Cooking Tips for New Vegetarians

Are you trying to cook more vegetarian meals? It is easy to be skeptical of meatless cooking. Will it taste good? Is it difficult to do? Can it still be healthy? How time consuming will it be? I get it! Today I am sharing my favorite 7 cooking tips for new vegetarians. These tips have helped me with my plant-based journey + they are so super easy I am sure they will help you too!

Tara’s Tuesday Tips:

7 Cooking Tips for New Vegetarians

1. Recreate Old Favorites

Just because you take the meat out of your meals, it doesn’t mean you suddenly need to be fancy. Take it from me, recreating your usuals minus the meat is the key to your success as a vegetarian. The common misconception is that you will have to give up your favorite things that taste good + start eating boring things that are difficult to cook … nope!

Read this: Vegetarian FAQ or How To Go Plant-Based In 7 Easy Steps

2. Learn to Love Spices

I have said this over + over again around here. People that go back to eating meat + proclaim themselves as failed vegetarians … they don’t miss the meat, they miss the flavor. Don’t let that be you! Garlic, cumin, turmeric, pepper, and even nutritional yeast are a total must on your vegetarian cooking journey.

Read this: How To Stop Meat Cravings As A Vegetarian

3. Know the Necessary Basics

From tofu to broccoli, there are a few survival basics that I feel every vegetarian should know. Making a dairy-free salad dressing, a quick air fried veggie are just a few that are necessary vegetarian survival skills. Once you have a few basics, you can build on them to make things a little more interesting.

Read this: Guide To Cooking Recipe-Free Meatless Meals

4. Stock Your Pantry

Basic ingredients can easily be transformed into incredible, tasty, healthy meals if you have a few staples ready to go. Things like frozen veggies, nutritional yeast, soy sauce or liquid aminos, dried spices, and even pasta.

Read this: What’s In My Pantry

5. Prep Your Ingredients

Making meatless meals is not more time consuming than meat meals! With a little planning, you can make big batches of staples when you have extra time. Things like dressings, sauces, rice or quinoa, beans or tofu.

Read this: 10 Things To Do On Weekends To Make Weeknight Cooking Easier

6. Keep Learning

Cooking is an art form + just like any other art form, keep fine tuning your skills, learning new techniques, and keep it interesting. You are in the right place here!

Read this: How To Enjoy Cooking At Home or How To Find Happiness In The Kitchen

7. Expand Your Culinary Horizons

So many flavors from around the world can be incorporated into your vegetarian cooking! Mexican, Indian, Thai flavors are perfect for vegetarians! A few veggies, maybe some beans or tofu + you are all set. A word of caution … if you don’t embrace this, you WILL get bored + perhaps be looking for meat again … just some food for thought.

Read this: How To Use Spices To Boost Wellness or Turn Up The Heat: Spicy Food IS Healthy

Food For Thought

If you coast through life just accepting what you eat + what you do (or don’t do) as the status quo, what else might you be normalizing without ever questioning it? I am so excited you are here with me + are looking for cooking tips to easily eat more plants. We create the lives we live. Mine is filled with the people I love + I will eat plants with them. The best part? I get to teach all of you how easy it is to cook meatless meals + be healthy + happy in the process!!!

All the best,

Tara 💚