Twenty-three recipes that make a full starting repertoire, grouped by the meal they belong to.
Breakfasts, quick lunches, dinners you can put in front of anyone, then sides and one sweet thing.
Five are ours. Cook your way down the list and you will not need to think about what to make for about a month.
Breakfast
1. Easy Overnight Oats with Strawberries
Ours. Oats, plant milk, chia and strawberries in a jar the night before.
Start here. It is the recipe that removes a decision from every morning of the week.
2. Vegan French Toast
Fifteen minutes, six slices, gluten-free and eggless. It still soaks and browns properly.
Slightly stale bread holds together far better than fresh.
Get the recipe from Strength and Sunshine.
3. Creamy Quinoa Breakfast Bowl
Quinoa simmered in coconut milk instead of water, which changes it entirely. Twenty-five minutes, serves four at 449 calories.
Make the batch and reheat it through the week with different fruit on top.
Get the recipe from Moderately Messy RD.
4. Creamy Vegan Mango Lassi
Ten minutes, makes three at 199 calories. Sour as well as sweet, which is how a lassi should taste.
Not a meal, but a good thing to know how to make.
Get the recipe from My Chef’s Apron.
Quick lunches
5. Chickpea Avocado Salad
Five minutes, nine ingredients, nothing cooked. A can of chickpeas, an avocado, lime and cilantro.
The fastest recipe on this page and a good one to prove that lunch does not have to be difficult.
Get the recipe from Flavorful Eats.
6. Chickpea Tuna Salad
Ours, and the most read recipe on the site. Mashed chickpeas with nori for the flavor of the sea.
Make it once and it covers sandwiches for three days.
7. Easy Vegetable Soup
Forty minutes, six servings at 298 calories. The plain vegetable soup everyone should be able to make without a recipe eventually.
It offers vegetable or chicken broth. Take the vegetable.
Get the recipe from Gypsy Plate.
8. Butternut Squash and Carrot Soup
Makes six bowls at 183 calories. Roast, blend, done, and it freezes in portions.
Blended soups are the most forgiving thing a new cook can make. Nothing about them can look wrong.
Get the recipe from When Salty and Sweet Unite.
9. Creamy Kale Potato Soup
Also ours. Potato blended into the broth is what makes it creamy, and there is no cream in it.
Add the kale near the end so it keeps its color.
Dinners
10. One-Pot Vegan Mac and Cheese
Eight minutes, one pot, gluten-free and nut-free. The pasta cooks in the sauce so nothing gets drained.
Serves four. The one for the evening when nobody has any patience left.
Get the recipe from Strength and Sunshine.
11. Sweet Potato Mac and Cheese
Ours, and the version where blended sweet potato is the whole sauce. No vegan cheese, no cashews.
The one readers make for children who inspect everything before eating it.
12. One-Pot Creamy Tomato Pasta
Thirty minutes, serves four at 468 calories. Everything in one pot including the pasta.
Stir it more often than you think. One-pot pasta catches on the bottom if you leave it.
Get the recipe from Vegan Huggs.
13. Easy Vegan Orzo Pasta
Orzo with cherry tomatoes, thirty minutes. Note that the recipe is written for one person at 766 calories.
Halve it or split it between two and it becomes a reasonable dinner.
Get the recipe from Give Me The Vitamins.
14. Lentil Bolognese
Forty-five minutes and it makes ten servings at 195 calories, which is the best value on this page.
Eleven grams of protein a portion and it freezes flat. Make the whole batch even if you are two.
Get the recipe from I Heart Eating.
15. Chickpea and Spinach Curry
Thirty-five minutes, serves four at 297 calories. The original calls it a walk-away curry, which is accurate.
Canned chickpeas, canned tomatoes and a bag of spinach. Nothing to chop beyond an onion.
Get the recipe from My Goodness Kitchen.
16. Vegan Fried Rice with Tofu
Thirty minutes, serves four at 431 calories. Good use for the rice left over from something else.
Cold rice fries. Fresh rice steams. That is the whole secret and it is the only thing to get right.
Get the recipe from Bites With Blair.
17. Easy Vegan Ramen
Thirty minutes, serves three at 355 calories. Miso broth rather than the long pork stock a ramen usually needs.
Do not boil the miso once it goes in. It goes flat and grainy if you do.
Get the recipe from Joyful Dumplings.
18. Crispy Potato Tacos
Tacos de papa. Twenty minutes and it makes twelve at 150 calories each.
Potato in a taco sounds like too much starch until you have eaten one. It is a street food for a reason.
Get the recipe from Eaternally Yours.
Sides and snacks
19. Oil-Free Oven Roasted Chickpeas
Ours. Chickpeas roasted until they rattle, with no oil at all.
Dry them properly first. That is the difference between crisp and chewy.
20. Turmeric Roasted Chickpeas
The same idea with turmeric and warm spices. Serves two at 198 calories.
They go soft within a day, so make what you plan to eat.
Get the recipe from When Salty and Sweet Unite.
21. Air Fryer Broccoli and Potatoes
Fifteen minutes, serves two, 93 calories, which is the lightest thing on this page.
An air fryer makes vegetables crisp without oil better than an oven does. This is the recipe that shows why.
Get the recipe from Veg Buffet.
22. Red Lentil Tofu Bites
Tofu made from red lentils rather than soy, from one ingredient. Thirty minutes, serves four at 52 calories.
The strangest thing on this page and worth trying once for the trick alone.
Get the recipe from Go Eat Green.
And one sweet thing
23. Vegan Carrot Muffins
Thirty-five minutes, makes twelve at 335 calories. Grated carrot keeps them moist without any butter.
A good first vegan bake, because carrot cake was always halfway there.
Get the recipe from Rainbow Nourishments.
Where to actually start
Pick one breakfast and cook it every day for a week. Breakfast is the meal you repeat, so getting one right removes a decision from every morning.
Then pick one dinner that makes eight or ten servings and freeze half of it.
And, always, seek health consciously.
