Vegetarian Dinner Ideas

I’ve recently started paying more attention to what we eat and what’s in the foods we are eating. There’s a few people that I follow on instagram (here’s my favorite) that have great feeds full of information about what’s in our food and everyday products. In my attempt to be more conscious of what I’m putting into my body, I’ve watched a few health documentaries. I liked What the Health and Forks Over Knives. Next on my list is Secret Ingredients.

It’s alarming how many common health problems are tied to the food we eat, and especially animal products. So, we randomly decided to start incorporating more vegetarian meals into our weekly menu. This has inadvertently turned into several weeks of vegetarian meals. So I figured I would share some of the recipes we’ve tried and enjoyed. You can also follow me on Pinterest to get more inspo from my Meatless Monday and the recipe boards!

You WILL feel better

While we have really only cut out meats (aside from my husband’s weekend bacon at breakfast or having a burger if we go out to eat), it hasn’t been difficult at all for me. I’ve never been much of a carnivore to begin with. And I’ve always needed a good side to go with any meat otherwise I won’t eat it. But during both of my pregnancies, I was more interested in eating meat, especially burgers, and drinking whole milk. Both were surprises to me because I had almost never been interested in either of those foods unless they were accompanied by something else. After having kids, my interest slowly faded and now I’m back to almond milk and small portions of meat.

It’s been about 2.5 weeks now since I’ve eaten any meat, and I will say that my entire body feels “lighter.” Not in a physical weight sense, even though I’ve lost a few pounds, but it just feels lighter, and healthier. With cutting out meat, I have been eating more vegetables (obviously) and really haven’t been hitting the sweets as much as I usually do. I don’t plan on going full vegetarian anytime soon, but it has been fun finding tasty and fulfilling vegetarian dishes that even my carnivore husband enjoys.

The recipes we’ve tried…

• Baked buffalo cauliflower “wings” and loaded potato wedges: We dip our cut up cauliflower in a flour/water batter and then bake it at 375°F for 25-30 minutes until it’s crispy, and then toss it in a buffalo sauce/honey mix. But this recipe looks good and doesn’t use flour. And this is the recipe I’ve been using for years for the loaded potato wedges. Obviously you’d leave out the bacon if you want it to be vegetarian-approved.
• Vegetarian lasagna (Recipe here): I made this lasagna for our pescatarian neighbors when they had a baby. It smelled SO good when I was cooking it, better than a regular lasagna, so I just had to make it for us too. I did half ricotta and half cottage cheese, only because my husband loves ricotta, so it still had the traditional ricotta flavor. This has been one of my favorite meals we’ve made so far.
• Stuffed peppers: There’s a lot of different stuffed pepper options out there. We just use bell peppers, cut the tops off and remove the inside and leave them standing up. I usually bake them at 350°F for about 10-15 minutes while I get the other ingredients ready just because I don’t like them to be too crunchy when I eat them and this softens them up more. Then we’ll stuff them with rice (whatever you prefer – white, brown, cauliflower), black beans, corn, cheddar cheese, onion, tomato, and then I cover the top with cheese before baking for about 25-30 minutes. I like to mix up the ingredients before stuffing the peppers, but you could also layer them if you preferred. These are also really easy to make a big batch and freeze for an easy dinner in the future. Just thaw it overnight and bake the next day.
• Buffalo chickpeas: Not necessarily a meal on their own, but a great snack or topping for other meals. These are super easy to make and taste delish. I ate almost a whole can of chickpeas in one day when I made these. Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas, then put them on a paper towel to dry for a few minutes while you get the flour and oil ready. Toss the chickpeas in a bowl of flour, salt, pepper and garlic (or just mix it with Nature’s Seasons. My parents use that stuff for EVERYTHING). Heat some oil over medium-high heat (I use olive oil) and scoop the floured chickpeas out of the bowl and into the pan, so the excess flour doesn’t get in your pan. Then just cook them for like 5-10 minutes, shaking them around every so often until they’re crispy. Lightly toss them in buffalo sauce and enjoy them just like that, or in a salad or on pizza.
• Cauliflower crust pizza: Regular pizza dough works too, but I like the Trader Joe’s cauliflower pizza crust. It’s easy to make any pizza vegetarian, just cover it in cheese and your favorite veggies and throw it in the oven. This was really good with the buffalo chickpeas I mentioned above.
• Sweet potato tacos: This has been my other favorite meal. Probably because I just love tacos in general, even though I rarely put meat on my tacos to begin with. You can taste the sweet potatoes a little bit, but for the most part, the other flavors overpower their sweetness and they are more there for a little crunch and extra nutrients. For these tacos, we cut up sweet potato into small-ish pieces, seasoned them with some Nature’s Seasons, and cooked them in a pan with olive oil until they were done and crispy. Then, we just use that in our regular taco setup instead of meat. So we used tomato, cheese, sour cream, rice, guacamole, black beans, and corn. But you can use whatever taco toppings your little heart desires. Put it in a shell or in a bowl, it’ll taste delish either way!
• Vegetarian Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes: We made this recipe, but I changed a few things. First, I used a cup of panko breadcrumbs instead of the oats. The idea of oats made me nervous, even though the reviews for this meatloaf are very good. Then, I added chopped up carrots and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce to the ingredients. I also sautéed the carrots and onion in a pan for a few minutes before adding it to the final mix, so they would be softer than just cooking in the oven for 45 minutes. Then I spread a ketchup and brown sugar mixture on top of the meatloaf before putting it in the oven. This gave it that traditional meatloaf smell while cooking. I was surprised how much it reminded me of regular meatloaf once I was eating it with the mashed potatoes. (Which is what my mom always made it with.) The lentils give it a good consistency that isn’t exactly like meat, but it wasn’t all that different. P.S. My VERY PICKY daughter gobbled this up with her mashed potatoes…. I was shocked.

There are some more recipes I have saved to my Pinterest board that I plan on trying soon. If there’s enough good ones worth sharing, I’ll have to do another post. A lot of the meals above made leftovers, so we ate them for a few days. Or for the tacos, I just bought several sweet potatoes because I knew we would have leftover toppings, and we just cooked 1 or 2 sweet potatoes each night.

What’s your favorite vegetarian dish? I’d love to get more ideas and recipes that I know will be good!

xx

Kirsten