Easy weekly vegan menu for beginners

An increasingly common January resolution is to transition to veganism. Some people take advantage of January to try this month, since it is when the Veganuary is organized. This annual and non-profit movement aims to help anyone who wants to with that transition.

planning is one of the best weapons to make the transition to veganism and adopt a vegan diet. It is possible that you have never considered planning all the lunches and dinners of the week, but thanks to that you will not run out of ideas. Another advantage of have a weekly vegan menu with everything already thought of is that you can review what you have at home and easily make a shopping list. It will help you a lot.

One of the advantages of introducing new foods into your diet is that you will try new things and discover new favorites. I recommend doing this introduction of new ingredients little by little, since we may also have to learn how to cook them.

My main advice is do not try to change the ingredient of animal origin to that of plant origin without further ado. If we try to change a beef steak with potatoes for a grilled tofu steak, without further ado, it will be a fiasco.

If we buy ultra-processed to make these changes, the purchase will be much more expensive, and we will be displacing other more nutritious and interesting foods.

Let’s start with the weekly menuan easy and simple vegan menu, and let’s see later some tips to make the transition to the vegan diet easier and more pleasant, knowing what foods to have in the pantry, what alternatives to meat we have and what products should not be abused if we want our vegan diet to be also healthy.

Easy vegan weekly menu to start

A vegan menu for beginners must be as simple and appetizing as possible. This implies that there are those who may find it somewhat repetitive, or not very varied.

My bet on this menu to start is for legumes and seasonal vegetables, without varying too much so that it is not difficult for you to make the shopping cart and see what With simple ingredients you can always make vegan and healthy recipes easily.

Download the vegan menu for beginners here.

In this case, when choosing legumes, I have decided to use mainly chickpeas, because it is a complete protein, low cost and highly accessible. Then, so that the recipes are not too repetitive, I propose to change the format in which we will use the chickpeas and use different seasonings. They would be equivalent in complete protein kidney beans, kidney beans, soybeans, and adzuki beansin case you want to introduce any changes.

The vegetable meat that I propose to use to complement the week will be the seitan. Below I will tell you which are the main vegetable meats that we can use as alternatives to meat and why seitan is ideal for beginner vegans. If you are on a low-gluten diet you can exchange it for tofu. In this blog you have many simple recipes with tofu, like these three not boring recipes with tofu.

Finally, we will use textured vegetable proteinwhich can be soybean (already on sale in many regular supermarkets), pea or sunflower (in specialized stores).

Once a day, at any of the meals, there will be one or two servings of fresh vegetableswhich can be in a salad, as a vegetable carpaccio, spiralized or as a cream or raw soup.

What can’t be missing in your pantry?

Both to follow the weekly vegan menu that I have proposed and to follow a vegan diet in general, you will need your pantry to be well stocked with the basic foods in the vegan diet:

Seasonal vegetables and fruit.Legumeseither cooked or dry. Legumes are the best source of protein available to vegans.Oat or soy vegetable drinks calcium fortified, as well as natural soy yogurts. They are good options to replace those of animal origin at a nutritional level.Nutslike walnuts, for their contribution in omegas, and almonds.Seeds. Seeds are nutritional bombs and a world to discover in the kitchen. In some cases they are a source of protein, such as hemp seeds; in others, we find that they are a source of omegas, such as flax seeds.Whole wheat pasta and bread. Whole grain versions are much more nutritious.spices. Seasoning your dishes well will take them to another level. It is not necessary to look for exotic combinations, many times it will be enough with the ones you usually use or the Mediterranean herbs.

Meat “vegetable” alternatives to meat

Vegetable meats, which is what we usually call certain sources of vegetable protein, are also a kitchen staple. However, in most cases it is easier to start with legumes and gradually introduce some vegetable meat.

He tofu It is undoubtedly one of the most versatile and nutritious. It provides us with protein and calcium, as well as other micronutrients, and few carbohydrates, so it is very easy to introduce into the diet if we want to make a “big change”. However, it is not the easiest to cook and we can be disappointed if we do not season it or cook it well. tempeh It is another derivative of soy, like tofu, but in this case instead of being curdled, it is a fermented product. It has a peculiar flavor and is not to everyone’s taste, so if you find it too strong, that’s okay. We continue to have legumes and hemp seeds as a source of protein. seitan deserves special mention, since it is a gluten-based productAlthough if you make homemade seitan I recommend that you enrich it with cooked chickpeas or beans. The seitan protein is of a lower quality than that of tofu, tempeh or preparations that we can make with legumes, but it is still a very good option for beginners.
He homemade seitan based on bulk gluten and legume cooked, it can be used to make steaks, nuggets and other recognizable formats, at a very reasonable price. Finally, and also a great basic to start with, we have the textured proteins.

Careful with…

Vegetable analogues of meat and cheese, as some are ultra-processed. Now we can find a wide variety of Vegan ultra-processed food in supermarkets and department storesas well as in online stores. These products should only be for occasional consumption in most cases.

We must remember that a product does not have to be considered recommended for daily consumption simply because it is vegetable or vegan.

While a jar of cooked chickpeas or a block of natural tofu are healthy processed foods for everyday life, a packaged vegan burger with the texture and flavor of animal meat is ultra-processed. In any case, these products also fulfill a function, since they they help us in the transition and at a social level they give us options outside the homeso they should not be demonized either.

A simple and realistic proposal, but not boring!

If we do not want to overwhelm ourselves in the kitchen, we will have to use simple preparations and repeat ingredients. For this reason, we must not forget that we have resources to give variety to the dishes and to make them more surprising:

Remember that the seasonings and spice mix are our allies to change the flavor of an almost identical dish and break the routine. We also have the option of add nuts, green shoots, seeds, seasonings in fresh like cilantro, mint or parsley…

And yes, the options that we can give you to start with, taking into account that it is also convenient that they are quick and easy recipes, may seem repetitive to you. However, what we do not want is for the menu to be complicated and a long and unrealistic shopping list to appear. It is also not convenient to buy unknown ingredients that we do not know if we are going to like and we are going to use them.

A trick to make balanced dishes

The trick is mount a single plate. To make a balanced dish it is not necessary to assemble a single dish, but it is a simple way to find out what to eat. In reality, the usual thing will be that we have two dishes or two tuppers, especially if we eat, for example, a salad, because we will not be interested in mixing the flavors.

A good guide is the Harvard plate, which we can go good for assembling weekly dishes and menus based on simple preparationsthings we buy already cooked or from our weekly batch cooking.

We divide our imaginary plate into 4 and the portions are like this:

Half of the plate would be for vegetables and vegetables, without counting the potato, always prioritizing that they are in season.A quarter plate for whole grains in all its varieties and also for potatoes, sweet potatoes or cassava.The other quarter would be vegetable protein: tofu, legumes, nuts such as walnuts or seeds such as hemp seeds.

In the case of legume, which also provides us with carbohydrates, it is important that we find a balance with the amount of cereals or potatoes. In fact, we can add a little more legumes and eliminate other carbohydrate contributions if we want.

It will be important too cook and season with quality oil.

And, although the fruit, this can be integrated raw in many preparations, as well as dessert or at any time of the day. There is no maximum number of pieces.