Wednesday, January 12, 2022

VEGAN LUNCH + DINNER IDEAS #1

 

When I decided I was going to do Veganuary, I spent a lot of time trawling through various recipe websites and wrote up the meal-plan for the month before January even started! However, what I noticed was that a LOT of the recipes were things I wasn’t familiar with…things I wouldn’t normally fancy making…things that looked incredibly involved and fussy! So with that in mind, I decided to keep a sort-of food diary so I could share what I personally ate for lunch and dinner during my attempt at Veganuary. These are recipes or meal ideas that I’d tend to want to eat any time of the year, including when I’m eating meat and dairy products throughout the rest of the year.


I’m a big foodie, and I couldn’t even whittle myself down to a favourite cuisine. I love cooking pastas, stews, Mexican food, curries, soups…all sorts! This blog post will be the first in a series of a few to come, so here’s a sample of some of my more successful meals since we started the month. I so so thoroughly appreciate you all tolerating such a lot of Veganuary content; I really find that keeping a record of what I’m doing, taking pictures and blogging about it keeps me on the straight and narrow! So, without any further rambling, [because I’m beginning to feel like one of those bloggers who writes their entire life story before giving you the f****** recipe you’re on their page in the first place for] here are some Vegan lunch and dinner ideas:

Black Bean + Sweetcorn Tacos 

These are  l i t e r a l l y just tacos without the minced beef, so they’re something we’d choose to make in the week usually anyway. We like to go for the mini tortillas and fill them with our mixture of onions, peppers, black beans, sweetcorn and seasoning. We usually chuck some tomato puree in there for a bit of extra flava-flave. You could even add kidney beans or chickpeas. The recipe on the back of any taco seasoning packet in a supermarket is perfectly vegan as long as you leave out the minced beef, and choose a vegan cheese and a non-dairy sour cream alternative. Kyle went crazy with our new Ninja food processor and made a homemade salsa out of roasted tomatoes, garlic and chillies which was amazing. Guacamole is also usually vegan but we don’t like avocados! We found an amazing sour cream in Sainsbury’s which you can see in my Vegan Food Haul blog post from the other week. Sprinkle with coriander for prettiness.


Aldi Plant Menu No Steak Bake

Aldi has been doing serious bits lately and I seem to be on a mission to try all of their Plant Menu range. They’ve got lots of these pasty/pastry bits in the freezer section and they’ve even introduced a fair amount of new items in the fresh section, just in time for Veganuary. These No Steak Bakes are savoury and tasty. The ‘steak’ is some kind of soy concoction, which normally I’d feel a bit gross about, but the gravy is warming and peppery, and the texture is absolutely fine. These are super easy to whack in the oven for lunch and they only take half an hour or so. I do like to go for a real Greggs every now and again, but these are so affordable and will last for ages in the freezer. 


Pasta e Lenticchie [Pasta with Lentils]

This is a recipe I came across on MOB Kitchen’s social media a few months ago, and we’ve had it a few times before now. I hadn’t even realised it was a vegan recipe! It’s honestly one of the loveliest, heartiest and most simple recipes you could ever wish for. And best of all, it’s a one-pan recipe which means there’s minimal washing up. It’s full of vegetables with a carrot, celery, onion and chilli base to the sauce, and tastes absolutely fantastic. The full recipe is on MOB Kitchen’s website here [https://www.mobkitchen.co.uk/recipes/pasta-e-lenticchie-pasta-with-lentils] and all you need to do is leave the parmesan cheese off the top at the end. I added some grated vegan cheese alternative to mine after I took this photo which was gorge and I didn’t feel like I was missing out. I really love this pasta more than life and I’ll definitely be making it again and again, even after Veganuary ends! 

Moroccan Chickpea Tagine 

We have a Moroccan tagine on our usual rotation of meals too! We usually have chicken or lamb, but it’s so easy to swap out the meat for chickpeas to turn the meal into a totally vegan recipe. All you need is peppers, onions, a tin of chopped tomatoes and some harissa paste or tagine paste for the sauce. Then you can add pretty much any pulse or vegetable to it for a spicy, comforting bowl of goodness. We serve ours with couscous - be sure to check the ingredients of a pack of couscous before you buy it [I almost served the Ainsley Harriott roasted vegetable couscous before realising it contained milk!] - the Aldi couscous packets all seem to be vegan though, so I’d recommend them. We also love to throw some chopped apricots through the sauce for a sweetness every few bites; super tasty and a great way of having a bit more fruit for the day. We top ours with coriander or parsley and we think it looks way more impressive than it really is!


Fishless Finger Wrap

Here’s another super easy one for an easy and quick lunch. I’m making the most of my final weeks of working from home where I can make use of my entire kitchen for my lunch. It’ll be one of the few things I miss! This is a really simple one you can knock up with things you’ve probably already got in the cupboard or fridge if you’re doing Veganuary or have vegan products lying around anyway. I just heated a wrap and added spinach leaves, red onion, cucumber and vegan mayo to my Bird’s Eye Fishes Fingers. I was a bit skeptical of the Fishless Fingers before I tried them, but was so pleasantly surprised [and equal parts bewildered!] at how realistic they smelled and tasted. The mayo I used was the Hellman’s Vegan Mayo and my, oh my, if you haven’t tried it yet, it really is a game changer. It’s possibly even better than regular mayo, believe it or not! Then I sprinkled over a bit of paprika to make it look boujie for the photo.


Mexican Chickpea Burrito Bowl

If you’re absolutely starving, this one’s the most filling option on the list today. And so so so good! We do burrito bowls usually as well, and we simply swapped the chicken or prawns we’d usually have for chickpeas. We spiced them in chilli con carne seasoning and tomato paste. Then we heated black beans and sweetcorn separately. In another pan, we cooked some white rice. And then in a final pan we caramelised onions and peppers in olive oil. This recipe is a bit of a nightmare considering you use absolutely every single pan in your kitchen, but the end result is really tasty, really filling, and I think it’s one of the most appealing-looking dinner we’ve made so far! We garnished with grated vegan cheese alternative and some of our trusty No-Sour Cream by Sainsbury’s, plus a couple of wedges of lime each for squeezing over the top. It’s a really fun and impressive-looking dish, plus it’s full of vegetables and pulses.


So that’s my round-up of some Vegan recipes I’ve made during the first week or so of Veganuary! I hope some of these are different to the very arty-farty ideas you get on some of the other websites where you just think to yourself ‘‘I am absolutely NOT going to be bothered to make that!’’. I feel like these ones are not too far away from some of the things you may be used to making already, just with little swaps here and there to ensure they’re vegan! Make sure you keep an eye out for the next round-up of meat and dairy-free meal ideas.


Lots of love,

Jasmine x

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