This 7-day vegan (vegetarian) meal plan includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes. If you are new to meal planning vegan or vegetarian or need some new vegan beginner recipes, this list will give you plenty of delicious options to choose from. We also added a FREE e-book you can download that includes all recipes in this post.
How to start a vegan diet?
To start a vegan diet that would stick in the long run, you need three things to consider:
- MANAGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS – We see a lot of failed attempts mostly due to the fact that they only wanted to eat exactly the same meals as before but vegan. And if those veganized meals didn’t taste the same as their non-vegan versions, they were disappointed and quit. I tell you now they will never taste exactly the same, but that doesn’t mean they are not tasty.
- KEEP ON OPEN MIND – You will come across many different ingredients you may have never heard of before. You need to be curious to try out new things, new tastes, and new textures. If you keep an open mind, you will realize super fast that the number of choices to eat vegan is endless.
- LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE – Most people who start a vegan diet don’t have much experience in cooking vegetables. You need to leave some time for trial and error. You might need to make something a couple of times to see what flavors, and what textures are the best for your taste.
Start with
- easy and simple recipes.
- vegetables and fruits that you already like.
- familiar ingredients.
Why do you need meal planning?
When we first started eating plant-based/vegan, the first thing we struggled with was time to meal prep. We had so many go-to non-vegan recipes, which we could whip up quickly using only pantry staples. My husband just looked into the fridge and knew immediately what to make for dinner or lunch.
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But after starting this new diet, making meals was not that easy at first. Vegan recipes tend to look a bit unusual or had some unfamiliar ingredients. It was harder to estimate how much time do we need to make them. Sometimes we only realized that there were some important overnight prep steps we forgot to do like soaking.
We really needed to PLAN EVERY MEAL IN ADVANCE. In the beginning, there was no room to improvise simply because we didn’t have enough experience. Later, it got easier and easier.
Why this is the best vegan meal plan?
We wanted to give you a list of vegan recipes that
- are vegan (and gluten-free),
- are easy to make,
- have simple ingredients,
- have no or minimally processed ingredients,
- are made from scratch,
- can be made ahead of time, and
- keep well in the fridge.
We created this list for you to successfully kick-start your vegan / plant-based journey.
How does this meal plan work?
Let me explain how to start on this meal plan:
- We give you 7 recipes for breakfast and 7 recipes for the main course and they are between 2-4 servings.
- All recipes can be doubled or suitable for batch cooking.
- Breakfasts are hearty and filling since we really don’t think that for example, a small chia pudding would be enough for an adult for breakfast.
- The main course meals are designed to be mostly for 4 servings so you have 2 servings for dinner and 2 servings of leftover for lunch. It means you actually start with Sunday dinner, where you can use the leftover for Monday lunch.
- We tried to mix different types of meals from pasta and rice to handheld dishes. What you will not find here are buddha bowls or nourish bowls. We prefer cooked, filling, and satisfying comfort food.
- Snacks and desserts are not included.
Easy vegan breakfast recipes
Where else would you start meal planning for a vegan/vegetarian diet? Of course, you would start with breakfast.
Some of the below recipes are the first-ever vegan breakfast recipes we posted on My Pure Plants because these are the ones we eat regularly since the beginning of our plant-based journey. Since then we had even more favorite ones that became regulars week after week.
All these recipes are tried and tested hundreds of times. There is not one bit we would change about them.
- Day 1 – Easy Vegan Banana Pancakes
- Day 2 – Red Lentil Waffles
- Day 3 – Blueberry Millet Porridge
- Day 4 – Vegan Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
- Day 5 – Hearty Vegan Breakfast Hash
- Day 6 – Vegan Egg Salad Sandwich
- Day 7 – Banana Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Day 1 – Easy Vegan Banan Pancakes
I always have a couple of bananas lying around on the kitchen counter. So if we feel like it, I just grab two of them. Then smash them with a fork and mix them with the other ingredients. We have 10-12 light, fluffy pancakes or waffles (yes, almost the same batter) in no time. We love to top them with even more banana slices or with seasonal fruit and maple syrup.
Day 2 – Red Lentil Waffles
Do you love crispy, nutritious, and delicious waffles? Well, we do also. Would you have guessed that red lentils make awesome waffles? Me neither, but after creating our red lentil pancakes recipe, I really wanted some waffles as well. And no, you will not taste the red lentils. Especially after you top them with maple syrup and seasonal fruit.
