What are some delish veggie meals I can make? I think I’ve been eating too much meat.
kimchi jigae
soondobu
chana masala
shakshuka
dal baht
quiche
eggplant parmigiana
artichoke or mushroom lasagne
vegetarian chili and cornbread
Richard Olney’s cabbage loaf
Ottolenghi’s cauliflower cake
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Dal and rice is a simple and classic Indian meal. When we’ve been traveling or finishing up multi-day Indian wedding festivities, all we want to eat when we get home is some simple yellow dal with plain rice. It’s light and comforting.
Many people think Indian food is heavy on spices and heat, but things like this are a perfect example of the opposite.
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Dal can be bland or complexly spiced, lots of chiles or none. There are lots of different recipes.
Correct. But when I was referring to a light, simple yellow dal, that implied one with little spices, so it’s easy on the stomach. The OP mentioned she was trying to go meatless, so I suggested a dal that wasn’t heavy. Green and black dals are heavier, and therefore harder to digest.
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The opening post didn’t mention light or stomach trouble, just vegetarian and delicious. Different varieties of lentils and peas all seem similar to me as far as how filling and easy on the stomach they are.
Which reminds me of saag paneer. Restaurants in the US usually make it with spinach, but I think it’s better with mustard greens, collards, or other more flavorful greens, or a mix.
What do you normally eat? I’m pretty good at veganizing/vegetarianizing food, but it helps to have a base point.
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She mentioned she was eating too much meat. When I’ve ODed on meat or other heavy/rich foods, I want something light. That’s why I mentioned this was what I like to eat post travel or post-Indian wedding. Maybe it’s just me. 
Really? Maybe it’s an Indian thing. Certain dals are considered to be “light” – masoor (salmon colored) and skinless split urad come to mind. Other dals are considered to be “heavy” – skin on whole urad and skin on whole moong dals fall into those category. Things like kidney beans and chickpeas are heavy as well. If someone is not well, or wants something light to eat, we go with simply spiced light dals, or make something called kitchree, which is dal (usually masoor or skinless urad) cooked with rice into a porridge/oatmeal consistency. Growing up, when you were sick with stomach trouble, your mom made you kitchree. It’s a common baby food too – easy to digest.
In Punjabi cooking, saag is usually made with mustard greens (aka sarson). A traditional Punjabi winter meal is “sarson da saag” with “makki di roti” (cornflour griddle flatbread). There’s no paneer in sarson da saag. In other parts of India, I think saag can refer to any kind of greens like spinach or turnip greens.
Growing up, my brother and I always hated when our mom would make sarson da saag, but now we ask her to make it! She always reminds us how we never liked eating it before.
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Thank you all for the replies and some good suggestions!
BW,
I usually eat a lot of Mexican food, Italian food and Chinese food. For American food it’s usually meat and potatoes and burgers.
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Thank you!
I’ve found if I Google or cookbook search a favorite author and vegetarian I’ll almost always find something I especially like.
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Great books for ideas for vegetarian meals include Madhur Jaffrey’s World of the East Vegetarian Cooking and Marcella Hazan’s original Classic Italian Cook Book and More Classic Italian Cooking (not the badly edited combined edition).
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M. Hazan is just who I had in mind.
The missus has actually gone vegetarian, so we’ve been making a lot sans meatz.
This has been my favorite:
Roasted cauliflower tacos with romesco sauce. The romesco sauce is a game changer for me. The recipe makes more than you end up needing for the tacos, and so I ended up putting that sauce on anything and everything. My lunch salads have been a joy all week. All hail king romesco.
Here’s how they turned out:
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Based on that, definitely recommend Fuchsia Dunlop’s cookbooks, especially Every Grain of Rice, but also Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook – lots of great vegetarian and almost-vegetarian (or vegetarian-adaptable) Chinese recipes, including a lot of home cooking type recipes. Diana Kennedy’s Essential Cuisines of Mexico also has some good veggie recipes.
Italian, definitely tons of good vegetarian / flexitarian options there.
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Funny, I grew up with saag being a mixture of spinach & mustard greens. Although that might be because I was born in London and moved to Los Angeles. I completely agree about different dals. There’s a huge difference in terms of feel and digestibility depending on which legume or bean you use and how you make it. I’ve been using Meera Sodha’s veg recipes in the food section of the Guardian lately and I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with them.
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anyone have a good recipe for buffalo cauliflower?
What have you cooked so far?
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lasagna