My slavic blood might be showing, but I consume plenty of root veggies. Carrots, potatoes, beets, parsnips, kohlrabis, what have you. Also cabbage. All these are usually dirt cheap too.

I can share one pseudo-recipe, for carrots. A super easy but very comfy side meal: cube the carrots, put in some (not too much) water with salt, cook for like 15-20min. Throw in green peas (frozen or canned), then add some potato starch (preferably by premixing it with water before adding it to the cooking pot so it doesn’t clump). Stir vigorously to make sure the water gets a nice creamy consitency. You can add herbs like marjory too. Very tasty, sweet side for savory dishes.

Surprised no one’s saying tempeh. I’ve been eating a laughable amount lately. You can cut it en julienne and poach it in stock with some spices for a protein-rich grain replacement, so I often have that with some rocket in a wrap.

Dal, chole, rajma, rice, and roti are always my go to when I’m not feeling like cooking anything elaborate.

I have three meals on rotation:

1. Oatmeal = instant oats, Chia seed, hemp hearts, and either jam, fruit (fresh/frozen/dry) or sugar.
2. Noodles (rice or vermicelli) + peanut/soy/hot pepper sauce + veg
3. Rice + bean slop (also includes legumes) + veg

Beans, tortillas, rice, breads, potatoes, tofu, seitan, TVP. Lots of burritos, tbh.

I make batches of seitan to throw into meals, sometimes I’ll make ‘steak style’ that goes with stirfry and noodles, or sausage styles that’s for spaghetti or other red sauce based dishes. It’s easy to make and stores well in the fridge too.

Also tofu, of course. Easy to make white sauces using the silken kind and can just mix up in a basic blender.

Variety of rices. I prefer black rice and wild rice. I used to think I didn’t like rice becuz all I was exposed to was basic long grain white, but then I found wild rice and recently black rice, and what a game changer. If I’m making sushi or a ‘red beans & rice’ I’ll use jasmine, which is the only good white rice to me lol

Beans. Black beans for tacos & bowls, pintos for soups, kidney for chilis and kidney bean salad, and chickpeas for falafel and what-have-you. I don’t like white beans or lima.

Canned/frozen fruit. Fresh doesn’t last and attracts pests. Can toss frozen into a smoothie, pancakes, oatmeal, or mix some frozen raspberries with plain vegan yogurt for a nice little ‘wet snack’. Canned fruit I buy the most is pineapple and mango. I like tossing some pineapple into certain stirfry or red sauce things like lasagna for a tropical twist. Fresh lemons always tho, I’m obsessed with lemons and use them in my tea and water, grated for certain dishes.

Lemon juice becuz I love it lol

Frozen vegetables—spinach chopped & okra, primarily. I don’t really like broccoli but it goes well with some stirfry I make so I’ll use it every now and then. Frozen peas for soups and stews.

Flours—basic white flour for dumplings, the old style drop dumplings using oat milk, or for making pizza dough, or flouring things like eggplant, and occasionally I’ll have a small bag of specialty flours like tapioca or chickpea. Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer is handy too.

Cheapass margarine that doesn’t have any animal milk, a big tub of that and if I find it on sale or crave it muchly, then miyokos oat milk butter.

Oils & vinegars. Olive oils for flavour and sunflower/olive mix in a big jug for frying. Apple cider vinegar with the mother for lots of things like dressings and adding tangy to sauces and things, balsamic for red sauces and dressings, white for multi-purpose uses.

Lapsang souchong loose leaf tea, becuz smokey is also one of my top flavour profiles that I love.

Canned tomato sauce, cheaper than using full tomatoes for a sauce base and easily customisable, especially for bbq sauces.

These are my basic restocks aside from things like tofurkey slices and plant cheese slices, spring mix and romain lettuce, and spices.

Beans and lentils. Could eat them for every meal 24/7/365

My breakfast is almost always:

• A very spicy pepperoni (the paprika like plant, not 🐮)
• a tomato
• some cucumber
• bread with hummus
• a different vegan spread but it looks like I’m settling on a cream cheese with herb (again 🌾not 🍼)
• turkish olives (marmarabirlik)

My lunch when I’m not at home and even typically at home is bulgur salad:

