My Top Tips to Create Easy and Tasty Vegan Meals

In this guest article, Lucy Hosier, creator of the blog What Luce Eats and author of the book One-Pan Vegan, shares her top tips for anyone switching to a vegan diet.

A Mindset Shift

Switching out animal products from your diet sounds like a daunting task, especially when you’re not confident in the kitchen. I certainly felt this way 4 years ago when I decided to adopt a vegan diet overnight. Prior to this I’d choose my meals by picking up my meat or fish from the supermarket first, and then choosing the rest of the ingredients to accompany it.

It took a whole mindset shift, and lots of experimenting in the kitchen to get comfortable and confident with my new vegan diet and lifestyle. By the end of this article, you should have learned some new tips and tricks for creating easy and delicious vegan meals, without spending hours in the kitchen. Plus, you’ll learn a few absolute must haves in your kitchen cupboards which take your flavours of a dish to the next level.

Vegan Miso-Butter Smashed Potatoes (Click here for the recipe.)

Build Your Go-To Recipe Repertoire

Firstly, my advice is to have a solid bank of 5 to 6 recipes that are easy to make, you love eating and that can be batch cooked or meal prepped to save time throughout the week. For example, I’ll make a roasted vegetable and tofu or vegan sausage pasta dish on a Sunday, alongside a chickpea and vegetable curry. Both will make roughly 3-4 portions so this will feed me through the week. The remaining meals that I’ll then have to make during the week will always be sheet pan recipes. These are the quickest meals to make, as they almost always involve tossing ingredients onto the pan and placing in the oven. I’ll then shower and get in my pjs whilst it cooks and be ready to eat and chill for the evening!

Add These Three Condiments to Your Pantry

Now let’s talk flavours. My kitchen cupboards are never without miso paste and soy sauce. These ingredients aren’t limited to Asian dishes, they add a depth of umami to almost any recipe and heighten the flavours greatly. For example, a dollop of miso paste in a creamy cashew sauce. Or a combination of soy sauce and maple syrup to marinade tofu with. Another store cupboard essential is nutritional yeast. Yes, it might look a bit like fish food, but boy does it transform a dish. It’s a great substitute for cheese as it has a slight tangy flavour, yet it’s much cheaper per portion than most vegan cheeses available to buy. Plus, it’s super high in protein. You know when you’re tasting a dish as you’re cooking it, and you can’t quite put your finger on what’s missing? Well, I bet adding one of these 3 ingredients will give the dish exactly what it’s missing.

Keep it Simple

Another piece of advice to ensure you’re creating delicious vegan recipes is to not over complicate it. A good recipe doesn’t need 20+ ingredients. Keep things simple. This will not only cut the time in the kitchen, but also cut the cost too. Beans and pulses are some of the cheapest ingredients in supermarkets. Make sure you’re always stocked up with a variety of different ones, and feel free to experiment by using say butterbeans instead of chickpeas for example, if you always choose chickpeas. I aim for 30 different plant points a week to ensure I’m eating as much goodness. If you usually choose red bell peppers, try and mix things up and choose a different colour. This will be an extra plant point! Same goes with rice. Have a variety of brown, basmati, wholegrain and wild. Your gut will thank me.

Veganize the Basics

Some of my favourite vegan swaps that will help you veganise your old favourite dishes are ground flaxseed in baking where eggs would be called for. It’s high in protein and fibre and binds ingredients together well. Create a flax egg by mixing 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed with 1 tablespoon of water. Leave it to sit for 5 minutes and watch it swell and bind. Add it to the bowl with the rest of your wet ingredients for your bake. Other swaps include scrambling tofu instead of eggs. I have a great recipe for this in my new book ‘One-Pan Vegan’ which uses tofu and a few other ingredients to flavour it. It’s a really simple and nutrient packed swap, that always goes down well with friends and family.

About the Author

Lucy Hosier is the creator of the popular vegan blog What Luce Eats and the author of One-Pan Vegan. She’s known for her accessible, fast and innovative plant-based recipes. She has worked as a recipe developer for brands such as The Food Medic, Sainsbury’s, Heinz, Albert Bartlett and more. She lives in the North East of England.