Nine Shannon Martinez Recipes So Good, You Won’t Believe They’re Entirely Plant-Based

At chef and restaurateur Shannon Martinez’s Melbourne venues Smith & Daughters, Smith & Deli and Lona Misa, the food just happens to be vegan. Martinez has been instrumental in changing how Australians think about plant-based dining, putting dishes on her menus that replicate the joy, texture and flavours of their meaty counterparts – and proving that just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean you should feel like you’re missing out. Her ethos is distilled in this collection of Shannon Martinez's nine best recipes published on Broadsheet, which span dessert, hangover-busting noodles and even deep-fried mac’n’cheese. Ditch those pallid supermarket mock meats and get cooking.

When a dish has just three components and one of them is cheese, you'd expect it to be tricky to vegan-ify. Not if you're Martinez. Her plant-based cacio e pepe has all the creamy payoff of the original – even if it does require a couple more ingredients than the OG.

Extra punchy and extra spicy, this is not a dish for the faint of heart. It’s got everything you want in a comfort food: thick noodles, protein (in the form of vegan mince), and a brain-melting, ginger-, chilli- and Sichuan pepper-loaded broth that ties the whole thing together.

Thought eggs were a non-negotiable in making fluffy Japanese-style soufflé pancakes? You hadn’t banked on the vegan wizardry of Martinez, who makes hers with soda water instead. What is a non-negotiable in this recipe, though, are metal rings which help achieve that desirable thickness of pancake.

Punters cross state lines to eat Martinez's tiramisu, the recipe for which she generously shares in her latest cookbook Vegan Italian Food. Just like the original it's layer upon layer of sweet creaminess tempered with coffee-soaked biscuits – but unlike the mascarpone- and egg-starring archetype, it is entirely vegan,

Meet your new hangover cure: a one-pot wonder on the table in less than 30 minutes. Carbs, essential to feed a hangover, come in the form of pasta that’s cooked in a vegetable broth (adding that salty-savouriness hangover-induced nausea demands) with a sprinkle of reviving chilli flakes.

It’s pasta, it’s cheese and it’s deep-fried – need we say more? These plant-based packages are ideal for couch-based snacking, or served as finger food at your next party. And they’re surprisingly easy to make.

You can do a lot with meatballs: toss them through spaghetti, pile them onto a roll, covertly snack on them straight out of the fridge. Martinez's vegan versions are just as versatile. As she says: “The world is your meatball.”

Martinez says this pudding – a spin on the classic British sticky toffee pudding – is a total crowd-pleaser. And it has a secret ingredient: garam masala, an aromatic savoury spice blend she uses to balance out the often sickly sweetness of this dessert.

These Sichuan-style noodles might look like they require a whole new pantry of ingredients, but there’s a good chance you’ve already got them at hand. (And if you need to stock up on a few spices and seasonings, that’s no bad thing: all the better for making it again next time.)