Day 3 – Blueberry Millet Porridge
This porridge recipe is a refreshing 4-ingredient alternative to the classic oatmeal. In combination with blueberries, it is a perfect breakfast to kick-start your day. Cooking millet for breakfast is easy and the outcome is somewhere between rice pudding and oatmeal. You’ll love it, I am sure.
Day 4 – Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
Oatmeal is one of the easiest breakfasts to make. The only thing you need to remember is that you need 1 cup of quick oats and 2 cups of milk (e.g. homemade cashew milk). Other than that, just load it up with your favorite fruits, nuts, and seeds. We love to add chia seeds, flax seeds, nut butter (e.g. homemade peanut butter), almond slices, or puffed seeds like quinoa or amaranth. Trust me, cooked oats have a better texture compared to overnight oats.
Day 5 – Hearty Vegan Breakfast Hash
This is the perfect savory breakfast for mix and match. Use whatever veggie you have in your pantry (like potatoes, carrots, or bell peppers), in your freezer (like green peas, sweet corn, or leafy greens), as leftovers. Season them and warm them up in a skillet. Since we love oyster mushrooms, we turned them into vegan jerky. But you can use any other types of mushrooms or substitutes.
Day 6 – Vegan Egg Salad Sandwich
We love savory breakfasts and love to have a quick toast or sandwich for breakfast. Our go-to sandwich spread is this quick oil-free hummus topped with raw veggies. We love hummus and it is so easy to make one at home. You only need 5 ingredients and 5 minutes. If we want to mix it up, we make our 5-minute tofu cream cheese or this realistic vegan egg salad. It is one of the best things that can happen to tofu.
Day 7 – Banana Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
Sometimes you need a quick grab-and-go breakfast if you are in a hurry. These cookies have more than once been life-savers. I usually bake a larger batch, but you can mix and bake them as quickly as you would whip up a pancake batter. Customize them with your favorites like chocolate chips or raisins. Just because it is made with homemade peanut butter, it doesn’t mean you cannot add other nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans) as well.
Easy main course meals
Most of the people who start eating vegan or vegetarian are primarily concerned about what vegans eat for lunch and dinner. In short, they eat a rainbow of veggies, grains, and legumes. We try to make sure that we load our dishes with lots of different ones so they never get boring. Below there are SEVEN delicious examples.
Also to kill two birds with one stone. Oh, scratch that. It is not really a vegan-friendly metaphor. So to make our lives easier especially when life gets busy, we have this neat system in place:
We cook dinner in a larger batch so that the leftover from dinner would be enough for next day’s lunch!
All of the below recipes keep well in the fridge for several days. Not to mention they are freezer friendly too. If you jump to the bottom, you can see a simple vegan meal planner using the below recipes.
- Day 1 – Vegan Spinach Pesto Pasta
- Day 2 – Vegan Bean and Millet Chili
- Day 3 – Vegan Mushroom Meatballs
- Day 4 – Chipotle Black Bean Burger
- Day 5 – Crispy Mushroom Tacos
- Day 6 – Pad Woon Sen (Thai Glass Noodles Stir Fry)
- Day 7 – Spicy Tofu Steak
Day 1 – Vegan Pesto Pasta
Pesto is one of the easiest vegan meals you can make. Grab your food processor and load it up with any nut or seed, fresh basil leaves, olive oil, garlic, and nutritional yeast and you have yourself some homemade pesto. We love this spinach pesto recipe but you can substitute it with our red pesto made of sun-dried tomato from time to time.
Day 2 – Vegan Bean and Millet Chili
This is the best hearty, meaty and satisfying vegan chili my husband has ever made. It is loaded with whole foods like veggies, legumes, grains, spices, and herbs. All the good stuff. Ridiculously easy and healthy. And the best part is that it is perfect for batch cooking as it keeps well in the fridge and in the freezer.
Day 3 – Mushroom Meatballs
Any meatless meatballs are the perfect candidate for meal planning since you can use them in many different ways. Serve them with a simple marinara sauce or with a more creative caramelized carrot sauce and spaghetti and you have yourself a lovely dinner. Use the leftovers, take a baguette, and make a delicious meatball sub for lunch.
Day 4 – Chipotle Black Bean Burger
Burgers are quite a popular meal choice in our house. We make a large batch and freeze them so we always have something to grab when we don’t have much time. While we love our beet burger, as well as our portobello mushroom burger, this one is by far our current favorite. It is full of flavors, easy to make and the patties hold together during frying.
