Oxtails and oxtail stew is a popular food in many cultures. You’ll find it eaten in various ways in Jamaica, Africa, and the Caribbean. Switching to a plant-based diet means cutting out oxtails from your diet, but there are some great vegan recipes.
When you’re craving oxtail stew or another oxtail dish but need a meatless option, these are some of the easy vegan oxtail recipes you can add to your menu rotation.
1. Vegan “Oxtail” Stew by Crunchy Vegan
One of the best and easiest recipes you can try is from Crunchy Vegan. It’s a take on Korean oxtail stew, and it’s perfect on a warm day. You can make the recipe even easier by using pre-cut veggies, but you’re more than welcome to chop your own if you have the time or don’t mind.
The recipe requires veggies like peppers, onions, potatoes, celery, and carrots. You’ll need to use vegan seitan chunks for the “oxtail” part of the dish. You can find this at most health grocery stores or online.
Once you’ve chopped all your veggies, you’ll combine the veggies, the seitan chunks, tomato paste, water, garlic, soy sauce, olive oil, thyme, allspice, and a little bit of brown sugar. You’ll simmer the mixture for about 30-40 minutes or until the potatoes are fork-tender.
2. Plant-Based Mocktail Stew by Kosher Everyday
This plant-based mocktail stew is the perfect comfort food when you want all the flavors of the comforting meal without any animal protein. Plus, it’s healthier. It’s excellent comfort food when it’s cold out, but you can make it whenever you want since it’s simple.
Instead of oxtails, you’ll use high-protein, extra firm tofu to mimic the meat of the original dish. For extra protein and flavor, you’ll use chickpeas. Other ingredients you’ll need include onions, garlic, vegetable stock, molasses, green onions, tomatoes, tomato paste, and several seasonings.
This recipe includes crushed red pepper flakes, but you can add more or leave it out altogether if you don’t like spice in your dishes. The recipe only takes about 35 minutes but tastes like you’ve been cooking it all day. It freezes well and even tastes better the next day.
3. Slow Cooker Vegan Oxtail Stew by LA Commons
Slow cookers make recipes ten times easier than when you cook them on the stove. This slow cooker vegan oxtail stew is one you need to try when you want a hearty and delicious meal without much effort.
You’ll need various ingredients to make this dish as delicious as possible. You’ll use oyster mushrooms, jackfruit, and chickpeas to add protein to the dish and mimic the oxtails. As for the other ingredients, you’ll need plenty of garlic, sweet peppers, cumin, maple syrup, kidney beans, and any other veggies you want to incorporate.
The essential seasonings to make this vegan Caribbean oxtail stews are jerk and island spices. You can cook it on low for five to six hours or high for three to four while you go to work, run errands, or do anything else you might need to do.
4. Vegan Oxtails With Mushrooms by Unconditional Vegan
The Unconditional Vegan released one of the best vegan oxtail recipes you can’t pass on trying. It takes a bit more work, but it’s still super easy and tasty. You’ll need portobello mushrooms which serve as the “oxtails.”
You’ll combine the ingredients used to make a marinade: molasses, liquid smoke, garlic and onion powder, allspice, and a few others. You’ll rub this onto the mushrooms and bake them for about 45 minutes. Once they’re out, you’ll shred the mushrooms into pieces.
The recipe requires you to make a vital wheat gluten mix to wrap around the mushrooms, and it’s worth the extra effort. You’ll combine the rest of the ingredients in a pot, simmer for ten minutes and then serve it with rice, or eat it on its own.
5. Nox-Tail Soup by Kim Adrian
This recipe by Kim Adrian is more vegetable-based than protein. She uses only veggies rather than tofu or jackfruit, but it has all the flavors you crave when making an oxtail stew. The primary ingredients are leeks and white beans of any kind. You’ll need to use canned beans or soak dried ones in water the night before.
You’ll need a large pot for this recipe. First, you’ll add a hefty amount of olive oil to the bottom of a pot before adding all your chopped veggies. The veggies you’ll need are carrots, leeks, squash, garlic, and tomatoes.
You’ll add water and white wine to allow all the ingredients to cook together. As for the seasonings, they’re rather basic, but you can add whatever you want. Kim Adrian uses thyme, parsley, salt, and pepper.
6. Vegan Oxtail by Premadonna Cooks
A great vegan version of Caribbean oxtails is this recipe by Premadonna Cooks. To get the protein you usually would with oxtails, you’ll need black eye peas, butter beans, and black beans. You can use mushrooms if you want, but they’re optional for this recipe.
Besides the beans, you’ll need carrots, onions, and bean flour to create a similar flavor profile to traditional oxtail stew. Premadonna Cooks has her line of seasonings that she uses for this recipe, but you can use whatever brand as long as it’s the same seasonings.
You’ll want to combine all your beans, bean flour, and mushrooms to get a doughy texture to resemble the meat. To get your vegan oxtail stew to be as flavorful as the meat version, you’ll need seasoning salt, pepper, garlic powder, adobo seasoning, sage, thyme, and oxtail seasoning.
7. The Best Vegan Oxtail by How to Cook Channel
Oxtail and butter beans are a staple in Jamaican culture, and this recipe will have you forgetting that you’re eating a vegan version. Once you have all your ingredients, making the “meat” mixture is simple, and cooking is even easier.
For the “oxtails,” you’ll need bean flour as a binder, mushrooms of your choice, black eye peas, and lentil peas. You’ll mash this with onion powder, garlic powder, seasoning salt, black pepper, and oxtail seasonings. You’ll also need a little water to get the consistency you want.
