If you are not a veggie household how many non meat evening meals do you eat a week?

[AtleastitsnotMonday]

Having recently read a few different threads this is something I’ve been thinking about. We probably have at least three, sometimes four, meat free meals a week. Not for any particular reason (health, environmental, cost saving etc) but just because there are a lot of veggie meals we like as much as meat or fish based.

I wonder if it’s some what generational, I know my parents generation seem to eat more meat based meals and I know for sure my grandparents were a lot more in the ‘a meal isn’t a meal with out meat or fish,’ camp.

Me and my DH 4-5 days a week. We have been slowly bringing a couple of meat dishes in after being plant based for about 4 months. I have found cutting meat from my diet has helped my IBS and I am planing on going vegetarian. As much as I enjoyed the vegan diet I missed cheese far to much.

I'm veggie.
DS and DH are not but eat veggie meals 4-5 times a week. DS prefers most veggie, vegan meals tbh unless its basa fillets or speciality sausages!
Tonight is gnocchi with oven roast tomatoes, olives, onions and a very light sauce. Tomorrow is leek, potato and pesto pasta. Friday is curry night - lentil dhal, chickpea curry and various

Zero.

The thing I try to limit is carbs, because (for me and DH personally, this is not expert nutritional advice!) they make me feel tired and put on weight very easily.

Also, there are many different reasons for limiting meat, but if you're doing it for the environment, consider what you're replacing it with. Red meat has the highest carbon footprint, but chicken is much lower than cheese, for example:

interactive.carbonbrief.org/what-is-the-climate-impact-of-eating-meat-and-dairy/

We have fish Fridays, meat free Mondays and there are a some accidental vegetarian days pasta/ pizza.

rarely meat free but probably 2 a week when meat is a flavouring
yesterday Spaghetti carbonara with veg so bacon is just a small part of it but DH will have meat or fish with every lunch / dinner he will have ham, pate or corned beef samdwiches with lunch maybe twice a week he will have cheese and crackers instead
we eat more chicken and fish than red meat though

Two or three times a week.

We usually have around 3 meat free meals, 2 meat and 2 fish each week.

About 5

Rarely. Veggie mains are usually cheese or egg based. Maybe once a fortnight or less?

Started as one or two but it’s crept up to about five.

To be honest it’s been a revelation - cheaper, and we feel healthier as we are eating more vegetables and whole foods. The less meat we have the less we want it.

3/4 times I would say on average. Obviously sometimes more (we can go weeks with just having meat free meals)
We really like meat substitutes like quorn as I’m picky with meat, so if I’m making a cottage pie etc 9/10 times I will use lentils or quorn mince.
We also love the Richmond veggie sausages and prefer them to normal ones and the Linda McCartney mozzarella burgers are lovely too!
But I also just love vegetable based/ meat free dishes, like mushroom stroganoff, macaroni cheese and lentil Dahl etc

The meat meals we do have often contain rather less meat now - anything with minced beef, e.g. bolognaise sauce, chilli, dh’s favourite shepherd’s pie, is bulked out with red lentils and/or more beans/mushrooms, etc.

My ‘big’ winter soups will typically contain at least 10 plant-based items, inc. lentils, pearl barley, etc. They’re also relatively very cheap to make - one benefit of colder weather!

Usually 2 or 3
My eldest child is vegetarian and I’d like to eat more vegetarian meals but I find it harder to please everyone with vegetarian meals. Like a lot of my vegetarian meals are saucy or spicy and my youngest two don’t like sauce or spice.
Pasta dishes, curries, chilli, stir fry etc are all ones I cook where we don’t miss meat but then the younger ones have sometimes only eaten a spoonful of rice and a couple of bits of carrot or whatever.

Out of curiosity - would a baked potato with cheese and beans not be a meal for you? What about a baked potato with tuna instead? tbh not beans and cheese no, tuna I could, but tbh I almost consider fish along with meat. If we’re talking meat only then I could probably eat fish 4 times a week.

I also have major textural issues with veg so finding veggie dishes I like is difficult, hence why I make e.g. soups because the veg can all be blended into oblivion.

Usually none. We rarely eat veggie main meals.

If I lived alone it’d be a lot more as I quite like lentil/bean based things but DH and the kids aren’t keen so 99% of the time it’s based around beef,chicken, pork and occasionally fish.

Our veggie meals this week are a Spanish style veg stew, pasta with roasted cherry tomatoes and feta, and fajitas. Although I will do a chicken breast for my younger two when I do fajitas and they’ll then have wraps with raw red pepper, chicken and grated cheese so still not fully veggie

Out of curiosity - would a baked potato with cheese and beans not be a meal for you? What about a baked potato with tuna instead
I don't eat beans (again it's a texture thing for me) but a cheese jacket potato is a lunch for me, not a dinner.

None atm. I would really like to try eating more meat-free meals in the week, but my DH is a T2 diabetic and avoids carbs, so things like jacket potatoes and pasta bakes aren't an option. And he would have cauliflower rice with a curry or chilli, so it would just be veg on veg on veg unless we added loads of paneer or beans. I do feel a bit sorry for him! Plus he has salad every day for lunch (with meat!) so doesn't want it again for dinner.

I like the idea of halloumi fajitas though (DH would have with romaine lettuce instead of wraps). Spicy veggie meals like curries or chilli definitely appeal too. Thanks for all the good ideas on this thread!

I call myself an accidental vegetarian because I just don’t like meat very much. I’ve even gone right off chicken lately. I just love cheese so eat far too much if that instead, paneer, halloumi, goats cheese, Gorgonzola etc. The only red meat we have are sausages (but we often just have vegetarian ones) and some cooked meats like ham, chorizo, pepperoni or salami. Always quite conscious of the link between red meat with bowel cancer.

We do eat a lot of prawns and salmon though.

This is a nice recipe for sweet potato fajitas

Probably in an average week we have two non-meat (dinner on Monday is usually just home-made soup and bread & cheese), then any combo of one/two fish, one/two chicken, two/three red meat.

This week, for example, we're having:

tonight: middle eastern chickpea stew thing with flatbreads and salad
tomorrow: eating out so will prob be red meat or fish
mon: veg soup
tues: chicken legs
weds: venison meatballs
thurs: trout fillets or thai fish curry
fri: don't know yet but there is chilli in the freezer or I may do a puff pastry tart with pancetta, onions, mushrooms

The daily Mail reckon that meat is going to run out of stock in the shops in a couple of weeks so we’ll all be eating a lot less if that happens!

Hardly ever. Lunches yes but dinners tend to include meat. If we had egg and chips we'd also have sausage. We sometimes have egg fried rice as a meal on its own but even that would have some ham or bacon in preferably, and the rice tends to be cooked in chicken or beef stock.

I don't know how to make meals without meat or fish filling, when I've done them before we all end up hungry.

I used to do a mushroom curry with chips but DH went off it and none of the kids will eat mushrooms.

None

We eat some form of meat (or chicken/fish/seafood) every day.

It does not necessarily have to be expensive and you can do tasty and healthy dishes if you learn to cook from scratch. You can use liver, chicken wings, minced pork or canned mackerel, for instance

they make me feel tired and put on weight very easily

This also. We are not going to cut down

If DH is out at a hobby or somewhere else DC and I will have a veggie dinner. Usually once a fortnight. I'd eat more veggie meals but DH and DC all really enjoy meat. I rarely have meat at lunchtime