Uconn dish wins best vegan recipe in national contest
Storrs’ Robert Landolphi serves up plant-based, quesadilla variation on Venezuelan corn pancake
A variation on a Venezuelan corn pancake served in one of Uconn’s dining halls won a gold medal this week in a nationwide competition for the best vegan recipe served on a collegecampus,uconnannounced.
Cinnamon Chipotle Cachapas with Black Bean Avocado Salsa and Pickled Red Onions, created by Robert Landolphi, was honored by the National Association of College and University Food Services.
Landolphi, assistant director of culinary development on the Storrs campus, said even those who aren’t students can taste his award-winning dish. In the fall, it will be placed on the menu rotation at Mcmahon dining hall, which is open to the public.
Landolphi said when the vegan recipe contest was coming up, he altered a nonvegan recipe.
“I added a little more spice to the pancake itself, with the cinnamon chipotle spice flavor. Then I made it like a quesadilla, the pancake folding over with cheese in it, a tofu-based cheese that melts beautifully and is really creamy,” he said.
“The contest rules were that it had to have at least seven grams of protein. So I added the black bean avocado salsa, with corn and lime,” he said. “Then I topped it with pickled red onions to give it more tang.”
The plant-based options at Uconn are growing. Last year the campus opened its first entirely meatless cafe, Crossroads, in the Wilbur Cross Building. Landolphi said it has been popular. Vegetarian and vegan options are at every campus dining spot. Landolphi said the expanded choices focus not just on vegetarians and vegans, but flexitarians, people who eat meat but who lean toward plant-based options.
“They are trying some of these dishes and saying, ‘I’d give up a meat dish once or twice a week and eat this’,” he said. “There has been an increase in demand for tofu, legumes, produce and the popular
“They are trying some of these dishes and saying, ‘I’d give up a meat dish once or twice a week and eat this.’ ”
plant-based products such as vegan chicken filets and nuggets, burgers, sausages.”
Landolphi said about 1.4% of the Uconn community is vegan and about 5% are vegetarian.
Another of Landolphi’s vegan recipes, the Not So Crabby Vegan Crab Cakes with Remoulade Sauce, won the gold medal in 2016. It is on the menu rotation at all eight dining halls.
Two other recipes won NACUFS prizes in the past and are no longer
on the menus, a vegan meatball banh mi, which won gold in 2018, and a white bean gnocchi with Brussels sprouts, which won bronze in 2020. The contest is held every two years.
Those who want to make Uconn’s dishes at home can find recipes at dining.uconn.edu/recipes. Those who want to see the currently available menu rotations can visit dining.uconn.edu.
— Robert Landolphi, assistant director of culinary development at Uconn’s Storrs campus and creator of the award-winning vegan recipe