Authentic Vegan Jamaican Beef Patty

One of the most iconic Jamaican dishes is the beef patty. Today, we’re showing you how to recreate them into this authentic vegan Jamaican beef patty recipe.

Depending on the culture that you grew up with, you may have never have a Jamaican beef patty, especially not a veganized one; however, you have likely had something similar. Whether it’s a empanada, pastelitos, samosas, pasty, etc., every culture has a pastry like dough that is either deep fried or baked to perfection and filled with deliciousness.

For Jamaican culture, it’s the beef patty and today we’ll show you how to make the perfect vegan Jamaican beef patty.

Because scotch bonnet peppers are traditionally used, this dish can get spicy and fast. For that reason, there are usually mild and hot Jamaican patties, and today we’ll discus how to make both ways vegan.

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Vegan Jamaican Beef Patty INGREDIENTS:

Below are notes about the main ingredients before we get into the full recipe located lower in this post on how to make this authentic Jamaican vegan patties.

There are two parts to this recipe – the pastry dough and the filling that goes inside once ready.

For the Dough

• flour – we are using all purpose flour for this recipe for ease of access
• turmeric – we use this to get the iconic yellow coloring that Jamaican beef patties have
• curry powder – we specifically are using a Jamaican curry powder in this recipe. Curry powder is used to give the dough its own flavor that pairs so good with the filling. There are both regular and hot varieties of Jamaican curry powder. We use regular, but if you would like an extra layer of heat, then you can add the hot.
• vegan butter – every pastry needs a fat for the dough to come together and be flakey, similar to pie crusts. We are using vegan butter here because it’s easier to find and use
• water – water is used to bring the dough together and form the pastry. No need to use any other like like non dairy milk.

For the filling

• onions, garlic, and scallions – these are our aromatics and really help bring the flavor together. We are using sweet onions, but yellow onions can be used as well. For the scallions we are only using the green part. Tip: place the white part in a jar of water and it will regrow the green part.
• vegan beef – Use can use either frozen crumbles or the packages of ground vegan meat. Either will work well in this recipe so choose your favorite.
• scotch bonnet pepper – This is the main type of pepper used in all Jamaican cooking. It’s very spicy and needs to be handled very carefully.
• seasonings – from garam masala to ginger, thyme, and allspice, this unique blend of spices is key to perfecting the Jamaican beef patty. They all have a role so we recommend sticking to the list.
• Panko breadcrumbs – most breadcrumbs aren’t vegan friendly, but panko is. It helps gives texture but also soak up the liquid that we are adding to create the best texture.

SUBSTITUTIONS AND VARIATIONS:

When creating authentic recipes, we don’t recommend making very many changes, so we don’t have a lot to list here; however there are a few that we can suggest:

For the Dough

• flour – you could sub all-purpose flour for pastry flour or a gluten free 1:1 blend. Note that we haven’t personally tried using gluten free flour for this recipe, but we have for other pastry recipes so the idea is similar.
• curry powder – you can use another curry powder if you don’t have access to Jamaican curry powder. The Jamaican one is just slightly seasoned differently.
• vegan butter – can sub with vegetable shortening and still have the same texture. We do not recommend subbing with other oils or removing the oil

For the filling

• vegan beef – seasoned and rehydrated TVP could also be used. If you don’t do process meat, you could do a seasoned walnut meat. While it would no longer be a beef patty, you could sub things like beans, mushrooms, cauliflower and more.
• scotch bonnet pepper – We understand depending on where you live, scotch bonnet peppers may be hard to find. We would suggest subbing with a habanero
• seasonings – the garam masala can be subbed with more curry powder, but we strongly suggest otherwise sticking to the list of seasoning
• Panko breadcrumbs – if you can find regular fine breadcrumbs without milk or egg, you can sub them.

How do I make the best vegan Jamaican beef patty?

If you are making a recipe for the first time, but especially trying to recreate a vegan version of it, then you likely want to make it the absolutely very best way. Here’s 5 tips for making the best vegan beef patty:

1. Follow the instructions and ingredient list with little to no substitutions. This sounds silly to say but many times people don’t measure correctly or sub out a lot of things because they don’t have it. The best way to ensure a great recipe is follow it.
2. Use a vegan beef product that you like – whether it’s frozen crumbles or vegan ground beef, pick one that you love. Whether that’s Beyond, Lightlife or Gardein, if you have a preference, it will definitely help this recipe taste better to you.
3. Do not try to make this recipe oil free – we understand that many people are trying to reduce their consumption of oil, but this isn’t the recipe to take shortcuts. The oil is needed to make the perfect pastry dough that’s flakey and the right texture. You can sub the oil when cooking the onions, etc with more vegetable stock, but not in the pastry dough.
4. Do not rush the process – In the instructions it says that you need to let the pastry dough refrigerate for 30 minutes, but also that the breadcrumbs need time to soak up the mixture and then the mixture cool before adding. Don’t skip any of these steps or it could not turn out well.
5. Make sure to crimp the edges of your pastry before cooking – if you rush this or don’t do it properly, you edges will puff up and your filling won’t stay inside. Take your time here.

How do I make this vegan Jamaican beef patty faster?

You can make the dough ahead of time, but you can also make these and freeze them for later. This would help that process go much faster since you just have to heat it up.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What other vegan Jamaican recipes could I make?

If you love Jamaican recipes, you’ll also love these

• Vegan Jamaican Jerk Tofu
• Vegan Jamaican Rice and Peas

We will be adding more Jamaican recipes soon! Let us know what you want to see!

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