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Share your favorite vegetarian meals
I'm making an effort to cut out meat from my diet and I'd love to hear what everyone's favourite vegetarian meals are.
For a long time I have been making pasta with ground beef and I recently found out that I can just not put the beef in and it tastes even better. The tomato sauce really gets a chance to shine without the beef.
Lentil soup is fantastic and easy to make vegan. Wash a pound of red lentils and let them soak in water while you work; cut up some onions, carrots, and maybe potatoes; add salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of ground cumin; put it all together and add water, bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to min and simmer covered for half an hour. That's a simple version but it's easy to add variation like tahini, garlic, lemon juice, etc. You can also use a blender to make it nice and smooth.
I like this recipe for lentil soup. Manjula's Kitchen has great vegetarian recipes.
I was going to say lentil anything. Glad it's covered.
Lentil soup is so good! And it's so easy to just grab whatever is leftover from the past week on Sundays, chop em up, and throw them in the pot with some canned tomato and lentil (and if you can get roux, so much the better). Love it!
Nice timing. We're just making a big effort in our house to cut down on meat use and I've been working pretty hard at making sure meals are both interesting and rich in flavour, which can be tricky because cooking meat is very much a cheat code for flavour. Here are some things which have worked well for me recently:
There's a million recipes out there for fatteh but the basic "toasted pitta, chickpeas, yoghurt, spices" combo is a pretty solid place to start. You can really throw anything you fancy on there - roasted veggies, hummus, pickles, all sorts. The trick is to strain the yoghurt, add a little tahini and a hefty pinch of salt. I could eat salted yoghurt forever.
Okonomiyaki isn't just fun to say, it's really super easy to make and again, once you have the base of chopped cabbage, eggs and flour, you can throw anything in. I like lots of different mushrooms but whatever you like should work just fine. A little bowl of quick pickles on the side (chop veggies to about 1-2cm cubed, bring to boil in vinegar with salt and sugar added, remove from heat and leave to cool) and you're set for a delicious meal.
Also, it's not really my thing to buy pre-prepared stuff but I've recently been trying Beyond Burgers occasionally. They're a pea protein goop which they claim is just like meat but it wouldn't really fool anyone but they're still very delicious.
Roasted cauliflower, dusted with cumin and chilli powder before going in the oven until just starting to char on the tips, some fresh crunchy veg (finely chopped carrots is good), a handful of cheese and you're on for some hella tasty tacos. Cauliflower is a really great ingredient if you're cutting out meat - it's substantial and it's tasty and it's pretty versatile.
Ramen. You cannot go wrong with a big bowl of noodles with a bunch of stuff on top. It's tricky to make decent broth without meat but with some good quality miso and some dried mushrooms you can do pretty well. Personally I'm OK with keeping the offcuts from the occasional meat meal I make and turning that into broth.
Some useful multi-use things - hit up your local Asian supermarket and see if you can find some crispy onion pieces. They're sold in big bags and those bad boys can spice up just about any meal.
Nuts are good, one thing I like to have on hand is a sort of sambal kachang, which is made by toasting peanuts in a hot pan, then adding chilli, garlic, vinegar, sugar and a splash of soy before mildly blending (so still a bit chunky). That will, again, go on a load of stuff and add a big kick of both protein and flavour.
Also nutty - toast some cashews in a hot pan, then add chilli and sugar and soy. Cook until sticky and you've got spicy, salty caramel nuts. Great on their own but throw them into a baked sweet potato or on top of your ramen or into a salad and it's delicious.
Everything Isa Chandra Moskowitz writes is gold. I have Isa Does It at home and all the recipes out of there are amazing.
Indian food, in all of it's many forms and flavours. India is pretty much the only country where meat consumption hasn't risen along with increasing wealth, and that's because a huge amount of the cuisine and food culture is plant based (sometimes with added dairy) by default. You get to go veggie because that's how the dish is supposed to be made, no substitutions needed!
Hmm, thats interesting because the indian takeaway place near my work pretty much only sells food with chicken and beef.
It varies pretty widely by region: if the people running it are Bengali, they almost definitely eat meat, whereas if they're Rajasthani they most likely don't. Overall India is about 40% vegetarian (if you include people who eat eggs), but even those who do eat meat do so a lot less on average than comparable countries.
