Plant-based meal planning isn’t complicated, but it does take time. Here’s how I go through the process to make sure my meal planning isn’t a burden on time or taste buds.
FirstMake a list of the foods you already have at home in your fridge and pantry (except dry goods).
Second, think about what kind of meals you would like to prepare. Choose from the following:
- Breakfast: porridge (oats, millet, quinoa, buckwheat, rice), smoothies and pancakes.
- Snacks: bread, muffins, cookies, raw vegetables (carrots, red pepper, cauliflower), seasonal fruits, nuts and seeds.
- Lunches and dinners: soups, stews, salads, pastas, risotto, curries, omelettes, just steamed vegetables with grains and boiled vegetables.
- Desserts: Berries, Muffins, Cookies, Brownies, Fruit Ice Cream, Avocado/Banana Puddings, Dark Chocolate, Dried Fruit Applesauce, and Raw Buckwheat Cream.
When planning meals, remember:
- Have a variety of foods every day: different grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds.
- Eat a rainbow every day: something green, something yellow, something orange, something purple, something red, and something white/brown.
- Choose from seasonal fruits and vegetables from your region. They cost less and are the freshest.
- If you had a cereal-based breakfast, eat fruits or vegetables with some nuts as a mid-morning snack.
- If you had a smoothie for breakfast, have porridge, a muffin, some cookies or bread for your mid-morning snack.
- If you want to have a grain-based dessert (muffins, cookies), eat fewer grains with your dinner or get rid of them altogether.
- Be sure to take a tablespoon of ground flax seeds or chia seeds a day so that your body gets enough omega 3s.
- Always have some nuts or seeds with carotenoid-rich vegetables and fruits (carrots, sweet potatoes, dark leafy greens like spinach and kale, romaine lettuce, pumpkin, cantaloupe, red bell pepper, apricots, snap peas, broccoli, tomatoes) like fats. Help absorb vitamins.
The rule of the plate for lunches and dinners:
- ¼ cereal or starchy vegetables,
- ¼ vegetables and
- ½ raw and cooked non-starchy vegetables.
ThirdDraw yourself a table for seven days or for the number of days you are designing your eating plan.
fill in the breakfasts with general options like cereals and shakes.
When you’ve done that, go to Step 2 and decide on specific grains and fruits/vegetables for your shakes based on what you already have and keeping seasonality and variety in mind.
After you get good at the first phase, skip it and jump straight to Step 2.
No need to have different shakes every week. For example, when it was orange season, my family ate orange smoothies for a couple of months straight. We sweeten smoothies with bananas, carrots, or mangoes, but we always make sure to add plenty of veggies.
After breakfasts come their lunches and dinners. Use the same steps with these as you did with your morning meals. Fill out general options like soup, risotto, pasta, curry, etc. If you eat lunch at a cafeteria or buffet, then you don’t have a lot of meal planning work for those meals. For dinner parties, make dinner every other day so you can eat leftovers every other night.
If you bring your lunch or eat it at home, leave dinner leftovers for lunch the next day.
Now start thinking about what recipes to make. Use vegetables you already have at home for your first day or two of meal planning (remember seasonality and variety).
When you have used everything you have at home, choose different vegetables of different colors for meals for the next few days.
Snacks: mid-morning and afternoon
Remember: if you had a cereal-based breakfast, as a mid-morning snack take fruits or vegetables with some nuts. If you ate fruits in the morning, eat vegetables in the afternoon. Start by filling out your snack rows with general options like raw vegetables, nuts, fruits, and grains.
It bears repeating to consider what you have in stock and which vegetables and fruits you are going to use in your morning smoothies and main meals. Also, keep seasonality in mind and eat a rainbow every day.
Advice: It’s a good idea to bake a large batch of muffins, cookies, or bread and freeze them throughout the week to keep on hand for snacks.
desserts
There are some people who don’t want dessert after dinner, but we think they are in the minority.
Deciding what to eat for dessert depends on how heavy your menu was that day. For example, if you had coconut curry for dinner, then don’t eat too rich a dessert that contains nuts or avocado. Eat some berries instead or make a banana pudding or sundae.
If you didn’t have grains for dinner, go ahead and have two oil-free and sugar-free muffins to finish off the meal.
the fourth step of meal planning is making your Shopping list according to what is on their menu. You can shop every day or shop once for the whole week, whichever is easier for you.
Leftovers
If you have leftovers at the end of the week, use them first the following week.
You can also use leftover vegetables as evening snacks, as there is nothing wrong with eating more vegetables.
Sometimes we stick with half a banana or avocado, or half a can of beans or crushed tomatoes. If you have these left over at the end of the week, adjust your meal plan accordingly. For example, use leftovers (onions, celery, or tomatoes) in other lunch/dinner recipes.
You don’t need to use everything right away. Some items keep well, such as celery, unopened cans of beans or lentils, and dry goods.
Advice: To avoid leftovers, make a shopping list before adding snacks and desserts to the table. First, use leftover items from breakfasts and main meals for snacks and desserts before adding new ideas.
