Simple Weekly Meal Plan for the Transition to Veganism

When I first became vegan, meal plans were one of the hardest things for me. I personally love meal planning, but it seemed that I had too many recipes to try, too much to buy, and the food would go bad before I ate it.

I figured that more people than I have struggled with this same problem, so I started doing a little research. I found that a lot of vegan food blogs have a million ingredients. Also, they never took into account meal planning. Some of the ingredients, I know I would never use twice.

Based on this, I decided that I would make a simple meal plan that reused a lot of the same ingredients. There wouldn’t be the worry of food going bad because you would be using it.

The recipes I picked for this meal plan are ones a typical transitioning vegan would want (I know I did). Things like lasagna and pizza seemed impossible to ever eat again, but I found some simple (relatively) recipes for those.

Along with that, quite a few of these recipes will last you a couple meals, but I do this because I have found that it is cheaper to make a large meal with leftovers (and it’s way faster).

Let me know what recipes below make your mouth water? What would you change? Let me know in the comments below!

 

Recipes

 

Breakfast

I’ll be the first to admit breakfast is not my strong suit. I sleep in as much as possible and usually grab something as I run out the door. This probably isn’t the healthiest way to go, but it’s pretty typical of the American lifestyle. I also only grab a snack and eat an early lunch. For that reason, I tailored to a fast breakfast for the morning.

 

Fruit Oatmeal

While I love the oatmeal packets, I bought oatmeal from the bulk section to cut down on expenses and to cut back on the excessive sugar.

With my own oatmeal, I used warmed almond milk and maple syrup to mix with the oats. After stirring it all together, I topped it with bananas and dried blueberries (also from the bulk section). You could also top it with any other nuts or fruit you have in your kitchen.

 

Lunch

Romaine Rainbow Salad

Salads are a staple for vegans. And with good reason. Each time I make one, I have no idea ahead of time what I’m going to put in it. Making salads for me consists of pulling every possible salad topping out of my cupboards.

For this salad, I pulled out cashews, red onion leftover from the loaded fries, corn, tomato, and hemp seeds. It was as simple as chopping everything up and combining it in a bowl.

Try out other toppings you have lying around the kitchen.

 

Dinner

Vegan Pizza

I have to say, this pizza was actually really delicious. Originally, I was going to make my own pizza dough to save money, but after seeing that the dough was only $1.48, I decided to stick with the premade stuff. I’m really glad I did.

After rolling out half the dough on a greased pan, I slathered this baby with BBQ sauce. My personal favorite sauce is Sweet Baby Ray’s. Make sure you get the regular barbeque sauce, not the honey barbeque sauce. I used part of the large assortment of veggies I bought at the store this week and piled them one. This ended up rising a lot more than I thought it would while cooking, so next time I would add more toppings.

This is great for a quick, easy meal. It took 20 minutes to cook and a few minutes to put together. Definitely worth the short preparation. And if you want to save more money and make a ton, make your own dough.

 

Veggie Lasagna

Pinterest is seriously the best for recipes. I found this veggie lasagna from Cilantro & Citronella. Because they had a giant portion size, I halved it. Despite that, I still ended up with a few days of leftovers.

One change I would make would be to decrease the number of mushrooms. I love mushrooms myself, but there were so many! Regardless, this looked and tasted delicious. Find the recipe at Cilantro & Citronella.

 

Loaded Fries

Thanks to This Savory Vegan for this loaded vegan taco fries recipe. This is seriously delicious! I chose similar toppings to the recipe but decided to forgo the jalapenos, green onion, and avocado (they’re getting really expensive around this time of the year).

If you are seriously craving some junk food and not 100% ready to dive into the health nut side of veganism, this is a delicious meal to go with.

 

Meal Plan

Download a PDF of the meal plan with a shopping list.