Go-To Lazy Vegetarian Meals

This list will come in handy if you are lazy, yes. But it will also prove useful if you are short on time, energy, or ingredients. When I don’t feel like cooking, these go-to lazy vegetarian meals come to the rescue. I know takeout can be tempting, but many of these are quicker than takeout and they are definitely better for your calorie + financial budget!

Tara’s Tuesday Tips:

Go-To Vegetarian Meals I Make When I Feel Lazy

This blog was born out of my passion for wanting to share with others how easy it can be to be vegetarian. When I started, I knew I could cook. I also knew for certain that I was pretty darn good at feeding my own busy vegetarian family of four. I had a full-time job, a budget, and two teenagers. Guess what? Takeout and the drive-thru didn’t exactly fit into that profile. So, I learned how to make quick, healthy meals that I could either pull together with lots of distractions. Part of my success was making sure I prioritized prepping the basic ingredients when life wasn’t so hectic + our pantry was always stocked with vegetarian staples.

These days, you can get your takeout delivered right to your front door, but you will pay a hefty premium for that service. If you think about it, and I mean really think about it. Yes, takeout is fun + convenient but is it really the best option for feeding your family of one or two or more? Bad habits stack up + eventually you pay the price – with your wallet or your health. So, this Tuesday, I bring you my favorite go-to vegetarian meals I make when I feel lazy.

These lazy vegetarian meals are:

Vegetarian or vegan
Affordable/Budget-Friendly
Ready in under 30 minutes
Made with pantry-friendly ingredients you probably already have
MVF approved – tried + true classics served multiple times here in the MVF kitchen amid chaotic days of busy kids + working parents

Tara’s Top Tips For Making Lazy Meals Work

Whether you are new to being vegetarian, have been eating plant-forward for years, want to improve your health or lower your food budget, you will some day get lazy when it comes to making a vegetarian meal. Guaranteed, you will! When that time comes, you will be thanking me for this list. Here a few bits of Tara advice to get you prepared:

If you want to make your busy days or nights easier (and healthier), spend some time on the not-so-busy days or nights making sure you have the building blocks in place. Batches of tofu, rice, quinoa, tempeh, dressings, and even veggies or potatoes ready to build on for a lazy meal. This will help: 10 Things To Do On Weekends To Make Weeknight Cooking Easier
Make your freezer your friend. When you have time, make extra + stash it in the freezer. That way, you can grab a healthy meal or component of a meal for lunch or dinner when you get lazy. Buy single serve containers + portion out beans, sauces, veggies, soups, and chilis.
Go shop for your building block ingredients when you are not lazy, hungry, or distracted. Amazon is a perfect place to use to stock up on pantry staples. For a few extra bucks, you can have any grocery store deliver your perishables too. Check out What’s In My Pantry to get an idea of the vegetarian staples I always keep in the MVF pantry.
Get chopping! When you have time on the weekends (or another day of the week you have a few spare minutes), chop things that you can reach for in a pinch to help make a meal out of. I use a mini electric chopper to chop onions, tomatoes, and peppers and have them ready to go for when I feel lazy, busy, distracted or too darn hungry to chop an onion. If your produce is already washed + chopped, you can definitely pull together a meal faster than a takeout delivery.
Pick the sauce of the week. One sauce, many meals. It can be Asian Ginger Dressing, Creamy Avocado Dressing, Tahini Dressing, Peanut Sauce, Marinara Sauce. Think of it like this: there are wardrobe staples just like there are kitchen staples. The navy-blue pencil skirt might get worn this week 3 times but looks like a different outfit because of what you pair it with. Well, then why can’t that peanut sauce be eaten 3 times but be 3 different meals? Ha! It can!!!!

Food For Thought

Sometimes answering the question, “what should I make for dinner?” is just too much. Vegetarian or not, it can be too much. It does not matter why the question is too much on any given night. Allow yourself the grace to let it be too much now and then. When I had 2 little vegetarians in the kitchen with me, takeout wasn’t an option. Now we have this blog because on some days making dinner was too much, prepping ingredients was too much, and getting takeout too much was way too much. So, bookmark this post, save it to Pinterest, stop by here often or just reach out to me: tara@myvegetarianfamily.com 💚

I still have lazy days + days where chopping an onion is just too much, but at least I am prepared for them and I definitely have a few go-to lazy meals to fall back on. Thanks for stopping by + using my little piece of the internet to help you live a vegetarian lifestyle … one meal at a time 💚

All the best,

Tara 👩🏻‍🍳