Veggie meals for meat lover

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My husband and I have come to the decision that we want to try to eat less meat so that we can afford better quality/ higher welfare meat. I could happily eat veggie for 4 or so days every week but my husband is a different story. He doesn’t really like veg or salad, he will eat it as a side dish, but he won’t find eating a whole meal of it satisfying and then he’ll end up snacking.

Does anyone have any good recipes that i could try. Preferably quick(ish) or hands off as we have a baby at home so not much time to cook.

We already have a pasta bake once a week and I’d like to avoid having too much pasta :)

would he eat quorn and other meat substitutes? so spag bol with quorn mince, curry with quorn fillets?

How about a bean chilli?
DD has just turned veggie and some quick things i keep in the freezer to pop in the oven for her when i havnt got time to make a vegie meal from scratch eg if the boys are having sausages or pork chops etc are
nut cutlets
mozzerella and pesto melts
sweet potato falafal

I had the same battle with my DH and we now eat a lot less meat and are going meat free in January for the month.
Some of our favourites include:
Butternut squash falafals with yoghurt, hummus, pitta and salad
Vegetable curries
Lentil dhal
Vegetable lasagne
Roasted veg enchiladas
Pasta bake
Halloumi and crispy potato traybake
Paneer curries
Butternut squash risotto
Pasta with creme fraiche and roasted butternut squash and red onions
Home made pizza
Spaghetti carbonara but with courgettes and no bacon

Thanks guys. I’d like to stay away from meat substitutes like quorn if we can, but I guess it might be a good starting point for us. I’ll have a look in the freezer isle next time I’m shopping.

Good luck with your meat free January! I’m not sure I could totally cut it out!

Please don't underestimate what you can do with quorn.

My advice for new vegetarians is to look more at Indian and Thai food which are predominantly vegetarian but also easy options to add quorn to and also get flavour. Thing about quorn is that it doesn't have any fat in so needs to be marinated a little bit on my experience. Things like quorn Turkey roll etc are perfect for xmas dinner with all he trimmings. And of course Bisto is already vegetarian so no issue there.

Bean chillis are filling and rich and you don't need meat. You can also make a lasagne just with veg and red lentils. It tastes a bit lighter than with mince but you don't really miss the meat.

I bought the Bosch cookbook last week (vegan food, written by two young men) it looks good and I made their veg Thai red curry and it was a really good recipe. It was so tasty and we didn't miss the meat as we used chunks of sweet potato for a meaty texture. There are loads of substantial looking recipes in there which I will be trying over the next couple of weeks.

Hearty soups are also a good idea - curry paste onion and rice make a good curry soup. Potato and leek is good as is Thai style lemongrass, ginger and coconut milk.

All these dishes can be refrigerated or frozen.

I am also not keen on meat substitutes but we have also enjoyed some lovely tofu dishes. I bought the Part Time Vegetarian cookbook earlier in the year and enjoyed a lot of what we have tried from there.

Quorn will put him off for life! I can't abide the stuff, and just find it points to a lack of meat.
I'd second the advice to keep away from the substitutes and cook stuff that has no business being meaty- loads of great curries, Middle Eastern things, pastas, pizzas and risottos,
I use the river cottage veg every day book a lot.
I would say- excellent veg (eg, from an organic local farm bag) is much more delicious than supermarket out-of-season stuff. You won't convert a meat eater with an Asda courgette in December...

Quorn is fucking grim, so many decent ‘meat’ subs out there now! Try oomph! My meat eating dad was blown away.

I make this regularly. It's blummin delicious (although it is more pasta, sorry)

www.gousto.co.uk/cookbook/vegan-recipes/vegetable-noodles-silky-cashew-nut-sauce

(I know it's Gousto. But obvs you can just buy the stuff, they very helpfully list all the ingredients!)

The Linda Macartney sausages are amazing. I use them for toad in the hole.

