Recipes that can be adjusted for meat/veggie eaters

[theneverendinglaundry]

I'm trying to simplify dinner time and am getting stressed cooking so many different meals!

There are 5 of us - DH and I are vegan but my children would rather eat meat (one of which claims to be vegetarian but doesnt like vegetables or pulses 🙄). Whilst I am encouraging them to try vegan food I respect that they want to eat meat and will cook it for them.

I've come to rely too heavily on freezer food for them and would rather be cooking from scratch. What meals can you think of that would be easily adjusted for all of us? A few ideas I've had:

-mild curry sauce - put tofu in at the end for me and DH, chicken for the kids

-bolognese sauce - split in half and cook one half with beef, one half with lentils

-stir fries - add chicken/pork/beef to theirs and tofu to ours

Anything else?

Sorry I did use paragraphs but they've disappeared

Fajitas are good.
I often make one curry but split the base and put chicken in one and paneer in the other.
Kebabs

You can do pasta with vegs, salad with tofu or vegetable risotto and also roast chicken mini fillets or chicken drumsticks separately to serve to meat eaters.

Risottos
Roast dinners. I have more or less the same but usually have my favourite nut roast. I freeze a couple if nut roast loaves

To be honest though if I'm cooking I make all the meals veggie including stews, curries, salads, casseroles, pastas, tapas and so on.They can still be substantial and filling without the palaver of doing separate.
Even if you did that several times a week and did a meat version a voulle of times it makes life easier and reduces washing up!

children need more fat and protein that we do If you are happy cooking lumps of meat, you could simply cook say some chops/sausages/chicken breasts to go on the side of what you are your dp are having. your meal would be their veggies on the side

Basic meat and vege but marinated tofu for the vegans and a boiled egg for the vege.

Fried rice. Cook egg separately and add for vege. Cook bacon or chicken separately and add for meat eaters.
Can you do a couple of meals a week that everyone will eat? Eg Dahl, soup, nachos (non vegans can add sour cream and cheese)

I too was going to suggest fajitas or tacos, then they can help themselves to the chicken or the vegan ingredients themselves.

I make a Mexican lasagne. Basically a similar mix as the fajitas, but I add sweet corn and olives (if the kids eat those?). Use the same base mix, and make 2, but when layering, just add cooked chicken breast/thigh to one of them. I serve it with a salad, guacomole or salsa.

We eat a lot of adapted food as we have a vegetarian and the rest of us eat meat.

Nasi goreng, I make a vegetable and rice mix which is served with some diced leftover meat for the meat eaters and without for vegetarians. I serve it with a fried egg on top but it doesn't need it.

Tacos, fajitas etc. we make home made salsa and guacamole and serve tofu or just roasted vegetables for vegetarians and for meat eaters, chicken marinated in spices and oven baked or chicken goujons. We usually have some tortilla chips as well.

Traybake, I like sausages with halved small potatoes and peppers and veggie sausages bake pretty well too. I often use things like frozen sweet potato and butternut squash to save time.

When it comes to cooking for vegetarians and meat-eaters at the same time, there are a few different ways you can do it.
The first options is to cook vegetarian side dishes, then just serve a different protein for the vegetarians and meat-eaters. You’ll all be mostly the same, so there won’t be too many additional pans to wash. I know a lot of vegetarians aren’t fond of meat substitutes, but they’re really useful for this kind of meal. Veggie sausages, soya nuggets, grilled Quorn ‘steaks’ – they can all be used as one-for-one replacements for meaty equivalents. I’d do this for roast dinners, burgers, hot dogs, bangers and mash.
Another option is to cook a vegetarian meal, and then scatter some kind of meat or fish on top for those who want it. I sometimes find it helpful to do a roast/pulled chicken or roast/pulled pork once a week so that we have some cooked meat on hand for adding in at the end. You can add pulled chicken right at the end to: enchiladas, fajitas and stuffed peppers. Roast chicken can be added at the end to a chickpea and couscous salad or tagine. I add cooked pork at the end to dishes like curries and stir fries. It's also useful to have bacon lardons for frying and adding right at the end to egg fried rice, carbonara, risotto and lentil casserole.
Make a bunch of beef meatballs and keep them in the freezer, so that a veggie tomato sauce for pasta can get a beefy boost when needed. Also, lamb meatballs are great to throw into a chickpea and vegetable tagine over some couscous, or can be part of a tapas or mezze dinner.
Another option is to use two separate pans, which might sound like the equivalent of making two separate meals, but it’s not! If you’re making a stew or casserole, you can make the exact same thing in two different pans, with barely any extra effort. Chop all your veg, and rather than dumping them into one pan, separate them into two. All the other ingredients can be added to both pans, with meat added to one, and some kind of veggie protein added to the other. Sure, you’ll have two pans to wash instead of one, but there’s otherwise the same amount of prep work and cooking time. It's easy to make two small toad in the holes from one batter mix and just use different sausages. This oven-baked frittata is a good veggie dish if you fry the bacon separately and use two separate oven dishes, leaving the bacon out of one of them www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3077673/bacon-and-ricotta-ovenbaked-frittata
It’s worth making a big batch of these kinds of meals. By the time you’ve started prepping, it’s not really any extra effort to make a larger amount. Stews and soups freeze really well, so you can freeze any leftovers in portions, to make for a quick and easy dinner another night.

So many ideas here, thank you!! I am in such a rut with freezer food and my eldest is getting fed up with it!

@fivemoreminutes1 thank you, yes I think making a batch of meatballs for the freezer is a great idea. I also dont mind having two pans on the go if they have the same base, eg stew.

@mrspnut a tray bake is a great idea - chop up veg, split in half, have one tray for kids with meat, other tray for me and DH with veggie sausages or tofu! Thank you!

Fajitas also a great idea!

I need to write all this down....