Start your meal off right: 12 delicious Cookilicious appetizer recipes

Turns out: you don't have to go to Olive Garden to enjoy their popular appetizer, and that's an especially important perk during a pandemic. This fried vegan ravioli is also gluten-free—using vegan Parmesan cheese—and requires just 30 minutes of your time. The accompanying dipping sauces recommended by Cookilicious' Priya Lakshminarayan are spicy vegan mayo, marinara sauce, or ketchup. 

The good news about eating vegan or vegetarian is you don't have to sacrifice bread. Case in point: this baked bread and chutney rolls recipe. Feel free to use your favorite bread as your base. The dish is accentuated by soft butter, dry mustard powder, grated cheese, green chutney, and mashed potatoes.

You may be catching on cheese is this slideshow's through-line, but we doubt you're complaining. Cheddar cheese and parmesan cheese—dairy or non-dairy—take center stage in this cheesy rice vegan kebabs recipe. The rice is rich in chickpea powder, cilantro, garlic, jalapenos, lemon juice, onion, and more.

Cookilicious' Priya Lakshminarayan is keenly familiar with onion pakoda, as she calls it "one of the many famous street foods" in India. That's one reason to trust her crispy fried onion pakoda recipe. The crunchy texture is made additionally satisfying by chopped cilantro, chickpea flour, red chili powder, turmeric powder, and more.

Who says appetizers can't also be comfort food? This fried besan and potato squares recipe pops through chilly powder and other mixed herbs. It's certainly worth a try, especially as a mere 35-minute investment from start to finish.

Eating your vegetables doesn't feel as much of a chore when those veggies are dressed up in breadcrumbs. This vegan semolina vegetable bites recipe packs as much as possible into a small ball. The vegetables involved are green chilies, carrots, green beans, French beans, and sweet corn as well as the fluffy consolation found in mashed potatoes. You can serve with any type of chutney or ketchup.

This gluten-free dish can be eaten as an appetizer or quaint breakfast. Between two polenta slices sit chopped cilantro, chopped jalapeno, ginger paste, minced garlic, shredded coconut, and poppy seeds. If polenta isn't your style, you can spread this stuffing onto grilled paneer slices for the same effect.

Homemade spice green peas and spinach pastry puffs belong in your appetizer recipe book because it satisfies vegan dietary restrictions while remaining basic and quick. Five minutes of prep work will be followed by a 20-minute cook time, and before you know it, you'll be dipping puff after puff into either chutney or ketchup.

Bread and cheese? Let's go! The recipe for vegan baked cheese-stuffed bread rings recommends using white bread, but any bread is an acceptable substitute. Soft cream cheese is complemented by bell peppers, cilantro, jalapeno, garlic and ginger pastes, onion, pepper flakes, and more.

As pointed out by resident chef Priya Lakshminarayan, moong dal is an excellent plant-based protein source. She has been working to perfect her vegan moong dal pakora recipe since college, and now you can be a beneficiary of the final product. Mix moong dal with green chilies into a paste before adding chopped onions and shredded cabbage. A few other ingredients are inserted to create a spread to go atop your bread slices.

Indulge in savory vegan vegetable puff pastry samosas. Unlike other options here, this recipe is baked rather than fried. If a clean diet is your goal, you'll be satisfied by this gluten-free, nut-free, and soy-free recipe.

Moong dal strikes again—showing that it's versatile nutritionally and in practice. This vegan recipe is similar to the vegan moong dal pakora recipe.