Becoming a Better Lazy Vegetarian

by Lindsay Miller

I’ve recently gone mostly vegetarian. But most of my cheater, easy-through-the-week meals involve meat, so I’m struggling a bit to motivate myself to cook delicious food on weeknights. This week I ended up eating toast every evening and buying lunch, and now my wallet is empty. I also think I’m maybe not getting enough vitamin B? Or something? I was really anxious over the weekend and then I went out and got a burger and I felt better, but I really don’t want to be doing that if I can avoid it. Do you have any tips on quick and easy meals, or things I can make sure to eat to keep my body working properly?

Oh man, you are totally in luck! Because A Queer Chick is A Vegetarian for lo these 15 years, but she is also A Person With Intense Food Laziness Who Usually Cannot Be Bothered to Cook. I know it can be difficult keeping yourself fed up proper when you can’t just slap some lunch meat on a piece of bread and call it good, but it’s not that hard once you get the hang of it.

So let’s get this out of the way first: toast in the evening? Like, for dinner? GIRL. You cannot just eat toast. I know bread is delicious and all, but you will die of scurvy and anemia and osteoporosis and I don’t even know what all else. Cut that out. Explore a few other tiers of the food pyramid.

Second, the key to surviving vegetarian life — and the number-one thing that rookie herbivores usually screw up (based on totally unscientific research from the Department of As Far As I Can Tell) — is getting enough protein. Most of your protein as a meat-eater probably came from, you know, meat. You will have to put a little more thought into it now. There are literally zillions (not literally) of veggie-friendly protein sources to choose from. Beans, legumes, whole grains, nuts, and soy are your best friends now, along with eggs and dairy products if you’re not vegan. We’ll discuss specific meals in a minute, but for right now, just nod and let me know you’re following along.

The other danger in going veg is iron deficiency, which could be contributing to your exhaustion. So you need to incorporate iron sources into your diet as well: white beans, lentils, pumpkin seeds, spinach, soy products, and so forth. (Apparently spinach and soy are iron-rich but also paradoxically block iron absorption, so eat them with a good source of vitamin C, which will help you get the full benefit.) Also, a lot of breakfast cereals are fortified with iron.

That’s all good to know, but what does it look like in terms of what you’re actually going to eat? I feel really weird about giving you meal plans like I’m some kind of a diet book, but here are a few ideas. Use these as a jumping-off point, and experiment to figure out what you need to feel well-fed and energetic.

Breakfast Stuff

– Fortified cereal with milk or soy milk (if you have soy milk, drink a small glass of orange juice too, for the vitamin C).

– Plain Greek yogurt with honey, granola, and a handful of pecans.

– Whole-grain toast/bagel/English muffin with butter or cream cheese, and cantaloupe.

Lunch Stuff

Do a grocery run every Sunday and pick up some stuff to keep in your fridge at work all week, so you never have to go out to eat during the day unless you feel like it/can afford it.

– Peanut butter and jelly sammich on whole-grain bread (look, we’re all grown-ups here and we can admit that we never stopped loving a PBJ washed down with some cold milk).

– Brie and apple or pear slices on whole-wheat baguette.

– Spinach salad with strawberries.

– Veggie sandwich with sliced cucumbers, bell peppers, avocado, sprouts, or whatever other raw veggies you like — if you bought spinach or greens to make salad with, throw ’em on there — plus some cheese.

– In the summer I do this thing where I layer vanilla yogurt and peanut butter in a cup and stick it in the freezer for like half an hour and then pull it out and slice some banana on top and eat it with a spoon and it’s the tastiest, most filling thing ever (and to be honest usually the “slice some banana” step sounds like a lot of work so I just alternate between bites of yogurt-and-peanut-butter and bites of banana, it works out fine).

Snack Stuff

– Hummus (white bean hummus for extra iron!) and baby carrots/celery/pita chips.

– Roasted pumpkin seeds.

– Just lots and lots of pecans (I love pecans, you guys, seriously they are the best thing). Other nuts are good, too.

– String cheese.

Dinner Stuff

I know it can be hard to get it up to make a healthy, balanced meal instead of just having M&Ms and beer, but here’s the thing: you will seriously feel so much better, it’s really worth it. The key to dinner with Food Laziness is make enough to last. I promise you can handle making dinner one night a week and then heating up the leftovers until you run out.

The other key is soup. Just learn to make a bunch of different kinds of soup and rotate them infinitely. Lots of soups are surprisingly easy and quick to make, especially if you have a slow cooker (get a slow cooker), and vegan soups last forever in the fridge. Plus, it’s not a lot harder to make a week’s worth of soup than a meal’s worth.

Here are my two favorite slow-cooker soup recipes, which you can experiment with and vary to your heart’s content.

– Italian-ish White Bean: Put a couple cans of white beans (rinsed) in your crock pot. Add some diced carrots, celery, tomatoes, bell peppers, and onions. And some tomato paste. And a bunch of minced garlic. Pour in a bunch of veggie broth to cover everything, and sprinkle in a lot of Italian seasonings and maybe some salt. Set it for however long it’s going to be until dinner. If you’re feeling fancy when you eat it, grate some Romano or Parmesan on top or even boil some pasta or gnocchi and toss that in.

– Mexican-ish Black Bean: Start with a couple cans of black beans (rinsed) and a couple cans of Ro-Tel. Add diced onions, bell peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, celery, and Anaheim chilies. Pour in veggie broth and some fajita seasonings. It’s extra-delicious if you also throw in a can of beer (I’ve been working my way through a case of PBR some friends brought over that no one in my house is ever going to drink). Serve with some grated cheddar or a dollop of sour cream and, of course, more beer.

Look up more recipes online, buy a slow-cooker cookbook, or experiment with reproducing a dish from your favorite restaurant (this is how gorgonzola-walnut pasta sauce became a regular thing in my household). Whatever you’re making, you can pretty much always throw in some beans/lentils/tofu/nuts/cheese to up the protein content. Also, no one’s gonna judge if you make sandwiches for dinner some nights, or buy pre-sliced cheese or spice mixes or whatever saves you some time and energy. The most important thing is that you stay fed and feeling great, which is not going to happen if making dinner every night sounds like the most exhausting waste of time imaginable. Have a fallback plan in place, something HELLA quick and easy, whether than means scrambled eggs or calling the Thai place for takeout. And if you absolutely positively have to get that burger every once in a while, what the hell, it’ll be our little secret.

Lindsay Miller knows everything (and is now on Twitter). Do you have a question for her? (300-word max, please.)

Photo by Anna Sedneva, via Shutterstock