This veggie-packed vegetarian gumbo recipe is made in a slow cooker, so it’s super easy to make—and it’s a healthy vegan option as well! Kidney beans, zucchini, and mushrooms, replace the meat in this healthy, goodness-packed slow-cooker stew. And don’t worry! The heat is still there with the addition of Cajun seasoning and hot sauce. If you’re not opposed to meatless sausage, Field Roast’s Mexican Chipotle Sausage would be a great way to add some heat (and a little faux meat) too.
Servings: 4 -6 servings
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 yellow onion chopped
- 1 green bell pepper chopped
- 2 stalks celery chopped
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
- 1 15 oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 8 oz white mushrooms quartered
- 1 small zucchini cut into thick half moons
- 1 cup frozen okra sliced
- 2 tbsp vegetarian worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp cajun seasoning
- 1 bay leaf
- salt and pepper to taste
- hot sauce and cooked rice for serving
Instructions
- Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, bell pepper, celery, and garlic and cook until softened and just beginning to brown, 8–10 minutes. Transfer veggies to a 4–6 quart slow cooker.
- Return the Dutch oven to the stovetop and heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in it. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until it's golden brown, about 4 minutes. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil; once the broth has come to a boil, transfer it to the slow cooker. Add all of the remaining ingredients to the slow cooker except the hot sauce and cooked rice.
- Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 6–8 hours. Once the gumbo has finished cooking, remove the bay leaf and add more salt and pepper to taste if needed. Serve over rice with hot sauce.
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44 Comments
JulieD
January 22, 2014 at 9:16 amSo what if it doesn’t have meat or seafood, it looks like a big plate of comfort to me!! Yummy!!
Kiersten Frase
January 22, 2014 at 10:21 pmIt totally is! 🙂
Alexis @ Hummusapien
January 22, 2014 at 9:30 amLove this veggie version of the classic! I’m been going slow-cooker crazy, so I eat up every veggie-friendly recipe I find 🙂
Kiersten Frase
January 22, 2014 at 10:20 pmI loooove my slow cooker! When you’re busy, it is SO nice to have dinner ready and waiting. 🙂
Liz
January 22, 2014 at 12:11 pm“Don’t be afraid to be a little inauthentic. I mean, it’s just food. If your […] tastes good, does it really have to be a perfect replication of the original? No! […] Enjoy your food for what it is!”
Amen to THAT! People just take things WAY too seriously these days, ESPECIALLY food (to the point of being judgemental, snooty and, in the end, exclusive and offensive; Top Chef contestants are like the Inuit, but instead of having 50 words for “snow”, it’s 50 for “puree”). Like you said, it’s JUST food. Don’t complicate it, and, by all means, ENJOY it. There should never really be any rules when it comes to food; taste is such a subjective thing, anyway. As long as one is thoughtful, conscientious and aware of where their food is coming from and how it’s produced, what you do with it is fair game. 🙂 Unconventionality usually equates with originality, which usually wins out for me. 🙂
Kiersten Frase
January 22, 2014 at 10:19 pmYes, a lot of people will get caught up in the right or wrong way to do things, but really, unless you’re doing something that could cause food poisoning, fire, or the loss of a limb, there’s no right or wrong with cooking as long as it tastes good in the end. I think that fear of doing things wrong keeps a lot of people out of the kitchen, which is sad!
Dixya @ Food, Pleasure, and Health
January 22, 2014 at 2:33 pmim all about making changes to the traditional recipes – this is surely going to be a hit 🙂
Kiersten Frase
January 22, 2014 at 10:15 pmMe too–I very rarely make things the way they’re supposed to be made. 😉
Allison Drake
January 22, 2014 at 4:02 pmThis looks delicious! Can you suggest a replacement for okra? We can’t get this in Australia!
Kiersten Frase
January 22, 2014 at 10:14 pmYou can omit it entirely, double the zucchini, or add a yellow squash instead. 🙂
Lynn @ The Actor's Diet
January 22, 2014 at 4:42 pmI love this! I’ve got a crockpot red beans and rice recipe that would go great with this! Here it is:
http://theactorsdiet.com/2011/02/19/soaked/
Kiersten Frase
January 22, 2014 at 10:10 pmThat would definitely be perfect! 🙂
Gayle
January 22, 2014 at 6:38 pmI love your website! I was so tired of my old standby’s. You have given me a reason to go on cooking.
Kiersten Frase
January 22, 2014 at 10:10 pmI’m glad you’ve found it helpful! 😀
Joanne
January 22, 2014 at 8:39 pmOne of the things that I discovered about the.boy that surprises me in a major way is that he loves okra. It’s very uncharacteristic of him. I love okra too so this is totally happening.
Kiersten Frase
January 22, 2014 at 10:09 pmHa! There are times when I love okra and times when I hate it. I was pretty ready to pick the okra out of my gumbo, but surprisingly, I liked it. But yeah, it’s not exactly the most popular veggie.
Georgia @ The Comfort of Cooking
January 22, 2014 at 11:15 pmLove this delicious, hearty gumbo, Kiersten! It looks so warm and comforting… and filling!
Kiersten Frase
January 24, 2014 at 8:39 pmIt’s definitely filling, especially when served with a big bowl of rice!
Helen @ Scrummy Lane
January 23, 2014 at 3:11 amTotally agree that things don’t HAVE to be authentic – doesn’t matter in the slightest!
Nice site, by the way!
