It’s Passover time! This Vegetable Kugel is chock full of potatoes, sweet potatoes, zucchini and leeks. Yum!
Now that Purim and SXSW are over, my mind is only on one thing. Sleep! Okay two things, sleep and Passover. And vegetables. Alright, three things. Well, this Vegetable Kugel recipe has two out of three of those things. Not too bad! And if you use your kugel as a pillow it has it all. A lot of people I know don’t get as excited as I do about Passover, and I can see why. Mushy gefilte fish, those weird jelly fruit things, no beer for 8 days. But I love it! I love the challenge of chametz free cooking and an excuse to eat matzo ball soup for every meal. Plus, flourless chocolate cake (recipe coming soon), an excuse for a dinner party, and lots of wine!!
I’ve got TONS of Passover recipes ready to share with you, and even more in our first ebook! First up, vegetable kugel. But not just any vegetable kugel, this one has sweet caramelized leeks, sweet potatoes, zucchini. It makes a great pareve side, or I like to top mine with Greek yogurt and eat a piece for lunch. Best part is, it’s easy!
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. First, slice light green parts of leeks into rounds and heat up a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add a tablespoon of oil and leeks with 1/4 teaspoon salt and turn heat to low. Sauté, stirring often until slightly browned and translucent.
Meanwhile, grease a casserole dish with oil. Shred up the remaining vegetables- potato, sweet potato, zucchini, onion and garlic and remove as much water as you can with paper towels. This is important for a dry kugel! Combine with leeks, eggs, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, matzo meal, remaining salt and pepper in a large bowl. You can even use gluten free matzo meal to make this gluten free! If you mixture is wet, add in a little more matzo meal. Pour mixture into the casserole dish and bake for 45 minutes until kugel is cooked through and topping is browned.
Let cool slightly, cut into squares and eat!
You can even make this ahead and reheat in the oven when ready to serve. Don’t you love all the colors??
Vegetable Kugel with Caramelized Leeks
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil divided, plus more for greasing the pan
- 2 large leeks or 3 small leeks, sliced into rounds
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt divided
- 1 large russet potato (about ½ pound) washed well and peeled right before using
- 1 large sweet potato (about ½ pound) washed well and peeled
- 2 medium zucchini (about ½ pound) washed well and NOT peeled
- 1 medium white onion (about ½ pound)
- 3 medium garlic cloves
- 3 large eggs beaten
- 3 tablespoons matzo meal
- ½ teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 9 casserole dish with oil and set aside.
- Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add a tablespoon of oil and leeks with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Immediately turn heat to medium-low. Sauté, stirring often until slightly browned and translucent, about 10-15 minutes.
- Shred up the remaining vegetables with a hand grater or food processor- potato, sweet potato, onion, zucchini, and garlic and remove as much water as you can with paper towels. This is important for a dry kugel! Combine with leeks, eggs, ¼ cup vegetable oil, matzo meal, remaining salt and pepper in a large bowl. If is very wet, add in a little more matzo meal.
- Pour mixture into the casserole dish, smooth over with a spatula, and bake for 45 minutes until kugel is cooked through and topping is browned.
- Let cool slightly, cut into squares and eat!
Amy, what a beautiful, healthy, and creative idea!! I have a young nephew who needs to avoid gluten. I can easily make this gluten free by taking my gluten -free matzo and making meal in the food processor. Thanks for this recipe!!
Great idea, Gloria! I’ll add that as a note too. Great to hear from you! 🙂
Hi do you have nutritional info on this?
Can you substitute carrots for sweet potato?
Sure I think that would work!
I am gluten-free and made this using gluten-free matzoh meal. I did double the amount called for as my veggie mix was pretty moist after only using three tablespoons. It was very good!
Great! Happy to hear it.
This was a huge hit at the seder table. I saw that someone thought it was bland. I don’t like black pepper, so I needed to do some substitutions anyway. This Kugel can handle any (savory) spices or herbs that you want to use! I added chopped fresh rosemary, and a spice mix by Penzey’s called “Sunny Paris” (shallots, chives, green peppercorn, dill weed, basil, tarragon, chervil and bay leaf). Fresh dill, thyme, chives, or parsley would be great (you’ll be buying the parsley anyway), or you could finally use that cool spice mix you keep forgetting you have! Onions upset my stomach, so I chopped up the green part of a bunch of scallions instead. It’s hard to go wrong with this recipe!
Thanks! Good idea to add some extra spices!
Can’t wait for the Passover recipes! I need to get crackin’! And can you believe I have never made kugel?? I need to get on that!
Ooh yes get on that! Potato kugel is the best!!
If not making for passover, what can you sub for the matzo meal?
Thank you
This looks amazing! Also, I think this is the first time I realized we live in the same town. It seems like about 50% of all my favorite recipes come from you, so I guess it makes sense that we have similar taste.
Aw thanks, Jillian! I love to hear that.
I am making this for seder this year! It was hard to choose between all your amazing recipes!
Aw thanks, Becky!!
The kugel is just beautiful and that is not easy to do with a kugel. I also need a vegetable recipe so I am so glad I found this post. I featured the recipe on my Friday Five – Passover addition over @Feed Your Soul Too – http://www.feedyoursoul2.com/2014/04/friday-five-passover-addition-2.html
Thanks so much for featuring me, Peter!
I just love this Kugel!
It has everything that we like
I will just use potato starch instead of the matzo meal (we don’t use matzo meal at all)
Thanks!
Thanks- enjoy!
