Meal Planning Tips For a Vegetarian Diet

Meal planning is one of the ideal ways people use to getting on a new diet plan. It helps keep on track, see your serving portions, and it makes life a little easier. In most meal planning routines the basic concept is a protein, vegetable, fruit, and sauce. You may change that up with a carb instead of fruit. The protein, however, is usually a meat. In vegetarian diets, that may not seem as easy and cut and dry. With that in mind, consider these simple meal planning points as a guide for your vegetarian diet.

Start with Protein Options

When most people do their meal planning they start with rice, potato, pasta, or other similar base. They then add their proteins and vegetables. As a vegetarian you want to make sure you are getting enough protein each day. Start with that as your base and work your way through the rest of the meal. Remember, you have a variety of options for proteins include beans, nut butters, and tofu. Keep variety going and make sure that you are getting at least one quarter of your daily protein allowance in each meal.

Hard Vegetables vs Soft Vegetables

If you are making salads for your meal planning and prep, make sure that you are stacking them properly. Hard vegetables can last in colder conditions and conditions with sauces and softer foods. Soft vegetables may break down in colder conditions and may break down too fast when added to sauces and softer foods and allowed to rest. If you are freezing your meals, keep this in mind and keep softer items like green leafy vegetables or berries as a fresh addition and hard vegetables like carrots in the freezer or at the bottom of salad jars. 

Make Breakfast Easy

Breakfast can be the easiest time to add in protein and get some of your extra nutrients in for the day. It is also a time you can load up on superfoods. Try to make breakfast easy by going with smoothies, overnight oatmeal, instant pots oats, or something similar. This can make meal planning cheaper as well since most of what you would need for these foods can be bought in wholesale or bulk options and used for a whole week instead of just one or two meals. 

You can change things up depending on what meal you are planning. Most people only do meal planning for one meal, like dinner. You can actually do all three meals and snacks if you think it will help you get things on track. Vegetarian meal planning doesn't have to be hard, and as soon as you move the idea of protein being meat out of your thought process then things will become easier. 