Kiersten Frase
January 24, 2014 at 8:38 pmThank you! 🙂
Genevieve
January 24, 2014 at 1:26 pmI like your philosophy – I’ve seen other bloggers get attacked by readers for making “inauthentic” versions of traditional dishes, but I think the point of having a blog is to be creative and contribute something different from what everyone has already made! I wouldn’t know what authentic gumbo is anyway, but this sounds good to me and the mexican field roast sausage would be perfect in it!
Kiersten Frase
January 24, 2014 at 8:27 pmI’ve seen the same! It’s such a silly thing to get upset about, isn’t it? Some people have too much time on their hands! 😉
Natalie @ Once Upon a Cutting Board
January 24, 2014 at 2:20 pmI hate when people leave comments like you can’t call this X, true X only has this, this, and this .. If we never experimented with dishes then so many delicious ones would never have been invented (not to mention food would be pretty boring)! Traditional gumbo has never really appealed to me but this version sounds great!
Kiersten Frase
January 24, 2014 at 8:26 pmYeah, those comments bug me too! I don’t get too many of them (I guess because people coming here are already assuming my recipes will deviate from the original since they’re meatless!), but I see some pretty intense arguments on other blogs and I feel bad for those bloggers!
Helen
May 10, 2014 at 6:29 amMaking this tonight using leftover butternut squash and parsnip soup as part of the mix 🙂
Kiersten Frase
May 13, 2014 at 2:21 pmI think those would both be awesome additions!
Nikki
August 23, 2014 at 3:48 pmI picked up some fresh okra and peppers at the market today. Do you think this recipe will fare well with fresh okra instead of frozen? I’ve never cooked okra before…
Kiersten Frase
August 27, 2014 at 5:40 pmI’ve never cooked with fresh okra before either, only frozen! I think it should work out either way, but let me know how it turned out if you made it.
Shavavian
October 27, 2014 at 8:52 pmI made a giant pot of this tonight and it is TAS.TY. I’m very happy with how it turned out. I used fresh okra instead of frozen, and cooked them with the other ingredients listed in the first step so they wouldn’t be slimy and disgusting. That is the only thing I did differently and I will definitely be making this again in the future. I already screenshot the recipe to my computer!! 🙂 Thanx!!
Ryan
November 14, 2014 at 12:12 pmAs the husband of a vegetarian-who-doesn’t-cook (and as a non-vegetarian), it’s been frustrating trying to come up with tasty vegetarian dishes that can be made easily to support my wife. It’s hard when you’ve been raised with meat @ every meal and there seems like so little time in every day to spend researching and experimenting on making things vegetarian. I made this gumbo yesterday for my wife and I was amazed how good it all turned out! (I’m looking forward to the leftovers this weekend!) I’m glad that I stumbled upon your website—it looks like a great resource going forward. I think I’m going to try out a weekly dinner plan next. Thank you!
Eirin
November 22, 2014 at 8:31 pmDo you have a suggestion on how to make a gluten free roux? I am thinking a GF flour mix should do the trick. Just wondering if someone has already tried that. Thanks.
Kiersten Frase
November 26, 2014 at 2:35 pmI’m not gluten-free, so I’ve never made a gluten-free roux before. I know that with gravy, some people use cornstarch or arrowroot powder as a thickener, so that might be an option.
Vannessa
January 4, 2015 at 6:10 pmWhat if I don’t own a dutch oven? Is a big pot ok?
Kiersten Frase
January 6, 2015 at 3:57 pmI developed this recipe for a slow cooker, so while you can make it in a pot on the stove, the cook time is going to change significantly.
yvonne
February 15, 2015 at 5:52 pmI made this gumbo – AWESOME!!!!!! At the end I threw in a bag of frozen precooked baby shrimp. quite tasty
Jillian
April 21, 2015 at 12:11 amThis looks very tasty. I am making this tomorrow !! But I was wondering if I could substitute brussels sprouts for the Okra? I’m not really sure if this would work Thanks
Kiersten Frase
April 24, 2015 at 3:00 pmSorry for being a few days late with my reply – Brussels sprouts will work, but they won’t thicken the gumbo like okra does.
Lauren W.
June 19, 2015 at 10:09 amOkay this seriously turned out AMAZING! I can’t even put into words how much I enjoyed this dish! Thank you so much!!
Matthew Kneale
September 16, 2015 at 12:18 amI found the can of tomatoes made the meal taste way too acidic. Next time I might try using fresh tomatoes and add some brown sugar.
Harrison
January 2, 2016 at 1:55 pmThis is absolutely delicious!
Julie
May 1, 2016 at 10:57 amSo you think this would work if you prepare everything The day before and just start The cockpit? It is a lot to prepare in The morning with everything Else…
Kiersten
May 5, 2016 at 9:05 amIf you prepared everything the day before, I’d refrigerate it and then put it in the crockpot the next morning – it shouldn’t be left room temperature in the crockpot overnight.
Aguilera
March 14, 2017 at 3:27 pmI’m a little confused. Its called Gumbo, but that’s not what the picture shows. I’m a cajun from South Louisiana, so I’m quite familiar, and I make my own vegetarian Okra Gumbo that’s a big hit with even the meat eaters. However, when you eat gumbo, its in a bowl with lots of liquids and you put a big scoop of rice in before using the soup spoon to add the gumbo. This looks VERY dry. Is it supposed to be like a gumbo with lots of liquids like a soup, or is it more like a stew like it looks in the picture? There’s no picture of the pot with the gumbo in it, so I’m not sure if its the same consistency as the picture or if it has all the liquids and can be eaten like a soup with rice.