This easy nut roast is a family favourite. It’s a staple for a vegan roast dinner and is always popular at Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. Our recipe is quick to prepare with just 10 ingredients and is rich in nutty flavour.

For serving up on the dinner table, the nut loaf looks great decorated with a line of walnut or pecan nut halves placed along the center line of the roast.

Table of Contents

Ingredient tips
Making Breadcrumbs
Step by step
Variations & substitutions
Serving
Storing and freezing
FAQs
📖 Recipe

There are a lot of recipes out there for nut roast. But there’s two reasons why we’ve been making this nut roast pretty much every week for more years than I can remember:

Because it’s so easy!

There’s hardly any prep work. You just need to chop and fry an onion and some garlic. Then all you need to do is whizz up the nuts in a food processor and mix everything together. Just like that, it’s ready to go in the oven!

Because it’s so yummy!

The other thing that sets this recipe apart from other nut loafs is that it’s super nutty and doesn’t contain tons of ingredients or filler. I don’t know about you, but I think nut roast should be full of nutty flavour, and not taste like vegetables.

This recipe is inspired by the famous Nut Roast from pioneering vegetarian restaurant Cranks which opened in London in the 1960s. We made a few adaptations to make the loaf hold together and be easy to serve and slice.

It's a great centrepiece for your vegan Christmas or Thanksgiving celebrations. But it's also a recipe that's simple to make for an everyday family meal.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Ingredient tips

Here’s what you’ll need for this vegan nut roast:

Nuts - we tend to use a mix of peanuts, cashews and walnuts. We buy organic nuts in bulk for better value. And because you’re grinding them anyway you can get the pieces rather than whole nuts to save a bit more!
Breadcrumbs - you can make your own (instructions below) or use shop bought. We find this nut loaf the perfect way to use up the end of a loaf that has gone a bit dry.
Onion and garlic
Olive oil - for an oil free version you can use some broth to sauté the onions and garlic.
Dried herbs - we like herbs de provence or using dried herbs from our garden.
Veggie stock - we use Marigold Swiss Bouillon Powder to make our stock. You can use your favourite vegan bouillon or homemade broth.
Soy sauce - this enhances the umami taste and adds seasoning to the nuts. We like to use organic soy sauce which has a really full bodied flavour.
Chia seeds - these help to bind the nut loaf so it holds together well and is easy to slice.
Dried cranberries - these are optional, but they add a nice subtle sweetness and a special festive twist if you are cooking this nut roast for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

The ingredients for the nutroast recipe: Different types of nuts, breadcrumbs, an onion, some garlic, dried herbs, vegetable bouillon, soy sauce, chia seeds and dried cranberries.

Making Breadcrumbs

We’re always saving any stale bread and transforming it into breadcrumbs to use later.

Here’s how to make your own breadcrumbs at home:

You can use white, wholemeal, and other types of bread. Wholemeal bread is what we like to use for this nut loaf recipe.
Cut your stale or toasted bread into cubes and process in a food processor until fine.
If the bread isn’t dry enough to blend finely, you can spread it out on a baking sheet and bake at 150ºC (300ºF) for a few minutes. Then blend again.
Store breadcrumbs in a jar or airtight container. For long term storage we keep them in the freezer.

A food processor bowl containg bread cubes, next to a loaf of bread and bowl of breadcrumbs.

Step by step

You'll find the full recipe in the card below, but here's a handy visual overview to the steps.

Finely diced onions sauteeing in a frying pan.

Step 1 - In a frying pan, saute the diced onion and garlic in olive oil until soft, translucent and just starting to brown.

The mixed nuts have been ground to a slightly grainy texture in a food processor.

Step 2 - In a food processor pulse the nuts until fine.

The nuts, now ground and the onions finely chopped and sauted, are combined with the other ingredients in a bowl.

Step 3 - In a mixing bowl, combine the ground nuts, sauteed onion, breadcrumbs, soy sauce, herbs, chia seeds, optional cranberries and vegetable stock.

The nutroast mass is transferred into a loaf tin lined with greaseproof paper. The surface is flattened with a silicon spatula.

Step 4 - Fill a lined tin with the nut mixture and smooth off the top with a spatula.

