Plant-based is a way of building a meal: start with vegetables, legumes, and grains, and let them carry the dish. The lentils, the squash, or the mushrooms are the point of the plate, not the side you push around while you eat the meat.
It’s a value, not a diet rule. Some of these recipes have butter, an egg, or a little meat for seasoning, and that’s fine. A spoon of bacon fat in the cabbage still leaves the cabbage in charge. The vegan and vegetarian tags are the strict ones; this tag is about where the weight of the meal sits.
The practical payoff is that plants are nutritionally dense, cheap, they keep, and they take seasoning well. Cooking this way most nights makes the grocery bill smaller and the fridge easier to win.
Spaghetti, cherry tomatoes, and garlic cooked together in a little oily water, so the sauce makes itself as the water boils off. It’s the Cherry tomato and garlic pasta build of one-pan pasta.
These vegetable patties are quick to make and delicious. They’re perfect when you’re looking for a lighter sandwich or salad topping.
A simplified weeknight coconut curry built around pan-browned butternut squash and yellow Thai curry paste. Soy sauce keeps it vegetarian; fish sauce adds more depth if you eat it.
Cabbage is a comforting side dish on a cool, dark evening. It pairs nicely with schnitzel, sausage, roasts, and dumplings.
This is a warm, filling soup that pairs nicely with garlic or cheese bread, or grilled cheese.
This is a classic, comforting soup, perfect for late summer or fall.
This was our kids’ first and favourite lasagna, and we used it as a vessel to hide vegetables in.
This is a fresh and delicious autumn salad.
This recipe works for most vegetables, though corn is a slightly special case as it needs a bit longer than most veg. It sounds simple (and is), but the trick is to get the corn to brown and char a bit, for those summer roasting flavours.
This dish is great when spaghetti squash is in season.
This is a quick flatbread, similar to the Trader Joe’s mushroom and truffle flatbread (but without the truffle oil).
Mushroom caps stuffed with Boursin, hummus, and finely minced pepper and onion, then baked.
What’s to say? This is a broccoli salad that has bacon. It’s a sweet and savoury salad that is more filling than most.
A hearty bean, nut, and mushroom burger. The vital wheat gluten gives it a savoury chew, so it holds together in the pan instead of crumbling.
This is a warming, filling, vegetarian delight.
All the flavour of egg rolls without the wrapper: ground pork with cabbage, carrot, ginger, and sesame. Low-carb, quick, and highly riff-able.