Mixed bean chilli
Black bean and butternut squash quesadilla
Sweet potato and black bean burrito
Butternut squash, spinach and chickpea curry

These are huge faves in my house

I had to break the meat eaters in gently! I didn’t try and replicate meaty meals if I swapped beef mince for quorn in a bolognaise for example it would be an automatic ‘no, it’s not as good as meat’. If I dished up something that just so happened to be veggie eg macaroni cheese, spinach and ricotta cannelloni, broccoli and Stilton quiche, falafel in pita, mushroom risotto then that would be ok, but I wouldn’t point out it was veggie till afterwards. Dhal I introduced as a side until they came round to the idea that lentils could possibly fuel them on their own!
They have com3 round to most things, to just taken time.

Probably in a minority of one but I cannot enjoy the Limda McCartney stuff... more sawdust than flavour.

What about falafels? They were my go to when DS was a veggie (now lapsed but has acquired a large repertoire of veggie dishes he cooks for him and his partner).
Falafel served as a 'burger' in a bun is a satisfying meal.
He also makes a lovely chestnut pie.

Chickpea burgers , pizza, Mexican retried black beans, spinach and walnut lasagne, macaroni cheese are all things that my family don't think of when we talk veggie food, so I guess they pass!

Thanks everyone!

Tonight we had burritos, a tiny bit of mince but two tins of beans and a packet of rice and DH agreed he wouldn’t notice if there wasn’t any mince in there, so that is a win (hopefully)

:D

DH is going thru a meat subs phase (DH does most the cooking).

What does he want from the meat, OP? A specific flavour, Heme iron? Fat? protein, Texture? Problem I find with the meat subs is lack of fat & iron, on the whole.

@lljkk I think he is just satisfied by having meat as he really doesn’t enjoy veg or Salads. He’s not a big foodie at the best of times :(

I use tofu covered in taco seasoning in my tacos as often as I use chicken. With guacamole and peppers it is hard to tell.

Risotto is another filling, warm meal where you don't notice not having any meat.

Cashew and mushroom wellington

Cauliflower and broccoli cheese

Burritos

Daal and naans

Mixed vegetable pie/stew is a favourite here. Stew if you do it in the slow cooker and pie if you throw some pastry on top and put it in the oven. Butter beans, butternut squash, mushrooms, chestnuts if you can get them, carrot, onion... That's about it. Squash you can get frozen cubes of in Sainsbury's which saves so much prep time.

Ps. Can't stand most of the Linda McCartney stuff, but Cauldron sausages are great and Quorn chicken burger patties (they're called southern fried burgers I think) are indistinguishable from "real" (reconstituted) chicken burgers. Slam them in burger buns with some coleslaw on the side or chips, and you're done! They're amazing. Great oven food that you don't need to think about.

I'm veggie and DP is a big meat eater. Some meals he'll happily eat veggie are:
halloumi and veg skewers (served with either fries and coleslaw or spicy rice)
roasted veg risotto (sometimes served with fish)
quiche - I make it from scratch usually so use whatever fillings we fancy; leek, mozzarella and courgette goes down well, butternut squash and caramelised red onion, cheese and tomato
filo pie - filled with sundried tomatoes, red onion, peppers, spinach and feta cheese

We also recently had a butternut squash stew in the slow cooker which I served with cheese dumplings. Jacket potatoes are a regular dinner. Tbh I find if I use either fish or cheese instead of meat then DP and DS don't usually miss the meat.

Quorn is rancid and should only be used for filling wall cavities

Sainsburys shroomdogs are delicious
Spanakopita
In my pre vegan days I used to make a japeleno popper Mac and cheese which used to go down a storm
Mattar paneer
Drunken noodles
Veggie fried rice
Falafel and hummus wraps
Hallumi salads
Veggie fajitas
Dahl and naan bread.
Jacket with veggie fillings
Chickpea pot pie
Goats cheese and red onion tart

I can recommend Aldi's beetroot burgers, they're absolutely delicious and my meat loving DH still goes on about how lovely they were.

ASDA do spicy bean burgers and actually, most of their frozen vegetarian stuff is lovely.