This Vegan Potato Bake (Potatoes au Gratin) with Mushrooms and Zucchini is comfort food at its best! It’s creamy, flavorful, “cheesy”, healthy, satisfying and very easy to make! Perfect as a main course or side dish for a delicious dairy-free holiday lunch or dinner!
Do you guys have a special dish that reminds you of your childhood? To me, it is creamy Potatoes Au Gratin because I grew up with and it has always been one of our family favorites. I just changed a couple of things to make it healthier and vegan. However, even in the dairy-free version, it is still one of the best comfort foods and my family loves it, too! So if you have ever found yourself looking for new ideas on how to use potatoes in a simple but delicious way, this Vegan Potato Bake recipe will quickly become your new favorite!
The perfect potato recipe in one dish
Instead of using several pots and pans to cook everything separately, you can make this creamy and “cheesy” Vegan Potato Bake in just one dish! And the best is, that it’s prepared in only about 10 minutes, and even though you‘ll also have to add in baking time, fortunately, you don’t need to do anything to it while it’s baking in the oven. So you can spend the time doing anything else that has to be done in your household. This is also a reason why my mom loved to make it on busy days after work, by the way.
Easy Vegan Potato Bake
This Potatoes au Gratin is really very easy to make. There are basically two steps required for this recipe. You need only prepare the vegetables (Potatoes, Mushrooms, and Zucchini) and blend up the ingredients for the vegan cheese sauce in a blender, which takes less than 5 minutes. Then you just need to pour the sauce over the potatoes and veggies and put it in the oven for an hour. It couldn’t be easier!
Scalloped Potatoes with Plant-based Ingredients
If you make a traditional dish of Potatoes au Gratin, they usually contain ingredients that aren’t vegan or gluten-free. This healthier dish, however, is made with only plant-based ingredients, so it contains no heavy cream or dairy cheese. The sauce is made of cashews which make the consistency super thick and creamy. I kept the recipe very simple, however, it’s pretty similar to my Vegan Alfredo Sauce.
Vegan Potato Bake with Mushrooms and Zucchini
I love adding healthy vegetables to my meals, so I also added mushrooms zucchini in this Vegan Potato Bake Recipe because they’re perfect for layering with the Potatoes. Also, I like adding pumpkin, tomatoes, spinach, carrots or sweet potatoes. However, you can add any vegetables because it’s a very versatile recipe, so feel free to mix and match to your wish.
This Potatoes au Gratin is:
- Vegan
- Gluten-free
- Dairy-free
- Soy-free
- Paleo-friendly
- Healthy
- Creamy
- Cheesy
- Easy to prepare
- Tastes like scalloped potatoes
- Absolutely delicious!
- The perfect comfort food for any holiday gathering!
Looking for healthy side dishes?
In case you‘re still looking for some healthy and delicious side dishes that make a great accompaniment to this Vegan Potato Bake you could check out my Mushroom Wellington, Vegan Meatballs, Falafel, Eggplant Fritters, Crispy Cauliflower Nuggets, Lentil Couscous Patties or Sweetpotato Falafel. I would love to see a comment of what you do with this recipe, so if you decided to make it please let me know!
Vegan Potato Bake (Potatoes au Gratin)
Ingredients
For the Potatoes & Veggies:
- 2 lbs Potatoes (750 g) peeled
- 1 Zucchini (200 g) or sub more potatoes or other veggies
- 7 oz Mushrooms (200 g) optional
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion sliced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
Creamy Cashew Sauce:
- 1 cup cashews * (140 g) soaked in hot water for 20 minutes
- 1 cup vegetable broth (240 ml)
- 1 cup non-dairy milk (240 ml) or water
- 1/2 tsp salt plus more to taste
- pepper to taste
- 4 tbsp nutritional yeast optional
Toppings:
- 4 tbsp Vegan Cheese optional
- fresh chives optional
- pine nuts optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 355°F (180°C) and grease a baking dish* with a little oil.
Prepare the Veggies:
- Thinly slice zucchini and very thinly slice potatoes. (Zucchini should be sliced a bit thicker than potatoes.) *
- Heat the oil in a large pan. Add onion and mushrooms and fry for about 4-5 minutes, until lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook for another minute while stirring, then set aside.
Make the Cashew sauce:
- Drain and rinse the cashews. Put them into a blender along with non-dairy milk, vegetable broth, salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast. Blend for a few minutes until smooth.
Assemble the Gratin and bake:
- Heat up the cashew sauce in a pot (optionally, to reduce the baking time).
