Ok, I know you’re trying to figure out how on Earth something called Texas Hash would be inspired by Seattle! But it’s true…Texas Hash is one of my Grandma Grace’s recipes that I’ve veganized. Both of my grandmothers lived in Seattle when I was growing up (they’ve both since passed away), and as a kid, I just loved coming up to spend week-long vacations with them during spring and summer breaks. My grandmothers were both great cooks, and looked forward to having some of my favorite foods when I was up.

And I knew we were going to go to some of my favorite places!

Space Needle & Pacific Science Center

Pike Place Market

And the Skagit Valley

As I mentioned in my post about making Rainbow Minestrone Soup, my Grandma Grace was a cook in a junior high school for the Seattle School District, back when schools actually cooked meals on-site for kids. Her recipes are very practical, full of inexpensive ingredients, and she knew what kids loved to eat. But they weren’t vegan, not by a long-shot! I’ve been having a lot of fun going through her old recipes and updating them to be vegan and whole food, plant-based as much as possible.

Texas Hash

Texas Hash was one of my favorite dishes when I was a kid. In fact, it was one of the first casseroles I made at home all by myself. My mom worked and she would have a recipe out on the counter and all of the necessary ingredients in the refrigerator and pantry for me to make our family dinner after coming home middle school. This is how I learned how to cook! After a while, I got bored making the same old recipes and would search Mom’s cookbooks (this was way before the Internet!) to find other things I could make with those ingredients.

My grandmother’s Texas Hash recipe was a rice and ground beef dish in the Tex-Mex style. Tex-Mex became popular in the US in the 70s, using some key ingredients that are rarely found south of the US border, including beef, cheese, wheat flour, canned vegetables, mainly tomatoes, and cumin. Interestingly, cumin came to the US from India, not Mexico, and while it’s widely used in “Mexican” food, it’s not widely used in Mexico.

Grandma’s version used ground beef, but it’s perfect for substituting brown lentils, which impart the same meaty taste and texture as the original. Along with the tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and chili powder, which was in my grandmother’s original recipe, I add garlic, cumin, and cilantro, ingredients that weren’t on the radar in the 70s, giving the dish an update in keeping with modern Tex-Mex cuisine.

In the original version, you sauteéd onions and bell peppers in oil and then added ground beef to brown with the cooked vegetables. To update this recipe, I also sauté the onions and bell peppers, using vegetable stock or water to sauté, instead of oil, and also add chopped garlic.

When the veggies are soft, I add uncooked lentils. Like the original recipe, uncooked rice is added, and then the remaining tomatoes and spices are added. Cover the dish and baked at 375˚F until the rice is cooked, an hour and forty-five minutes if using white rice, or two hours for brown.

To enhance Tex-Mex flavor, garnish with cilantro and avocado, and serve with tortillas, such as my Sweet Potato Tortillas, as Tex-Mex food has an emphasis on tortillas over traditional Mexican cuisine, and hot sauce on the side. Texas Hash is hearty, saucy, rich, and flavorful, but not too spicy, perfect for a fall or winter dinner on those cold nights.

Texas Hash brings back great memories of my Grandma Grace and those fun trips to Seattle as a kid. I think that’s one of the best things about veganizing these old family recipes, being able to relive precious memories. They say that the sense of smell is one of the strongest memory triggers, and as the sense of smell and taste are so closely related, food can really bring those memories back to life. I hope you try this great recipe out and taste a bit of my childhood!