You’ll form the dough into a log and stick celery into it before cooking your stock. The stock requires water, plenty of veggies, and the same seasonings you used for your vegan oxtails. You can use whatever veggies you want, but tomatoes, bell peppers, and onions are the best.
8. Quick and Easy Vegan Oxtails by Yardie Belly TV
While many vegan oxtail recipes use mushrooms, beans, or a combination of both to create that meaty texture, Yardie Belly TV uses jackfruit as the base for their “oxtails.” You’ll still need black-eyed peas and bean flour to help bind everything together.
You’ll also need butter beans to serve it with, ginger, garlic, onion, celery, carrots, bell peppers, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, ketchup, and a slew of other seasonings to make this as tasty as possible. You’ll combine the jackfruit with seasonings and bean flour to make your faux oxtails.
From here, all you have to do is cook the vegan oxtails in oil with all your veggies and create a sauce with soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup. Allow the sauce to thicken, and then you’re ready to eat!
9. How to Make Vegan Oxtails (Noxtails) by Mindful Plate
Going vegan doesn’t mean you need to miss out on delicious Caribbean oxtail. The recipe is gluten-free and soy-free. You’ll use oyster mushrooms, black-eyed peas, and chickpea flour to combine everything.
For the marinade, you’ll use whatever you would put on the meat. You can use steak sauce, garlic powder, Worchester sauce, etc. It’s really up to you and your taste buds. You’ll combine your marinade with shredded mushrooms, black-eyed peas, and chickpea flour to create a dough.
Using a food processor is the easiest way to blend it all together and then form them into patties or balls. For the sauce, you’ll use classic oxtail veggies, peppers, onions, butter beans, tomato paste, tomatoes, and any seasoning that you prefer. You’ll cook until the sauce is thick and more like a gravy.
10. Jamaican-Inspired Vegan Oxtails by Ghetto Vegans
All oxtail recipes have tons of flavor, but this recipe by Ghetto Vegans might be the most flavorful one on this list. They use the brine that comes with the jackfruit to add flavor and help bind the “meat” mixture together, plus a ton of other seasonings.
Just a handful of the ingredients you’ll need to make this Jamaican-inspired vegan oxtail include browning seasoning, ginger, minced garlic, yellow, red, and green bell peppers, onion, and ketchup, mushroom dark soy sauce, and Jamaican allspice.
Cooking the recipe is easy. You’ll combine all your ingredients into one pot and simmer until the sauce thickens a bit. You can add more seasoning as you cook it to make sure it tastes exactly how you prefer. Letting it simmer for 30 minutes to an hour is the ideal cook time.
11. Easy Plant-Based Oxtail Stew by Aquafaba Test Kitchen
If you’re looking for a vegan oxtail recipe that doesn’t utilize jackfruit or mushrooms as the base for your fake oxtails, this one by the Aquafaba Test Kitchen is a great option. They use cauliflower gnocchi and Beyond Meat Italian sausage as the main ingredients!
This recipe only takes about 47 minutes, making it an easy weeknight meal or when you need something hearty fast. They recommend using the Beyond Meat hot Italian sausage, but you can use a mild version if you’re sensitive to heat.
You’ll need other ingredients to make this recipe: olive oil, garlic, onion, soy sauce, ginger, smoked paprika, water, tomato sauce, and a pack of cauliflower gnocchi. You’ll bake the faux sausage in the oven first before adding it to the pot with all your veggies and other ingredients and bringing it to a simmer.
12. Caribbean Stewed Vegan Oxtails by Chef Korenn Rachelle
One of the Queens of vegan meat dishes, Chef Korenn Rachelle, elevates regular Caribbean stewed oxtails with this entirely vegan recipe. You’ll start by shredding or pulling apart your oyster mushrooms to get a shredded “meat” texture.
You’ll use a seasoning mix to coat the mushrooms to give them extra flavor. The mixture can be whatever you want, but the recipe calls for garlic powder, soy sauce, a little bit of pepper, salt, and smoked paprika.
After this, you’ll sear the mushrooms. Then you’ll combine that with the flour of your choice to create a log. Chef Korenn Rachelle uses rice paper to roll the “oxtail.” All you have to do now is mold, cut, and then cook it with whatever your heart desires.
13. Gluten-Free, Spicy, Vegan Oxtail Recipe by My Dominican Vegan Cooking Show
This vegan oxtail recipe is spicy, so watch out if you’re sensitive to spice. They use jackfruit to make their faux oxtails, but unlike other recipes that utilize the brine it comes with, you’ll want to rinse the jackfruit with water to ensure there’s no salt or brine left on it.
After this, you’ll mash it together to create more of a paste with garlic, allspice, parsley, and any other dry seasonings that you like with your “oxtail.” You can use a food processor, but if you want to make it like this chef, it’s best to use your hands before baking it for 20 minutes.
Once it’s finished baking, you’ll use a bit of bean flour to mold them into balls or another shape. After making your vegan oxtail, you can make whatever sauce you prefer and cook it into the sauce before serving.
Easy Vegan Oxtail Recipes, Final Thoughts
Several vegan recipes show you how to make vegan oxtails but also ones that show you how to make the famous stews they’re usually served in. Whether you want something more classic or to doctor up the recipes to make them your own, these are the best vegan oxtail recipes next time you’re craving oxtail.
If you are looking to add more vegan dishes to your cuisine, check out these delicious vegan meatloaf recipes.