Plant-Powered Nights rev up veggie cuisine at Cornell

Historically, vegetarian-themed nights have gone over like the proverbial lead balloon at Cornell University’s dining halls. Armed with new recipes from a plant-based training course presented by The Humane Society of the U.S., the Cornell dining team set out to change all that with something new: Plant-Powered Nights. 

Therese O’Connor, assistant director for staff development and oversight for sustainability initiatives, along with executive chefs Hans Butler and Jacob Kuehn, with the help of a group of student employee sustainability coordinators, came up with the idea for the new Plant-Powered Nights as a way to honor Cornell’s self-operated dining program’s commitment to Menus of Change, The Culinary Institute of America’s initiative to reduce carbon footprints and eat more plant-based foods, among other sustainability goals. 

“We wanted to really put our money where our mouth is with Menus of Change protocol,” O’Connor says. “We have a group of student employees who look at sustainability. They decided on a two-pronged approach to this—personal health and environmental sustainability.”

Part of the excitement of Plant-Powered Nights is new menu items that go beyond typical vegetarian offerings. Photo: Cornell University

Last fall, chefs Butler and Kuehn debuted Plant-Powered Nights once a week at their respective dining halls. The food is mostly vegan and all vegetarian, with plant-powered dishes from familiar vegetarian fare like veggie lo mein, roasted veggies and eggplant Parmesan to edgier dishes like faro-stuffed poblano peppers, chickpea polenta with a selection of sauces, soy-glazed tofu with ginger, grilled tempeh burgers and a crab-less crab cake. Another especially cool item is a whole, roasted squash at a carving station, presented like a steamship round.

For dessert, there’s bananas Foster, quinoa cranberry bars and dairy-free cheesecake. (Vegan cheese and dairy substitutes have really come a long way, according to O’Connor). 

Plant-Powered nights seem to be a possible solution to a perennial challenge that O’Connor has experienced when introducing meatless meals on campus.

The Cornell kitchen team has learned some new tricks and techniques for veggie cuisine. Photo: Cornell University

“Historically we’ve had abysmal results. People are very skeptical [of meatless meals],” O’Connor says. “And I mean adults. People have this real fear of it, maybe it’s aversion to risk or fear of a loss of control.” 

Leaving the food psychology to Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab (which has been helping Cornell Dining with some marketing campaigns, by the way, and recently published a study on getting people to try tofu  ), the dining team did some of their own studies, both quantitative and qualitative.

“At one dining hall, door counts went up and at the other, they stayed the same,” O’Connor says. “We decided we needed to do a longer program to see if, indeed, there is value in this.”

Veggie tamales are one of the new menu items of Plant-Powered Nights. Photo: Cornell University

Plant-Powered nights are Friday and Sunday, the lowest count nights of the week, “because of the learning curve for chefs, we’re easing into this from a production standpoint,” O’Connor says.

O’Connor thinks Plant-Powered Nights will really take off once more people start trying the new menu items beyond typical vegetarian staples.

“We always have vegetarian or vegan standbys, but student customers are starting to try things that are a little different, like smoked tofu in a banh mi,” she says. “When they’re willing to try it, even carnivores are saying, ‘Wow, this is really good.’”