Simple vegan meal plans

[ValerieFlowers]

Hi, I have thought of trying a vegan diet for months now and it's reached a point where I feel that I can't go on eating meat and animal products any more because of the guilt I feel, even though nowadays I hardly eat meat at all. Yes, I have always enjoyed the taste of meat, fish and dairy but I care more about animals and the planet and I feel that I'm ready now to commit to giving up meat and dairy. The thing is I am a totally new to a vegan diet and I don't have a lot of time for meal preparation (single mum, work full time). I am looking for a) a short, concise beginners guide to becoming vegan and b)a really simple vegan diet plan, with quick and easy meals that don't require a lot of prep or lots of ingredients, whilst still providing the essential nutrients. Can anyone recommend any books or websites please? Thank you.

Thank you @ppeatfruit for that, it sounds delicious! And easy too so I'm more likely to do it

I've tried ones with blended carrot etc as the base but yours sounds much less faff!

Oh yes Apple I go for easy recipes . I made a vegan shepherds pie yesterday. Simples!! using a steamer for the whole scrubbed (not peeled or chopped till afterwards) vegetables, the water in the steamer becomes a nice veg. stock and the vitamins in the veg. are retained by peeling afterwards.!

@ppeatfruit more useful tips! I've never thought of steaming whole vegetables. Going to try that too!

Try the Mealive app and select vegan (great app, but some recipes seem overly sweet to us). Or look at the forks over knives website. Both are of course trying to get you to upgrade to premium so avoid doing that!

It's great idea I think I got it from Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book, I top and tail veg like parsnips which have very muddy ends! To keep the water usable for the stock (I often add the celery leaves or old lettuces to the steamer too, to flavour the stock water).

For soups I gently fry onions and garlic separately and then add the nearly cooked veg. especially if you're going on to make soups or anything else You have to make sure the veg are not very soft (just enough to allow a sharp knife in) because it's nice to have fresh tasting soups.

Sorry for the typos and repetitions I'm a bit tired !!

@ppeatfruit so for soup you just take the fried onions, steamed veg, stock and blend together? Very simple!!

We have been (mostly) vegan for a few years now. The Happy Pear videos on YouTube are my life-saver for easy vegan meal ideas that don’t involve a tonne of weird ingredients. And I use Minimalist Baker blog a lot.

We have a Riverford box so veg tastes delicious from that. We saved money from giving up meat and dairy so invested that in better quality veg.

So meals that we cook a lot are:
Happy Pear Curries-dead easy and super tasty
Bean chilli
Veggie Spag Bol with soya mince and loads of veg
I do a vegan lasagne with white sauce made from oat milk ( I up the white sauce amount from a ‘normal’ lasagne) and sprinkle a vegan Parmesan on top (cashew nuts/nutritional yeast/salt)
Pasta and roasted veg
Chickpea morrocan stew
Veggie shepherds pie
Puff pastry veg pie with mash/wedges
Roast dinner - either leave out meat or replace with a veg wellington

Basically what do you normally eat? Then think of an easy replacement for it. I found in the beginning we used more meat replacement stuff like soya mince/fake chicken etc but now we hardly ever do. It was a good way of easing into it though.

Good luck. I find I hardly ever get ill now and feel so much healthier!

Yes exactly Apple the stock is the water that you steamed the veg in, you can add the B12 yeast flakes\bouillon to it.

I checked my Jane Grigson book and she suggests scrubbing the root veg and turning them wide end down so the base cooks more than the tops.

I couldn't agree more about having fresh organic vegetables Life we are soo lucky when we're here (in Fr. ), we are spoilt for choice for BIO veg.; our old neighbours have a properly accredited organic market stall no more expensive than the sprayed stuff. I think it's worthwhile to spend more anyway.
I also follow my Blood Type for my health which works very well. Most of my friends and family are less healthy than me!

This weeks meal plan is:

Sun - cauliflower and broccoli marinated in soy yoghurt and ras el hanout then roasted

Mon - roasted jerk flavoured butternut squash slices with salad and a vegan honey and mustard style dressing I found in aldi

Tue - jackfruit madras and brown rice and homemade sweet potato and red onion bhajis

Wed - peppers roasted and filled with lentil chilli

Thu - Asda plant based sausage with celeriac mash

Fri - something with fresh beetroot! Haven't found a recipe I fancy yet but I've got a bunch coming in my veg box on Monday!

cricket Oooh I love beetroot, ( Gulyas or goulash?) soup is wonderful, you could steam them as I suggested , if you scrub rather than peel them before you cook then you don't get the juice all over the place!

The tops are nice too.

Taking notes. Quite a few of my friends are vegan.

I just remembered another short cut, that is soo much easier you'll wonder why you hadn't heard of it before . It's shoving a pumpkin or butternut squash in the oven, whole, no peeling, brushed with oil and with some holes\ or slits in it. Bake at around 160C - 170 for 30\40 mins or until a sharp knife goes into it, but not too easily.

It's then easy to slice for frying or chopping for soups etc.

cricket Duh I'm an idiot it's not goulash it's Borscht beetroot soup it's delicious esp when you start with RAW beetroot, I usually make it with the precooked stuff

@ppeatfruit I tried to make that once before but had accidentally added way too much salt and it was awful. I think I will try again though. My eldest DC had a polish friend when she was younger who's mum always used to make it for them and she loved it so I'm sure she will eat it too if I can get it right.

YY to the squash tips. It makes life so much easier to roast them whole :) another quick tip is to pierce them several times with a skewer and then microwave for 10 mins to soften!

Yes but it would be difficult to fit some butternut squashes and or pumpkins in a microwave !! I find it's the cutting that I hate so getting it into the oven is easier! of course its quicker in a microwave once it's cut.

Yes depends on the size of the squash! I do it with those little red onion squash that are a funny shape and virtually impossible to peel without losing a finger or two 😂

That's a good idea, (dm only has a microwave), I'll remember that when I'm caring for her!

Today: Thai peanut fried rice (vegan Richa recipe)
Tomorrow: pasta primavera
Wednesday: Tuscan bean stew with crusty bread
Thursday: sweet potato burrito

FYI river ford has an AMAZING beetroot and orange soup recipe - it’s called “beetroot haters soup”

I like beetroot risotto, or beetroot and carrot roasted together.

Llumped Only thing is that I'm an orange hater !! There's nothing that could make dh love beetroot ANYTHING, he has a phobia created by a force feeding nun when he was little.

I opened this thread as I’ve been thinking similar to the OP, but the phrase “nutritional yeast flakes to resemble parmesan“ is enough to put me off

Well it's NOT parmesan , though they do look similar and it melts. IMO The NY is better for us. It's what they make marmite from!

Also...if you’ve never heard it Nutritional Yeast before, it’s very different to traditional years you use for baking, in case that’s what’s freaking you out!