Day 5 – Oyster Mushroom Tacos
If you want something crispy and meaty, you cannot go wrong with oyster mushrooms. We have tons of recipes using this ingredient since they are just so versatile. While you can add vegan taco meat, cauliflower, or tofu as well, if you are looking for an easy and delicious taco recipe for your vegan meal plan, this one tops them all.
Day 6 – Pad Woon Sen
If you want an easy meal, you probably think of stir-fries at first. It is still tasty to add only a bit of soy sauce and be done with it. But if you want something next-level delicious, try this Thai glass noodles stir fry. It looks complex at first, but it really isn’t. It also has a salad alternative called Yum Woon Sen, which is a simplified version of this served cold.
Day 7 – Spicy Tofu Steak
Since, tofu is one of the most popular protein souces in a vegan diet preceeding tempeh or seitan, you need at least one tofu recipe in your weekly meal plan. We have 7 flavorful tofu marinade recipes. All of them is delicious, but we chose tofu steak in this regard since it is the easiest and the most elegant of them all. Served with baked baby potatoes and roasted asparagus, drizzled with a 5-min chimichurri sauce, this dinner will be a true vegan feast for sure.
Dinner plans for the holidays?
Have you seen our vegan dinner plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas? Not yet? They have appetizers, soups, entrees, sides, desserts and more.
More vegan meal planning ideas
We also gathered lots of creative and delicious recipes to add to your meal plans using well-known ingredients. You can check all of our recipe roundups or choose from the below list:
FREE Easy 7-day Vegan Meal Plan
Equipment
Ingredients
Day 0 – Sunday
- 1 dinner Vegan Pesto Pasta
Day 1 – Monday
- 1 breakfast Vegan Banana Pancakes
- 1 lunch Vegan Pesto Pasta
- 1 dinner Vegan Bean Millet Chili
Day 2 – Tuesday
- 1 breakfast Vegan Blueberry Millet Porridge
- 1 lunch Vegan Bean Millet Chili
- 1 dinner Mushroom Meatballs
Day 3 – Wednesday
- 1 breakfast Vegan Breakfast Hash
- 1 lunch Mushroom Meatballs
- 1 dinner Oyster Mushroom Tacos
Day 4 – Thursday
- 1 breakfast Vegan Red Lentil Waffles
- 1 lunch Oyster Mushroom Tacos
- 1 dinner Pad Woon Sen
Day 5 – Friday
- 1 breakfast Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
- 1 lunch Pad Woon Sen
- 1 dinner Spicy Tofu Steak
Day 6 – Saturday
- 1 breakfast Vegan Egg Salad Sandwich
- 1 lunch Spicy Tofu Steak
- 1 dinner Chipotle Black Bean Burger
Day 7 – Sunday
- 1 breakfast Banana Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
- 1 lunch Chipotle Black Bean Burger
- 1 dinner Vegan Pesto Pasta
Instructions
Why is there a Day 0?
- We cook dinner in a larger batch, so that we can have enough leftovers for next day's lunch. So, to start the weekly rotation, we cook the vegan spinach peso pasta for Sunday dinner, which will be our Monday lunch as well. What we cook for Monday dinner will also be our Tuesday lunch. And so on.
Notes
UPDATED: This vegan meal plan was created in January 2020. It has been rewritten with even more delicious and easy recipes and it was republished in Augus 2022.
Karan
Hi Emese and Nandi, seems like a good initiative but when you say Vegan why are you adding beef or any meatballs to the menu again, please dont, if so it will not be a plant base food anymore and any food food which is been prepared has to be consumed within 2 hours, post which the food will loose its life from it and it will just be a weight in your stomach. so do not consume the sunday night food to monday noon, instead you can feed the leftover food to any domestic animals.
Thank you.
My Pure Plants
Hi, “beef” and “meatballs” are to describe the dish so as to know a bit what to expect in terms of taste or texture. None of the recipes contains any animal-related products. The beef stew you saw is made of young jackfruit chunks and the meatballs are made of eggplants. I hope you’ll like the recipes.
Rach
Hi Emese and Nandi, thank you for this comprehensive guide! This is such a valuable resource for anyone transitioning to veganism. I love that these are all easy, simple meals with readily available ingredients. Thanks again for the inspiration!