purpose flour to coat the vegan meat. You can use cake flour, rice flour or corn starch if you want a lighter coating.
Olive oil: to fry the scaloppini. Can be extra virgin but this is not necessary.
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Vegan Lemon Scaloppini - Italian Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 homemade vegan meat cutlets <-- click link for our full recipe
- 4 tbsp all purpose flour
- 1 lemon juice
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp rosemary
- 1 tsp thyme
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp sea salt fine
- 1 cup vegetable broth the same you used to cook and store the homemade vegan meat cutlets in
Instructions
- IMPORTANT BEFORE YOU START: making homemade vegan meat cutlets is very easy, however, our advice is to make it a day in advance as the meat needs to rest in the fridge for at least 8 hours before you can cook it into a lemon scaloppini.
- Squeeze the lemon and set the juice aside. Add all purpose flour to a tray or large plate. Then take your homemade vegan meat cutlets out of their marinating broth, let drip the liquid away, and dip the meat in flour on both sides till well coated.
- In a non stick pan, warm up the oil on medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the floured vegan meat, and cook on each side for about 1.5 minutes, or until golden. Season both sides with salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme.
- Add the lemon juice to the pan, then add one ladle of the vegetable broth (you can also just add water). Cook for another 2 minutes, turning the meat once or twice, until the broth is reduced into a creamy sauce. Serve immediately.
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Notes
Nutritional Values
👨🏻🍳 Top tips
Use fresh lemon juice
Lemon juice is the star of this vegan lemon scaloppini recipe, so make sure to squeeze a fresh lemon just before your cook the vegan meat. Avoid bottled lemon.
Use broth
Use vegetable broth instead of water to finish cooking these Italian lemon scaloppini. The broth will add extra flavour to both the meet and the creamy sauce.
Add flour to the sauce
Flour is not only used to coat the scaloppini, but also as a thickening agent of our sauce. When you add the broth to the pan to finish cooking the scaloppini, also add one tsp of flour to the pan. With the help of a wooden spoon or small whisk, help the flour dissolve in the broth. This will make the sauce of the scaloppini extra creamy.
Season with fresh rosemary
The combination of fresh lemon juice and fresh rosemary will take you straight to Italy! We recommend using fresh rosemary that you left out in the open for a few days, rather than using pre-packaged dry rosemary. The thing is, rosemary is so widespread in Italy that no-one really uses dried one. So to get closer to real Italian flavours, use fresh rosemary.
📖 Questions & answers
Scaloppini (scaloppine in Italian) is a thinly sliced cut of meat and is a type of Italian dish that comes in many different varieties and sauces. It consists of thinly sliced meat, most often beef, veal, or chicken, that is coated in wheat flour and sautéed in one of a variety of reduction sauces.
In our vegan scaloppini, we use homemade vegan meat cutlets that we make with vital wheat gluten to reach a texture and flavour as close as possible to the one of veal or chicken.
🍜 Variations
You can use the same homemade cutlets just like regular meat, so you can be creative and cook it in your favourite sauce. We like there two variations:
1. Mushroom Scaloppini: delicious vegan cutlets cooked in a creamy mushroom sauce. A staple of Italian secondi piatti that will impress any non-vegan meat eaters.
2. Cotoletta alla Milanese (similar to a Wiener Schnitzel): a crunchy breaded and deep fried cutlet, super delicious and indulgent! Perfect for a Friday night!
🥫 Storage
Vegan lemon scaloppini are best cooked and eaten immediately. You can however store the homemade vegan meat cutlets (before cooking them in the lemon sauce) in a container in their own cooking broth and in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. This is the best way to have a quick dinner almost ready during the week.
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If you have any tips or questions let us know in the comments below!
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