• 3 parts of the coarsest bulgur to 4 parts water by volume. Add salt and bring to boil, then turn off, let it cool on the stove with a lid on.
• dice: tomato, leek, pickled cucumber, red paprika and/or whatever else you like
• once bulgur is at most luke-warm stir it so the drier bulgur ln top gets mixed in with the wetter bulgur. It still takes water while cold, so don’t worry about homogeniety. Add loads of tomato paste and paprika paste (I go for 50/50 but it’s up to you). Like loads. Whatever spices you want, I typically go for pepper, rose paprika, the mediterranean combo (thyme, basil, oregano and rosemary) and cumin. Gotta watch out with the cumin though, you can’t really overdo the other spices but cumin has a very strong flavor. Also pul biber because I like it spicy.
• dump olive oil all over it again hard to overdo and add lemon juice, vinegar or my favorite variant: pickle juice.
• Parsley. Loads of it. Impossible to overdo, the arabic variant is mainly parsley with some bulgur. Doesn’t matter which type or how finely diced, I buy deep frozen because it’s already cut up and I dump half a box into it, but obviously fresh is better.
• mix it all and taste it. It should be a bit too spicy and salty since we’re gonna add all the veg and a bit too dry since it will soak up the veg juices later. You don’t want a weird slosh later at the bottom but you can dump it or try to mix it in if there is.
• mix in the diced veg and some chickpeas and let it sit on the fridge. I typically go for 50/50 veg and bulgur.

There are loads of variants obviously, but the main ingredients are tomato&paprika paste, olive oil, some kind of souring agent, PARSLEY(important!), veg. Seriously though don’t forget the parsley.

It keeps at least a week in the fridge so it’s perfect for meal prepping, it’s eaten cold so perfect to pack while away, it has carbohydrates veg and protein (mainly the chickpeas but bulgur has a bit as well), and it doesn’t make me feel drowsy like when I eat too much of some other carbs (looking at you noodles).

I love my bulgur salad.

I do the majority of my cooking on a sunday evening so I don’t have to do much during the week, it takes ~2 hours.

• Pancakes for breakfast.

I’m not a big fan of the texture of oatmeal so instead, I make pancake batter with blended up oats, soy milk and flax seeds and keep them in the freezer until the night before. Then just heat them in the microwave and add fruit and syrup.

• I eat dinner at lunch in work.

I find it easier to just bring it in a microwaveable container rather than bringing in a sandwich that just ends up soggy.

Lentils, rice, potatoes, chickpeas, kidney beans, black beans, onions, bell peppers, broccoli, peas, carrots, sweet corn, spinach etc

Mix them all together, enough to last 5 days then the night before add whatever spices, black pepper, paprika, chile, curry, garam masala, bbq, cajun, piri piri etc and sauces, sweet chili, curry, sweet and sour, BBQ, tikka masala, szechuan, pad thai sauce etc. This way I can have a different flavours every day of the week but only have to cook once.

This also works well in wraps and as pizza toppings.

• Kind of healthy dessert

I loosely follow this recipe https://rainbowplantlife.com/no-bake-nutella-fudge-bars/#wprm-recipe-container-6608 but I swap out the hazel nuts for mixed nuts and seeds, and I swap dates for raisins and a bit of water. Cheaper and easier to find for me. I also add soy milk to the dark chocolate when I melt it to make the chocolate softer.

• Lunch?

After work, I usually throw some frozen mock meat in the oven and make a sandwich with it and have some fruit and nuts. While its cooking, I prepare my food for the next day.

Pressure cooker stuff (Instant Pot here, but anything works)!

Beans are dirt cheap and homemade refried-style beans are fantastic. Don’t be shy with the oil (neutral/canola, avocado, refined coconut all great). MSG also helps. Play around with pinto and black ratios (or go more exotic!).

Add to that some Mexican style rice — toast in a pan (before putting in rice cooker) with tomato paste, veggie bouillon, salsa, whatever, and then cook in rice cooker as usual. I like jasmine the best for this.

Can’t go wrong with Mexican style beans and rice IMHO. (And in addition, you can feed them to dinner guests if you like — who doesn’t like to build their own burritos?).

mostly seitan, i just fry a little and add it to whatever else i have.

Most days I eat pretty much the same thing for breakfast and lunch and only really vary my dinner

Breakfast its oats with a banana microwaved then I add frozen berries to it

Lunch I eat beans and rice.

I’ve described it in other posts but I like to take 1 cup of beans and 3 cups of water and blast it for 1 hour in the pressure cooker. Then I open it and put it into saute mode and add mix-ins and let it simmer for 20 minutes. I use a rice cooker for rice.

Some of my favorite mixes are can of chopped tomatoes, home made taco seasoning

Tomato paste, curry powder, ginger garlic paste and frozen vegetables

I do not feel well or satiated if I don’t eat at least some rice and beans every day!

Tofu, soy curls, tvp, rice, black beans, lettuce tomato onion garlic. That list is probably 90 percent of my diet.

Most common dinners are crispy tofu (in various ways; citrus, salt+pepper, Mongolian) or salad (lpts of varieties here; ‘chicken’ salad with soycurls, black bean salad, warm grain salad probably being the top 3)

rice and udon noodles mostly. also sourdough bread.

Tofu, large bag of mixed frozen vegetables, and rice -> stir fry

Bread and avocados -> avocado toast

A variety of root vegetables, squash, and canned chickpeas -> I make something similar to this often: Sheet Pan Vegetable and Chickpea Bake

I try to eat what’s in-season locally, so what I eat varies throughout the year.