Every dinner here is ours and none of them uses oil. They are sorted by total time, from 22 minutes at the top to an hour and a half at the bottom.
The slow ones are not slow work. Stuffed peppers and the zucchini casserole are twenty minutes of assembly and then an hour of oven, which is a different thing from an hour of cooking. If you are choosing on a weeknight, read the time as how long before you eat rather than how long you stand up.
Twelve of the thirteen are built on beans, lentils, tofu or whole grains. That is what makes them dinner and not a side.
1. Oriental Whole Wheat Nuggets
The fastest thing on this page. 22 minutes, and it makes 16.
Built on soaked wheat berries rather than flour, held together with 2 tbsp of ground flaxseed. The nutritional yeast is what gives them a savory depth without anything from a jar.
2. Chickpea, Lentil and Avocado Burger
A bean patty on a whole wheat bun, with an avocado spread mashed with garlic, lemon and dill. 25 minutes.
It borrows the patty from number 8 below. Make that batch on a Sunday and this stops being a recipe and becomes assembly.
3. Roasted Cauliflower, Quinoa and Beet Bowl
Cauliflower, beet and sweet potato roasted together over quinoa, finished with a cashew sauce and a handful of baby greens. 30 minutes, 3 bowls.
The sauce is our universal cashew sauce, unchanged. Make a jar of it on a Sunday and this bowl becomes roasting vegetables and nothing else.
4. Healthy Vegan Nuggets
Quick oats with cashews, sunflower seeds, carrot and onion. 12 nuggets in 35 minutes.
The oats do the binding here rather than flaxseed, which gives a softer bite than the wheat berry nuggets at the top.
5. Brown Rice Mushroom Risotto
Two cups of soaked brown rice with 10 cremini mushrooms, corn, peas and kidney beans. 40 minutes, serves 3.
Soaking the brown rice is what lets it cook in 40 minutes instead of an hour. The beans are the reason this reads as dinner and not a side of rice.
6. Green Tofu Pie
Rice paper wrappers instead of pastry, rolled around tofu, spinach and green onion, then coiled into a spiral and baked. 40 minutes, serves 2 to 3.
Gluten-free because of the rice paper, which is also the one fussy part. Soak the sheets one at a time and only for a few seconds. Fully softened, they tear as you roll them.
7. Baked Cabbage and Bean Casserole
Three cups of cooked navy beans with half a head of cabbage, a carrot and an onion. 45 minutes, serves 4.
Half a head of cabbage looks like far too much going in. It collapses to a fraction of that in the oven, so do not be tempted to cut it back.
8. Plant Protein-rich Patties
Chickpeas, lentils, mung beans and buckwheat, all soaked, in one mixture. 50 minutes and it makes 16 to 18.
Two cups of soaked legumes and buckwheat hold together poorly on their own, so 4 tablespoons of ground flaxseed goes in to bind them. Everything soaks for a full 12 hours first, which is the step to start the night before.
9. Easy Brown Rice With Veggies
Brown rice with onion, carrot, tomato, zucchini, green pepper and corn. 50 minutes, serves 3.
The plainest thing on this page, and the one most likely to turn into a weeknight default. One pot, no browning step, nothing to watch.
10. Oil-Free Fresh Herb Ratatouille
Eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes and red onion with garlic and fresh herbs. An hour, serves 4.
Ratatouille is usually where the oil goes in by the ladle. These vegetables give up enough water to cook in their own liquid, so none is needed.
11. Stuffed Eggplant with Chickpea and Tomato Sauce
Two large eggplants filled with chickpeas in a tomato, onion and cumin sauce. An hour, serves 2.
A full cup of cooked chickpeas goes into two eggplants, which is what stops this being a vegetable side pretending to be a main.
12. Zucchini Pizza Casserole
Three shredded zucchini pressed into a base with chickpea flour, ground flax, chia and sesame. 90 minutes, serves 3.
Most of that hour and a half is oven time, not your time. Chickpea flour, ground flax, chia and sesame all go in dry, because shredded zucchini gives up a lot of water and something has to take it up.
13. Healthy Bean Stuffed Peppers
Seven or eight red peppers filled with beans, carrot and onion, seasoned with mint, paprika and turmeric. 90 minutes, serves 3 to 4.
That 90 minutes assumes you are starting from dry beans. Open cans instead and you skip the first two steps entirely, which is most of the time.
Which to Cook First
If you have never cooked a bean patty, start with the whole wheat nuggets at the top. 22 minutes is short enough that a failure costs you nothing, and the mixture tells you whether it will hold while it is still in your hands.
If it slumps in your palm, it needs more flaxseed. Our guide to what holds vegan patties together goes through the whole thing, including how wet the mixture should be before you shape it.
For the slow end, the stuffed peppers reward a Sunday. They reheat better than anything else here.
