Vegan Cheesy Garlic Bread

Even when I'm already sitting at the barbecue completely full, there are two things I can still shovel into myself and only realize far too late that I'm about to burst: vegan tzatziki and a good barbecue bread. When I have time to make the latter myself, my favorites so far have been our vegan garlic bread (https://www.zuckerjagdwurst.com/en/recipes/vegan-garlic-twist-bread-homemade-vegan-garlic-butter) and our onion baguette (https://www.zuckerjagdwurst.com/en/recipes/vegan-onion-bread). However, they take some time since both are made with homemade yeast dough.

The much faster versions are ready-made vegan herb baguettes, which are already available in some supermarkets. So far, however, they have almost always disappointed me because the „butter filling“ doesn't really manage to spread evenly thick on and over all the slices. Of course, that's only a petty problem, but this year I'm making a delicious compromise – and so can you. Somewhere between „homemade yet convenient“ and „easy and quick“ – today's vegan herb baguette falls in line.

The primary time saver is to use a ready-made baguette, which you should be able to find in just about any super or organic market. We spread vegan herb butter on the baguette, which you can modify in any flavour. Read more about it below. My game changer, however, is to not cut into the baguette and smear the filling between the slices. I tried it during test cooking, and it made the bread slices rather fall apart for me, and it was quite messy to spread the filling reasonably even between them. So we'll cut the baguette in half horizontally as if you were going to top it. Well, and in a certain way we do – just with vegan herb butter and (if fancied) some plant-based cheese. The baguette halves then go into the oven until they're crispy on the bottom and golden brown on top. To serve, you can leave them as they are or cut them into strips.

This way you can adapt the recipe to your wishes, …

... if you don't like garlic: Easypeasy, just leave it out.

... if you want to invest a little more time: Garlic becomes much milder and sweet-aromatic if you bake it in the oven. Since I wanted to keep the recipe relatively simple, we roasted it for only 10 minutes. You can also take a whole garlic bulb, cut off the lid at the top, then drizzle with olive oil, salt, pepper, wrap in aluminum foil and bake in the oven like this at 180 °C for about 1 hour. The amount seems a lot, but the garlic will just taste much less spicy and pungent. After baking, you can squeeze the cloves out of the bulb and mash them with a fork, too.

... if you have even less time: In this case, save the step of sautéing the garlic and simply grate it fresh into the butter. However, this will make the flavor more intense and spicy, so better take a clove first and then taste the herb butter little by little.

... if you want to slice the bread: If you love the classic look of the herb baguette, meaning you want to leave the baguette whole and just cut the individual slices, then I recommend you prepare the herb butter, form it into a thick roll, and freeze it wrapped in foil until it is firm to slice. Then you can cut it into thin slices and place them between the slices of bread in the still unbaked baguette. I found smearing the herb butter fresh in between to be quite annoying and messy during test cooking, and it wasn't as even as I would like.

... if you'd like to try something different: The fun doesn't stop with herbs and garlic, of course. You can also use wild garlic in your vegan butter if it is in season. If you like it more fruity, you can add tomato paste to the herb butter. My friend Hanna has also once made a chanterelle butter that is easy to veganize, tastes ILLEGALLY delicious and is also great for this baguette. You can find the recipe for it here (https://www.kitchenstories.com/de/rezepte/pfifferlingsbutter).