Starters & Light meals

Tracy’s vegan mushroom-and-walnut pâté

By
13 October 2025
8
Easy
10 minutes
30 minutes

This delicious vegan  pâté makes a great starter for any meal or on a harvest table.  The more varied the mushrooms, the more interesting the flavour.

Thanks for your rating!

You must be logged in to rate a recipe. Login

Ingredients

Method
  • 100 g walnuts
  • 1 T olive oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, chopped or minced
  • 250 g assorted fresh mushrooms
  • 4 T fresh parsley - chopped
  • 2 T fresh thyme - chopped
  • 2 T fresh rosemary - chopped
  • 1 T sweet sacramental wine (Shabbat wine)
  • 1 t pink salt
  • black pepper, to taste
  • 30 ml balsamic vinegar

Method

Ingredients

1. Roast the walnuts at 180°C on a baking sheet lined with baking paper, taking care not to burn them. I always set my timer for five minutes and keep checking.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, then add the onion.  Reduce the heat and fry until translucent.  Add the garlic and sauté for another minute.

3. Increase the heat and add the mushrooms and herbs and cook until soft, about  10–15 minutes, turning to ensure that they are evenly cooked. Add the wine to deglaze the pan.

4. Transfer the mushrooms and walnuts to a food processor. Pulse until chopped to the consistency you prefer. Season to taste.

5. Serve on seed bread, crackers and toast

Cook’s note: I always like to use Himalayan pink salt, it has such an intense flavour, so maybe use less. You can always add salt. You can substitute port or sherry for the sweet sacramental wine. I always like to fry the onions on a lowish heat so that you get that lovely sweet taste.

Find more mushroom recipes here

Production: Khanya Mzongwana

Photographer: Toby Murphy

Tracy Klass

Recipe by: Tracy Klass

Tracy Klass has reinvented herself roughly every 20 years with one constant: a deep love of cooking and feeding people. She’s been a marketing manager while raising three kids as a single mother, a stand-up comedian, and almost had a stage show when Covid hit. Once again, she pivoted, this time to launch A Taste of Klass, bringing traditional Ashkenazi Jewish cooking to modern tables. Today, Tracy runs A Taste of Klass full-time from her kitchen in Observatory in Cape Town, proving that it’s never too late to start again – especially when there’s something delicious at the end of it.

View all recipes

Comments

There are no comments yet.



Load more