Today I want to show you how to make tasty radicchio and mushroom crepes that are light and vegan. The base crepes are made with chickpea flour and they are dressed with a light oil-based béchamel made with plant milk. Simply delicious.
They aren’t even difficult, it’s just that there are several steps to follow but it’s worth it especially for the holiday table: they’ll be perfect to serve to your family at Christmas, for example. And you can bake them in the oven or use an air fryer as you’ll see later, which is really convenient if the oven is already full with other dishes.
I recommend preparing the béchamel, mushrooms and radicchio in advance, even a couple of days before. You can also make the crepes the evening before but not much earlier otherwise they tend to dry out and become less flexible — as happened to me, one tore while rolling. But nobody complained, we devoured them! Let’s get cooking.
You can find other light vegan first courses for the holidays here:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Budget-friendly
- Rest time: 20 Minutes
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Cooking time: 1 Hour
- Portions: 8 crepes
- Cooking methods: Oven, Stove
- Cuisine: Healthy
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter, Christmas
Ingredients
For the crepes themselves I refer you directly to my recipe instead of rewriting everything, read here: Vegan crepes with chickpea flour. The recipe is for 8 crepes and we need exactly 8 crepes.
The béchamel is also made with my recipe, here is the procedure: Light vegan béchamel, but use the quantities indicated below, since we need a smaller portion.
- 3 tbsp flour
- 4 tsp extra virgin olive oil (4 measuring teaspoons)
- 1 1/4 cups plant-based milk (unsweetened and unflavored)
- to taste nutmeg
- to taste salt
- 1/2 radicchio
- 14 oz mushrooms
- 1 onion
- 1 garlic
- 2 tsp extra virgin olive oil (2 measuring teaspoons)
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast (about 2 measuring tablespoons)
- to taste spices (to taste: thyme, sage, marjoram…)
- to taste salt
- to taste pepper
- Total points = 23 WW points
- Points per 1 crepe = 3 WW points
Tools
Here are the main tools for the preparation. You can use either the oven or the air fryer. If you use the air fryer you need a pan, even aluminum, that fits well in the basket.
- Frying pan
- Whisk
- Air fryer pan
- Air fryer
Steps
As mentioned, you must follow this recipe exactly: Vegan crepes with chickpea flour, you will obtain 8 crepes like these:
For the béchamel you must also follow this recipe: Light vegan béchamel but with the quantities indicated above, since we need a smaller portion, a bit more than half the recipe. To the béchamel add, besides salt and nutmeg, 2 teaspoons of nutritional yeast to flavor it and keep the rest of the nutritional yeast to assemble the crepes. Here is the béchamel:
Clean the radicchio of the toughest parts and slice it into strips. Keep a little raw for decorating the final plate if you like. Chop the onion and sauté it with a teaspoon of oil together with the spices for a couple of minutes. Add a little water if it dries out too much. Add the radicchio, a pinch of salt and cook until the radicchio has wilted. Turn off the heat and let it cool.
For the mushrooms proceed as in this recipe: Sautéed mushrooms, so cut the garlic in half and fry it in a teaspoon of oil.
Add the mushrooms, cleaned and sliced, and cook them. If they release a lot of water keep cooking until it has completely evaporated. Add salt, turn off the heat and let cool.
Place the crepes on the work surface and spread a tablespoon of béchamel on each one.
Then sprinkle some nutritional yeast, add the radicchio and finally the mushrooms. Make sure to reserve most of the béchamel and a little nutritional yeast for the next step.
Put a little béchamel on the bottom of the baking dish. Then gently roll each crepe and place them in the dish so they touch each other. Spread the remaining béchamel over the crepes, especially on the edges, so they don’t turn out too dry.
Sprinkle the surface of the béchamel with the remaining nutritional yeast and we are ready to bake the crepes!
OVEN COOKING
Preheat the oven to 392°F and put the baking dish lower in the oven for 15 minutes, then move it to the upper rack for another 10–15 minutes, until golden brown.
AIR FRYER COOKING
I also tried cooking the crepes in my air fryer. As you can see, 6 were in the baking dish because I put 2 in a small oven-safe pot and cooked them in the air fryer for 6 minutes at 320°F and then another 6–7 minutes at 356°F. Perfect that way too!
Here are the radicchio and mushroom vegan crepes ready to be served! They smell amazing… I decorated them with some raw radicchio that I had reserved and they really make an impression when served like this. If you want to bring them to the table at Christmas they also look beautiful on festive plates.
Okay, presentation matters, but the most important thing is that they are really tasty, flavorful, satisfying and light. What more could you want?
These vegan crepes were fully approved at home and I especially enjoyed them. I hope you do too — if you make them tell me if you liked them and leave a comment below…
Enjoy your meal!
By Giovanna Buono