After baking, the loaf of nutroast in the baking tin has darkened and crusted up.

Step 5 - Bake in a preheated oven at 180C / 360F for 30-40 minutes until the top is browned.

The cooked nutroast is firm enough to be flipped out of the tin onto a board ready for slicing.

Step 6 - Leave in the tin to rest for 10 minutes, before placing a board or serving plate on top, and flipping over to remove the roast from the tin.

Variations & substitutions

You can vary the nuts to your taste. Experiment with pecans, hazels, almonds, chestnuts or even pumpkin or sunflower seeds.

As an alternative to soy sauce, you can use 2 tsp of Marmite or yeast extract mixed with 4 tsp boiling water.

The cross section of the sliced nutroast reveals a moist, grainy texture and a few cranberries.

Serving

We love our nut roast served with:

Roast potatoes and glazed carrots
Some caramelised onions
A good helping of vegan gravy
Sautéed kale or steamed broccoli
Some homemade cranberry sauce

Nut roast is also yummy served cold. And leftovers make a great sandwich filling.

A vegan roast dinner plated up. There's a slice of nutroast with some cranberry sauce, golden roasted potatoes, steamed broccoli, roasted carrots, and some gravy on the plate.

Storing and freezing

Leftovers easily keep for three days in a covered container in the fridge.

This nut roast also freezes well. You can freeze it before cooking, directly in a lined tin.

After it’s frozen solid, you can take it out of the tin with the baking paper, and wrap in more paper and foil or an airtight bag for longer storage. Simply return to the tin to defrost overnight and cook as normal.

You can also freeze cooked leftover roast. We like to freeze individual slices separated by parchment paper. That way, it’s really convenient to defrost as many portions as you need.

FAQs

What can I use instead of chia seeds?

You can use an equal amount of ground flaxseeds as they also help to bind the loaf and absorb moisture. You don't need to mix them with water to make flax eggs, just stir the flaxseed into the nut mixture.

What consistency should the nut mixture be before baking?

For best results, you want a moist mixture that can hold its shape - this produces the best nut roast texture.

If you have a wet mixture that seems a bit runny after resting for a few minutes, then you can adjust it by adding more dried breadcrumbs. Your mixture can be too wet if you use fresh breadcrumbs which have much more moisture, or if the nuts are very coarsely ground.

The consistency of the mixture should be moist, but not wet. — Nut roast mixture consistency before baking.

How can I make this vegan nut roast recipe gluten-free?

To make a gluten-free nut loaf, make sure to use gluten-free vegetable stock or bouillon and use gluten-free tamari sauce instead of soy sauce.

For the breadcrumbs, you can make your own from gluten-free bread or use store-bought. Gluten-free certified ground oats also make a great alternative. Replace the 1 cup / 100g breadcrumbs with 1 cup / 80g of oats that have been pulsed in a food processor until you have coarse oat flour.

How can I make it advance?

If you're making this nut roast for the holiday season or Christmas dinner then it's really convenient to make a day ahead. Make the mixture as directed in the recipe, fill it into your prepared loaf tin, cover the tin and then store in the fridge overnight and bake as normal the next day.

Do I need to line the tin?

If you want a really neat roast for a special occasion, then we highly recommend using a lined loaf pan. To save time, you can line the base and sides with one piece, and simply grease the ends with oil.

Can I make a bigger nut roast? How about mini ones?

Yes, for a bigger roast you can adjust the servings in the recipe card to 9 portions to make one and half times the roast.

Double the mixture is too much for a standard loaf tin, so if you need more portions then make two roasts. For cute mini roasts, check out our Individual Nut Roasts recipe.

The whole loaf of nut roast served topped with walnut halves on a wooden board next to a dish full of baked potatoes.

We hope you enjoy this easy nut roast recipe! We invite you to try our other nutty vegan recipes:

Our Vegan Nut Burgers are a great nut roast alternative for the summer.

These Vegan Almond Crescent Cookies make great gifts (for both yourself and your friends!)

And this Vegan Mushroom and Walnut Pate is always a hit at parties!

📖 Recipe

Comments

5 from 100 votes (68 ratings without comment)

Easy Nut Roast

Ingredient tips

Step by step

Variations & substitutions

Serving

Storing and freezing