The secret to meal prepping is remembering the 3 P’s! Plan, prep, portion.
When you’re trying to eat better, or make sure you eat meals in general, meal prep is the way to go, even when you’re vegan.
Today, I’m sharing our tips, tricks, and of course recipes with you to show you just how easy it is to make delicious, mouthwatering meals that are good for the entire week!
No stress, no fuss, just really great food that happens to be vegan. We’re sharing a mixture of morning and evening recipes so that you can have a whole day’s worth if you need on the fly!
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Why Meal Prep
Meal prep is always underrated in my opinion. It’s hard to mentally decide to do, but once you get it done, you’re so happy every week. But what are the real reasons you want to do make meals in advance?
Makes sure you eat better
Typically, homemade meals are nutritionally better for you. They are less processed, less sodium, and higher in nutrients and minerals that aid in your health. When you meal prep and make sure that you get quality homemade meals daily, it’s a win all around.
Saves Time
When you plan out meal prep once during the week, even if it takes you a few hours in one day, you are able to save time throughout the rest of your week.
Save Money
It’s no secret that when you eat at home, you save money. That’s because eating out is more expensive than buying simple ingredients to meal prep at home.
Vegan Meal Prep Breakfast
Making sure you have a great start to your day, it’s always a win. When you meal prep your breakfast options, it allows you to start your day off on the right foot! Here’s 20 of our favorite breakfasts to prep ahead:
Meal Prep Bases
Even if I can’t make full meals during the weekend, I’ll prep one or two bases for the evenings. This helps make sure that we can make lots of different bowls but already have the base part done. Here’s a few ideas:
Vegan Meal Prep Sauces
Sauces are the one of the best things to keep on hand for meal prep throughout the week! They last typically longer than a fully made meal when stored properly in the fridge. Plus, they can be used in so many ways!
Some of the below recipes are sauces on their own, while other already have a full meal. For those, you can just make the sauce portion and then store and use as desired.
Options for using these sauces include:
- Over pasta
- With roasted vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels or potatoes, etc
- With sliced or cubed tofu (or pumfu or chickpea tofu)
- Over other grains like rice, quinoa, barley, etc
- With legumes like lentils or chickpeas
- Make a pizza with it – BBQ sauce, cheese sauce, and more are so good to switch things up
Vegan Meal Prep Soups and Stews
It’s no secret that soups, stews, and chilis are some of the absolute best recipes to meal prep. Just because you are vegan, that doesn’t change. Here’s some of the absolute best recipes to make:
Vegan Meal Prep Pastas
Pasta is meal prep perfection! You can either make the sauce ahead of time and then add the pasta throughout the week or the night you plan to make.
Alternatively, you can just make the dishes and heat up throughout the week too. Here’s some of our most favorite pasta dishes:
Vegan Meal Prep Dinners (Not Pasta)
These vegan dinner ideas are either last minute, pantry ready, or whip it up and continue what you’re doing until it’s ready. The end results reward you with big flavors. Here’s some of our favorites:
How to Start Small with Meal Prep
Going from not meal planning at all to meal planning a full week is never a great idea. It’s exhausting and overwhelming.
Instead, try just prepping two meals at a time. Slowly as that becomes your new norm, try for 3, then 4 or a full week if you need more than 4!
Alternatively, just try making two or three sauces instead of full meals. Something like peanut sauce or red curry sauce can be made in advance and then you already have part of the recipe done instead of worrying about the full thing.
Additionally, you could just start by prepping your vegetables. Figure out what you’re going to make for the week and chop all the carrots or onions or broccoli for example for those meals.
Lastly, you could just start by prepping your grains or bases. Make a pot of rice and some baked potatoes. Or a pot of quinoa and a loaf of bread for sandwiches. This helps having the base or the side already done and saving at least 15-20 minutes every night.
Tips for Meal Prep Success
After meal prepping for a few years, we definitely have some tips and tricks that have helped us along the way that we want to share with you!
Switch up your carbs and/or grains
Everyone gets bored of the same thing. That’s why it’s so important to switch up what you’re having. One easy way to do that is to swap the carb that is being served with the dish, especially if you really like a dish.
For example, with our chickpea, broccoli and cashew garlic skillet, we typically serve with rice, however, we have also done it with noodles and quinoa as well. Switching up such a simple part of the meal makes it feel different with little effort.
Here’s 10 grains you can swap with:
- Rice (brown, white, wild, etc)
- Potatoes (sweet, russet, baby, etc)
- Quinoa
- Noodles (rice noodles, wheat noodles, etc)
- Orzo
- Farro
- Millet
- Barley
- Bulgar
- Kamut
Vary your proteins
There are dozens of protein options for vegan. While it’s nice to prep similar things to make the time go faster, it’s important that you don’t get bored with meal prep too. Swapping proteins is an easy way to do that! Here’s some of our personal favorite vegan protein options:
- Tofu/Soy – actual tofu, textured vegetable protein (TVP), edamame beans, and tempeh
- Chickpeas
- Beans – kidney, black, red, white, pinto, etc
- Lentils
- Seitan (a meat alternative made with vital wheat gluten)
- Nuts – cashews, peanuts, walnuts, etc
Don’t Make It Soggy
One of the biggest things that we’ve either done ourselves or heard from others is that they wish they could make more with leafy greens. Our biggest tip for meals like this that you are worried about it becoming soggy is to store the meal and the sauce separately and when you are ready to eat combine them then.
Another way to do this is to make sure the ingredients in the dish you are making don’t have a high water content (cucumbers, iceberg lettuce, strawberries). Not only can these get really soggy, but they can also spoil inside the recipe quickly. You want to pick ingredients in meals that can last 4-5 days after being cooked.