Vegan Omelette Recipe
Today we are making a Vegan Omelette Recipe! Gram flour takes the limelight in this egg recipe. It is also known as “besan” in India. It’s what we call it in my house, and what my parents and grandparents know it by! This flour is the real deal – it comes from pure ground chickpeas. In Indian cooking, some notable recipes I’ve used these in include pakoras (onions/potatoes/other veggies covered with a besan liquid coating and fried), roti (thin pitas), halwa (a soft mix between pudding and a cake is the best way I can explain it), ladoo (besan + butter balls), and more!
Personally, I used to eat a ton of eggs. Boiled with a bit of spices, scrambled egg, cheese omelettes, french toast dipped in egg, and all things eggy. Before when I became vegan, I didn’t understand why eggs weren’t meant for humans. That’s a whole other story, but you can read about it here if you aren’t aware.
I just took eggs out of my diet overnight, for the most part. Didn’t try to find a replacement, except for this one time where I bought a small, expensive carton of “vegan egg.” I’ve had a hard time finding vegan eggs in the past, but now with the rise of Just Egg and other companies in the vegan protein niche, it’s amazing to see the options!
I don’t recall the texture of the vegan egg carton I got way back in 2015-ish (it was sub-par if I remember correctly), but I think homemade foods like this omelette today more closely remind me of recipes I used to make when I was not vegan, rather than buying a boxed mix.
What is Cheela?
Cheela (also known as Chilla) is an Indian recipe for a chickpea flour omelette, usually eaten at breakfast/brunch. It’s essentially an Indian version of an eggless omelet! It consists of diced veggies like I have used in this recipe, spices, and besan with water to form a mixture. Adding the tofu to this recipe makes it more filling and higher in protein, so why not?
I added a spice called chaat masala to top this off, but I didn’t add this to the ingredients list because you can really add whatever spices you prefer on your omelette. Chaat masala is in many Indian recipes, but I love to use it on everything. It is a powdered mixture of dried mango powder, cumin, coriander, ginger, asafoetida, chili powder, salt and pepper. Ahem, you are missing out if you don’t go buy this spice right now in your local Asian supermarket aisle.
Why You’ll Love This Vegan Omelette Recipe
High Protein Without Egg: One cup of besan has 21 grams of protein! I love that this recipe uses a substitute that’s the same as the protein in regular omelettes. For context, one medium egg has about 5.5 grams of protein, with two eggs in an omelette having 11 grams. That’s about the same as this recipe, which uses half a cup of besan (11.5 grams protein) for one omelette!
There’s an option below under the Substitutions section on how to choose the milk to make the recipe even higher in protein (using a high-protein milk instead of water)!
Add vegan cheese inside or on top of the omelet, or even one tablespoon of nutritional yeast into the batter. This gives it a cheesy flavor (and adds Vitamin B and protein into it)!
Substitutions
Olive Oil: Substitute with avocado oil, refined coconut oil (this type should not smell like coconuts) or vegan butter.
Besan Flour: This is otherwise known as just besan, chickpea flour, garbanzo bean flour or gram flour. It makes an amazing substitute for real eggs, but it comes from dried chickpeas!
I also love using besan to make tofu scramble or substitute it in many places where eggs have been required in cooking (such as an Egg Fried Rice).
Onion: I used red onion, but you can also use white onion which will make it sweeter.
Water: Substitute the water with a neutral plant-based milk of choice, such as oat milk. To make this recipe even more high protein, use a milk high in protein such as Silk’s cashew-almond milk or soy milk (around 9-10 grams of protein per cup for these, depending on the brand).
Black Pepper: Freshly ground black pepper from peppercorn is best, but you can also use pre-ground black pepper.
Pink Salt: Use regular salt instead.
Black Salt (Kala Namak): This is used in Indian cooking a lot. You can find it in Indian grocery stores or Asian marts. Black salt is a type of rock salt that’s also known as “Himalayan black salt.” This adds an amazing flavor to the recipe, but you can omit if you don’t have it.
Serve This Vegan Omelette Recipe With
- To serve, add cherry tomatoes and green onions on top, with a dollop of vegan sour cream.
- Sprinkle it with fresh herbs, such as fresh parsley!
- Get some vegan sausages and serve on the side.
More Vegan Recipes You’ll Love
Orange Yogurt & Blueberry Compote Parfaits
If you make this Vegan Omelette Recipe, then leave a comment and star rating! Don’t forget to tag your photos @peanut_palate on Instagram. Enjoy!
Vegan Omelette Recipe
Equipment
- Large Nonstick Pan
- Large Spatula
- Whisk
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ½ cup besan (chickpea flour)
- ½ cup water
- ¼ small onion diced
- ¼ cup spinach chopped
- ⅛ red bell peppers diced
- ⅛ block firm tofu crumbled
- pink salt, black pepper, kala namak as per taste
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the spices, water and besan until no clumps of besan remain. The mixture should be thinner than pancake batter, similar to making a regular omelette.
- Heat up a large skillet over medium heat on the stove, and add the oil.
- Once the stovetop is hot, pour the chickpea batter into the pan, making it circular like an omelette.
- Sprinkle over the diced veggies at this point, except for the tofu and spinach (which you can toss in any spices you like – ground coriander, roasted cumin, chaat masala, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder or just salt and papper). Allow one side to cook for a couple minutes.
- Use the spatula to lift up one edge to check whether it's cooked or not before flipping. Once it seems cooked, carefully flip the omelette.
- Allow it to cook for a couple minutes on the other side. You can now add in the spinach and tofu.
- Once the other side is halfway cooked, flip one half of the omelette over the other (like in the photos above) so it is a folded omelette with the spinach and tofu inside.
- Cook each side of the flipped omelette for a few more minutes until it is fully cooked on either side. The spinach and tofu should also have warmed up inside the omelette too.
- Remove from the skillet and serve it hot!