I clicked on this because it has a Vegan label, but I notice that there are eggs in the recipe- can they be substituted?
Oh yes, it works with vegan egg substitute!! Sorry about that.
Is the matzo meal/breadcrumbs critical? Will it work without any bread?
It helps bind it all together. I haven’t tried with no binding at all.
I’ve been thinking of making this for a while. I made it last night, with more eggs and more matzoh meal (because it was a bit wet). Anyway, it turned out great ! Thanks for this recipe.
Awesome glad you liked it!!
Oh, also, I used carrot instead of zucchini, and much more garlic… a whole head of garlic…. muhahahaha!
Nice! Keeps away the vampires.
LOL.
Can I assemble the day before and refrigerate until baking? Or have you tried making ahead and freezing? If so, how do you defrost and reheat? Thanks so much.
Hi Karen! This kugel does freeze very well. I’d defrost in the refrigerator and then heat covered in the oven, uncover for the last 5 minutes to crisp the top. Alternatively, you can make it ahead of time, bake it, and keep it refrigerated for up to 3 days before serving too. Reheat in the oven. Hope that helps!
So helpful. Thank you. I love your site.
Aw thank you so much! I’m doing an event with the Federation in St Louis next month! Hope to see you there!
Yes, I found it on the calendar. It’s a Young Adults event, but maybe I can crash it!
We are doing more than one event- stay tuned!
Looks like a perfect seder side dish! If I make it ahead of time and reheat – how long and on what temp should I reheat it for? Thank you!
Thanks! It’s better made fresh, but I would do 300 for 20-30 minutes until warm.
This recipe is absolutely delicious! I have to say though that it took me a lot longer than 30 minutes of prep time for this recipe…washing, peeling, and shredding all those veggies, patting them dry, etc. It took more like over an hour to prep everything before it went into the oven
So glad you enjoyed it!!
Hi Amy- The Vegetable Kugel w Carmelized Leeks looks delicious and so perfect for Passover as a side dish. Have you ever made these in individual servings by baking them in greased muffin pans? I’m making another kugel in a 13 x 9 pan, so thought I might vary them by making these in the muffin tins. Please let me know if this will work and if, like in your original recipe, they can be made ahead and frozen, then re-heated. Thanks. Elana
Hi Elana,
Individual servings would totally work! Maybe just cook 10 minutes less. These are always better fresh or refrigerated and then reheated if you can!
This is really good, but doesn’t hold together well enough to cut into squares. Could I make it in muffin tins?
It should hold together! Make sure the mixture is very dry. But yes, you can make them in muffin tins too, I’d check doneness at 35 minutes.
I made this for Seder tonight and it was a huge hit. I squeezed the mixture with my hands and couldn’t believe how much liquid came out. Then I also dried with a paper towel. I made it earlier in the day and it reheated perfectly. Thanks so much for this terrific recipe.
So glad! Happy Passover!!
I made this for our vegetarian Passover dinner. It looked SO beautiful when it came out of the over that I thought everyone would love it, but it was so bland no one wanted more than one bite. I followed the recipe exactly. Any ideas on how to make it tastier?
Hi Mary,
I’m surprised! I’ve made it a ton of times. Did you caramelize the leeks completely and use enough salt?
Yes, I did caramelize the leeks and squeezed out the veggies in a tea towel. The recipe only calls for 1 teaspoon of salt, and half a teaspoon of pepper, which looking back seems like not nearly enough for that amount of veggies.
1 teaspoon is plenty for this smaller sized kugel (9×9 inch pan), but you are welcome to add more if you like or sprinkle a little on at the end to taste.
Also make sure you really dry out the vegetables. With that you should have better luck next time!
Hi Amy do you have nutritional info on these?
Sorry, I don’t track nutrition.
This looks great and I will try it if I can find matzo meal in Vancouver, Canada. So, I am giving you a comment and some stars. Will you go on my website and give me a comment also? I own Magnetewan Books, a feminist publishing house in Vancouver at http://www.radioladies.ca – you don’t have to order a book, just leave a comment or go on the Facebook page which is linked and leave a comment. I will also plug your book on my Facebook page if you plug mine (smiley face).
Awesome! Reminds me of our Hanukkah”confetti” latkes. Pretty and delicious
Ooh yes this would make a fun latke too!
TEN stars! ??????????
What would you suggest I use instead of matzo meal, if not making for passover. Thank you
You can still use matzo meal or panko.
I was not impressed with this… I drained all the water/juice, as directed and it just seemed like a blah, strangely textured concoction. Wouldnt recommend. I expected it to be crispy and savory. It ended up actually being quite sweet.
Sorry you didn’t enjoy! The sweet potatoes and caramelized leeks are sweeter vegetables so that may be what you took as sweet. The edges are cripsy, but the overall texture is supposed to be creamy. Especially since this is mostly not russet potatoes, which have more starch than the vegetables in this recipe. If you are looking for a crispier more savory kugel, I would recommend one using all russet potatoes.
I agree, it is bland. I am surprised with all these good reviews. The recipe is missing something.
Agree. Made according to directions but mine didn’t look as pretty/colorful. Didnt taste good. It seriously needs help. I figure I can probably salvage them for a side later in the week by adding more spices and some cheese and a dipping sauce of some kind. I hate throwing away veggies.
Sorry it didn’t turn out well for you! I’m not sure how it didn’t get colorful if you used all the veggies. Cheese would be a good addition too!
Big hit during sader.
So glad!