Anecdotally, I've found that Indian restaurants in the West are a generally a lot heavier on the meat than most I've been to in India, which I guess makes sense: cater to the tastes of the market you're in, and all. I'm very fortunate in that a lot of the Indian food I eat is home cooked (and always vegetarian if so), but I'll see if I can come up with any good cookbook or website recommendations!
If you're in the UK almost everything sold as Indian food isn't really anything like Indian food. "British Indian" is pretty much it's own distinct cuisine at this point but was mostly based on Bangladeshi food in the first place.
Meat-eater here, but I used to LOVE this vegetarian pizza place called Veggie Planet. Sadly, they closed down, but I think my favorite order there is worth preserving. :)
It was called Dinner for Henry, and was a pizza (or rice) topped with squash, caramelized onions, and goat cheese. Some googling reveals it also had rosemary, sage, and asiago cheese.
Plus it's an easy recipe to just assemble, and the component bits can be made ahead of time. PIzza dough is straightforward to make (or can be bought), caramelized onions can be made in bulk and frozen in small portions (ice cube trays are great for that), and a big batch of roasted squash is great for meal prep anyway as a side dish in and of itself.
I think I remember my vegan friend enjoying it with crumbled tofu instead of cheese.
Gordon Ramsay's broccoli soup recipe is the simplest soup recipe ever and amazingly tasty even without the cheese or walnuts.
Me and the roommate made some vegetarian swedish meatballs and mashed red potatoes the other day. Regardless of how you feel about the meatless meatballs in this receipe the gravy is top notch. https://www.acouplecooks.com/norwegian-vegetarian-meatballs-recipe/
If I can find it I'll post a phenomenal wild rice soup we consistently make as well.
I'm a huge fan of Mark Bittman's recipes. I think he knows where to find the balance between effort & flavor.
One of my favorites of his is his Pasta alla Norma recipe. I know pasta isn't necessarily an exciting meal for some, but my goodness, that eggplant is incredible.
If you are looking for a bunch of great recipes, I can't recommend Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian enough. It's full of a ton of recipes that have helped me and my partner curb most of our meat eating.
Baked cauliflower with cheese! Totally favorite thing. Very easy to cook, super tasty.
Edit: here's a decent recipe
It's hard to tell meat chili from vegan chili, I've fooled people before with that frozen veggie mince stuff.
This old german lady passed her chili secret to me: friggin' chili sauce. Like, the Heinz-brand spicy ketchup. She'd lob an entire bottle into the pot. It doesn't sound great, but it is.
I'm nowhere near vegan or vegetarian, but my girlfriend is. I've struggled to find things I could make for her that both she and I both find tasty. One thing that has been a hit is this: https://sweetsimplevegan.com/2018/04/simple-lemon-olive-oil-pasta/
Its simple, its quick, its cheap, and its good.
Looks tasty! Although as a non-vegan/vegetarian/cheese lover, I probably would go for non-vegan parmesan. I am going to try that this week though!
I live in a small town in india, my mom makes this dish(curry) with a bunch of vegetables and coconut called Avial I like it so much. I haven't tried any fancy vegetarian meals to explain the taste.
Oho! An Indian on Tildes! I think you may be the first Indian I've seen on here. I live in Delhi and and presently in my second year of college studying computer science. What about you?
Actually there are a few of us. I live in kerala, and I'm a 3rd-year Mechanical Engineering student.
I had no idea. Cheers!
Calling this a 'meal' or a 'recipe' might be a bit generous, but I do have a way of preparing ramen that's vegan, quick, cheap, and tasty. Boil and drain the noodles, then mix in about a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter, three tablespoons rice vinegar, and maybe a half tablespoon of sriracha. You can also chunk up some tofu and stir it in to the mix, I love the contrast of flavors it provides.
Okay, I promise I wasn't just going to link to my version of this recipe, but I tried to find the original on Minimalist Baker (which is a great resource, by the way) and I simply could not. Anyway, every time I've made this recipe I've been happy. It's a new classic:
Thai Baked Sweet Potatoes
We've been working through Vegan Under Pressure, which is specifically dedicated to Instant Pot/pressure cooker recipes.
Everything has been decent so far, though I've found the Indian and Ethiopian recipes the tastiest.
We tend to cook on the weekends to serve the whole week. I've found that having portions of two or more vegan dishes in the same meal is more satisfying than just one dish at a time, so big batches of a couple of different recipes (e.g. one vegetable-heavy and one grain/bean dish), work out well.
I have made this several times I find it very delicious and hearty.