- Spread half of the sliced potatoes and zucchini in the baking dish. Top evenly with half of the cashew sauce, then spread over the onions, garlic and mushrooms. Layer the rest of the potatoes and zucchini, then the rest of the mushrooms and sauce. (Make sure that the veggies are well covered with the sauce).
- Bake the potato bake for about 50 minutes or until the potatoes are fork-tender and soft. (If it gets too brown during baking, cover the dish with tin foil or baking paper. But note that the potatoes need more time to cook through when the dish is covered).
- Optionally, sprinkle vegan cheese over a few minutes before done and continue baking until melted, about 5-10 minutes.
- Garnish with chopped chives and toasted pine nuts or other toppings you like.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- I used a 10x7-inch baking dish and a mandolin slicer for slicing the potatoes and zucchini.
- The bake time may vary depending on how thick you sliced the potatoes or if you covered the dish during baking.
- If you don’t have a blender to blend the cashews, you can use cashew butter (or any other nut butter).
- If you’re allergic to nuts or don’t have any on hand, you can sub coconut cream (the thick part of coconut milk after chilling a can for 24 hours).
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How about cooking in a Crock-Pot?
I don’t have one but feel free to try it! 🙂
I made this on Friday night and LOVED it. Even my meat-eating husband loved it. I used shredded brussel sprouts in place of the zucchini. Yum!
So glad you liked this vegan potato bake! Thank you for your feedback! 🙂
I am so excited to make this, it looks so simple and delicious! If substituting the Cashew sauce with nut butter or coconut cream, what’s the process? Should I stir in the broth and non-dairy milk? Thanks 🙂
Hi Kate, you can either substitute nut butter for the same amount of cashews (140g), then mix with the non-dairy milk and stir in the broth. Or you can use just coconut cream (380ml) instead of the cashews + non-dairy milk, then just stir in the broth. Hope you’ll like the recipe! 🙂
Wow what a dish since becoming vegan I’m finding that a lot of food is now becoming a lot of work. I then found Bianca and boy is your food amazing! This one in particular so easy to make and absolutely delicious thankyou so much.
Hi Jessica, Thank you so much for your feedback! So glad to read that you like my recipes! Lots of love, Bianca <3
Hi Bianca-my daughter has a tree nut allergy. Can you give an alternative for the cashews? She CAN eat peanuts, but I’m not sure if that would be an acceptable substitution. Thanks so much!
Hi there, since peanuts have an intense flavor, I’m not sure if that will taste delicious. But can she eat almonds?
I just made this over the weekend. Brilliant recipe, thank you so much. It was a hit! I think what’s important is to use good stock and ingredients, because the whole dish is mostly flavoured by the cashew sauce. I also added carrots and topped the dish with rosemary. Definitely going to make more of it. Great for dinner parties too.
So glad to hear that you liked it 🙂 And thank you for the recommendation! Love that you added carrots too! <3
Hi just wondering whether you could substitute cashews for almonds and use almond milk in the sauce?
Yes, sure! Just make sure to soak the almonds overnight before blending them. 🙂
I made it the other day and it was soo delicious! Especially the cheesy sauce! I will use it for many more recipients 🙂
thanks for sharing!
So glad that you liked it! Thank you! ?
Hey! Absolutely love this recipe and I’ve only made it twice now. The only thing is each time I make it the sauce turns chunky after it’s cooked. It’s still delicious but looks like cottage cheese lol do you know why this might happen?
So glad that you like this recipe! Honestly, I don’t know why your sauce turns into cottage cheese. I’ve never had this before. Did you blend the sauce in a highspeed blender until completely smooth and creamy? Maybe your blender has not enough power? Or maybe it’s because of the type of potatoes you use? Or you could try to cover the baking dish. Hope this helps.
Lots of love,
Bianca
I made this the other day and it was the best dinner for holiday evening. ??I used a lot of sauce and added tomatoes! It’s really great for a family dinner and I’m super grateful for the recipe ??
So glad that you liked this recipe! ?
You can never have enough sauce and tomatoes, right? 😀
Lots of love,
Bianca ❤️
Thinking about making this tonight – do you think sweet potatoes will be a good substitute?
Hi Amanda,
Sweet potatoes sound good to me! ?
Honestly, I’ve never tried this before but feel free to do it!
Let me know how it turned out.
Lots of love,
Bianca ❤️
Bianca, this meal looks so delicious and filling. I bet your kitchen smelled amazing. It’s cold here, I wish this were on my table, haha. Take care, Dee xx
So glad that you like it, Dee!
Would love to share with you ?
Lots of love,
Bianca ❤️
This potato bake looks so comforting and yummy! I love delicious hearty casserole recipes. 🙂
Much love, Ela
Thank you, Ela!❤️
I absolutely agree with you ?