Vegan Themed Meal Plans

Planning out all your meals or even just lunch and dinner of one week can be a challenging task at the beginning. But even if you’ve gotten the hang out it, you might want to take a week of meal prep vacation.

Here is a simple solution that can help you: Themed Meal Planning

1. Meal Plans by Diet

Why not embrace a different type of vegan diet for different days of the week? You might be lucky that you have no dietary restraints for health reasons but that doesn’t mean that gluten-free day can’t still be great for your tastebuds. One idea that I personally found quite interesting is to eat like an athlete for a week or one day of the week. For me that meant low-carb coconut flour pancakes for breakfast, protein-loaded lentil stew for lunch and high-calorie intake pasta for dinner.

2. Popular Themes

When something becomes widely known and popular it is oftentimes for a good reason. Co-workers chatting about “Pasta Night”, “Pizza Night” or “Taco Night” are not necessarily idea-less couch potatoes who order in 3 nights a week. Instead, they might not be super big on meal prepping but having a theme for every week night gives each family member a rough idea on what’s to expect.

The question “What’s for dinner” kind of answers itself. But it leaves still enough creativity to avoid repetition.

• Asian-inspired cuisine night
• Beans/legumes night
• Breakfast for dinner night
• Burger night
• Bowl night
• Barbecue night
• Pizza night
• Kids cooking night
• Leftovers night
• Mexican-inspired cuisine
• Pasta night
• Sandwich night
• Salad night
• Soup night
• Soup and salad night
• Soup and sandwich night
• Stir-fry night
• Taco night

3. Seasons

It’s always summer somewhere and always winter elsewhere. Arctica and Antartica have only 2 seasons each and when it’s summer in one, it’s winter in the other. So, that’s a true story. With an increasingly globalised world, most food can be found year round if you just look long enough. While I’m certainly not a fan of shipping fruit long and far because it doesn’t grow where I am, frozen or canned produce can be viable alternative.

Nonetheless, we should keep in mind that choosing the fruits and vegetables based on the season they naturally grow in ensures optimum nutrition and flavor. Moreover, our bodies just seem to naturally call for the fruit & veg according to the climate around us. Whether it’s pumpkin in the fall, corn in the summer, kale in the winter or strawberries in the spring, we tend to gravitate to certain foods at certain times of the year.

5. Vegetables