A grownup way to get your greens: Vegetable sampler plates catching on inbeef-loving Houston

Texas has never been a vegetarian’s paradise. Indeed it’s easy to see why Oprah’s flippant comments about the beef trade landed her squarely atop the state’s Most Hated list just 10 years ago.

But one decade later, our burgeoning love for local produce has turned our attention squarely back to the veritable vegetable.

By now you’re probably aware of the argument that eliminating meat for one day each week can have profoundly positive effects on the environment. But these days a few of our Houston chefs are creating divinely supersonic vegetable platters that are so good, you might not miss the meat at all.

That’s right: vegetable platters … Vegetarian sampler plates that are every bit as varied as the famed Lu Ann Platter from your neighborhood Luby’s — but thrice as tasty (and with half the salt). So where can you find them? Here are some recent favorites.

For 10-plus years we’ve adored the vegetable plate at Backstreet Café (spinach soufflé!), but only recently have we indulged in the one at Backstreet’s sister restaurant, Hugo’s. This one is a happy helping of grilled nopales, corn soufflé, red quinoa, marinated mushrooms with asparagus, and a chile relleno filled with zucchini and squash.

Each piece is outstanding in its own right — right down to the light-and-lovely spinach salad, and the quinoa adds a protein punch.

Revival Market has a market vegetable plate on its daily menu too. Keeping with the market’s mission, the items on the plate vary according to the seasons (and to the creative ideas of homeslice chef Ryan Pera), but my recent dish came with a cold Swiss chard, deliciously marinated mushrooms, a wedge of cornbread and a fabulous beet salad.

Healthy, hearty and happily vegetarian.

Pondicheri, the new fast-casual Indian place, offers its own sampler plate — called a thali — at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Each meal’s thali offers an ever changing array of spiced-up delicacies like masala eggs, okra, cauliflower, eggplant and a rotating daily daal.

The plates are accompanied by special sauces and breads, making your vegetable-laden meal enchanting, inspiring and semi- interactive.

Of course sampler plates aren’t the only way to get your veggies. Plenty of chefs are sprinkling in more vegetable dishes these days — like the mushroom enchiladas at Xuco Xicana, the spring onion soup at Benjy’s on Washington, the simply cooked carrots at Bootsie's Heritage Café and the homegrown tomato salad at Haven. But the veggie plates sure are a fun (and fibrous) way to sample more of our local bounty.

Who knows — they might even inspire a new vegetable dish in your own kitchen.