How To Make (Vegan) Dinner Better

When you become vegan, it’s easy to get lost in all of the vegetables. If you’ve been vegan for some time, it’s easy to lose your creativity when it comes to cooking. Maintaining the fun in cooking, while keeping your taste buds interesting, is imperative to continuing your healthy diet. Besides, who really wants to eat something that they aren’t proud of every night?

Don’t get lost in what you shouldn’t be eating, but focus on the marvelous ingredients that you can eat! Put down that tired recipe that you make every week and spice it up a bit. Follow these tips if you’re feeling bored with your current meals, confused as to how to make meals tasty or just need to change it up.

Don’t forget Garlic – Because any vegetable without garlic, just is not right. It’s amazing what adding a bit of garlic in your olive oil will do for your meals. By sautéing garlic for a few minutes before adding in your vegetable of choice, it flavors the olive oil with that succulent garlic taste, making your vegetables take on a whole new flavor.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit – I never thought about mixing my beans with vegetables, but it actually tastes amazing! Beans provide some variety in your veggies. My favorite is sautéed kale with chickpeas. While simply kale can get boring eventually, I promise it will take much longer to get tired of this mixture! You can also try broccoli and great northern white beans or black beans with bell peppers and tomatoes.

Lovely Lemon juice – Because eating couscous plain is boring the FIRST time you eat it. Don’t get me wrong, I love couscous; but it needs something to keep me interested. I’ve tried a few different mixtures, but lemon juice and pepper is by far my favorite. It adds the perfect amount of citrus and spice that I just cannot get enough. The same goes for any whole grain, like brown rice and potatoes. Not only that, but a splash of lemon juice makes any meal taste gourmet!

B is for basil – Grow your own herb garden, buy a basil plant from the grocery store or purchase freeze dried basil. Whatever you do, use it in every meal that you can. The amount of flavor that basil can add to bland meals is out of this world. Whether you are making a vegan Italian dish or hearty soup, basil is my favorite herb to add!