Serves: 4

This savoury version of the classic French dish is amazing! Caramelised, balsamic onions, white wine, thyme and cheese make for an amazing combination of flavours. Be prepared to devour this in one sitting!


Ingredients

  • 300g puff pastry block (eg Jus-Rol. Use GF if necessary)
  • 50g/2 oz vegan butter or spread (our favourite is Naturli)
  • 1-2 tbsp thyme leaves, finely chopped
  • Pinch salt and pepper
  • 3-4 large onions, peeled and sliced into 1 inch chunky rings (keep all of the rings whole)
  • 60ml/¼ cup vegan white wine
  • 60ml/¼ cup vegan stock
  • 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbsp syrup (eg maple or agave etc. Optional)
  • 100-150g/4oz vegan cheese of your choice, grated (we used Violife Prosociano and it was delicious!)
  • Soya milk for brushing (or other plant milk of your choice)

Directions

1Preheat the oven to 190ºC (fan)/375ºF/Gas Mark 5.

2Roll the pastry out to around 0.5cm thick and cut a circle around an oven-proof frying pan (ours is 12″ diameter), leaving around 1cm excess around the edge. Put in the fridge while you make everything else.

3Using your oven-proof frying pan, melt the vegan butter/spread then add the salt, pepper and thyme. Arrange the onion chunks in the pan. Cook them over medium heat, on one side, for around 20 minutes until they start to get nice and brown.

4Turn them over and add some chopped up onion to fill in any gaps. Cook until the other side has browned.

5Pour the veg stock, balsamic vinegar, syrup and white wine over the onions. Cook until the liquid has reduced by half (approx 5 mins).

6Remove the pan from the heat and then sprinkle the grated cheese over the onions. Lay the puff pastry over the onions in the pan and tuck the edges of the pastry just underneath the onions by around 0.5cm (following the outline of the pan to keep a circle).

7Brush the pastry with a little soya milk then place the pan in the oven and bake until golden brown (around 20-25 minutes).

8Remember the pan handle will be really hot (we’ve forgotten this a fair few times!) so use an oven glove or tea towel when flipping! Place a large plate over the top of the pan and flip it over allowing the tart to slide onto the plate, onion side up.

9Serve with salad or steamed veg and enjoy.

Recipe from Maryanne Hall from Viva!’s Vegan Recipe Club

7 COMMENTS

    • Hi Bill,
      No adjustments are required if you substitute the ingredients for animal-derived alternatives! We’d love to hear how it goes, and which cheese you choose!
      Happy cooking!
      Elena

  1. I will definitely try this as I love tarte tatin and love quiche! What’s wrong with politically correct? It’s good to have vegan/gf as default for a change! As I’m doing Veganuary and my daughter is coeliac, it’s good to see that it can be done with GF and vegan ingredients (although most ready rolled pastry, including gf, has animal fat in it, so for consistency …) However, as it’s nearly February, I think I’ll do with actual butter next week!! One other thing about tarte tatin (apart from the upside-down cooking that gets that caramelised flavour), is the rich pastry is often grated on top of the apples – not sure this works with ready-rolled pastry, especially shortcrust, so it may be worth trying with home-made pastry from a tarte tatin recipe. I will try that and let you know.

  2. I have just made this with ‘ordinary’ ingredients. I did not add the maple syrup and used a mixture of grated cheddar and gruyere because that is what I had. I also put the cooked onions into a tarte tatin dish which I had greased with butter and added the reduced liquid plus the cheese then the pastry. I have not cooked a tarte tatin before and the puff pastry seemed to shrink from down the sides and sit on the top so I turned it out into a quiche dish in case it went everywhere, but having allowed it to cool for about 20 minutes, it kept its shape when turned upside down. My husband is my critic and he suggested 1/2 tbsp of balsamic rather than 1. I’m not sure I would notice the difference. I will definitely do again and with a side salad and a glass of wine, a great Saturday lunch for all seasons!

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