Being vegan means that you eat absolutely no animal-based products. This does come with a wide variety of benefits for your health. There’s also the fact that eating vegan is also far more sustainable for the planet.
With that being said, beginner vegans can be faced with some challenges. Mainly, finding foods that you are allowed to eat is the biggest challenge. The second biggest challenge is finding food that actually tastes decent. Today, we are here to provide you with a vegan food list for beginners.
We want to provide you with a ton of great ideas in terms of foods that you as a vegan can eat. We’re going to provide you with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and more. Let’s get to it and figure out what some of the best vegan foods are for you to eat.
A Complete Vegan Food List for Beginners from Breakfast to Dinner
We want to take you through a completely vegan food list that will provide you with great food ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and desserts. This is designed to be fairly rapid-fire just to provide you with some ideas, so let’s get to it.
Vegan Breakfast Foods
Let’s start off with the most important meal of the day, breakfast. You need to put some calories and nutrients into your body for a long day ahead.
- There are many really tasty vegan bowls of cereal that you can eat for breakfast. Most of them come complete with tons of protein, a good deal of calories, and some important fiber as well. One such option is this Kashi GO Breakfast Cereal.
- Here we have that same awesome vegan cereal, but with a chocolate flavor. If you are looking for something very simple, a cereal made with organic whole grains, Weetabix is always something to consider.
- If you are a new vegan, and you want something that somewhat resembles breakfast meat, there are tons of plant-based sausage patties and other breakfast meats out there. For instance, here we have Gardein Spicy Breakfast Plant-Based Saus’age Patties. You can of course also find tons of vegan bacon options out there too.
- If you are somebody who loves to have carbs for breakfast, don’t let anybody stop you. You can make waffles, bread, pancakes, muffins, and so much more using vegan ingredients. None of these things really need any kind of dairy or animal products to be made. This Orgain Vegan Protein Pancake & Waffle Mix is a great example.
- Of course, another go-to breakfast option for vegans is a smoothie. There are literally hundreds of different vegan smoothies out there that you can make. It’s all about finding the right flavors that you’re going to enjoy.
Vegan Lunch Foods
It’s lunchtime, you’re in the middle of work, and you’re hungry. Let’s go over some super simple vegan lunch ideas.
- A go-to option for lunchtime is a good old sandwich. Sandwiches are easy to make, don’t require any cooking, and they’re usually pretty tasty too. If you are a new vegan, you might want some imitation lunch meats. These Tofurky Deli Slices could be a good choice to consider.
- If you were looking for something slightly more substantial that is still easy to heat up, something like a noodle bowl is a good option to go with. Of course, vegan noodle bowls feature noodles that don’t have any animal products. Noodle bowls are great for eating at work because you just need to add some hot water and wait for a couple of minutes. This Thai Style Vegan Peanut Noodle Bowl looks pretty tasty!
- There are also a wide variety of pasta dishes that are vegan-friendly. Remember, pasta doesn’t need to contain animal products of any kind. Pasta is also a good option for lunch because it’s something you can make beforehand, and then just heat up at work. For example, here we have a really great one-pot cheesy broccoli pasta recipe for you to check out.
- Of course, lunchtime is also a fantastic time to eat a good old salad. Yes, there are dozens, if not hundreds of different vegan-friendly salads. Generally speaking, a salad should always be vegan anyway. Who started putting meat in salads? Here we have a fantastic lemon kale chickpea avocado salad for you to check out. This vegan Cobb salad is a great option too. In case you’re short on ideas, here’s a link to over 40 different vegan friendly salad options that make for perfect lunches.
Vegan Dinner Foods
A long day of work is over and you probably want something substantial to eat for dinner. Let’s talk about some tasty full vegan meals.
- For dinner, you probably want something fairly rich and hearty. Keep in mind that there are plenty of vegan pasta recipes that use vegan and low-carb pasta. There are even those that turn vegetables, such as carrots and zucchini, into pasta. Personally, we are huge fans of making noodles out of pasta, particularly zucchini. It’s super healthy and tasty too. For this reason, we always recommend going with some vegan pasta. Below we have included a list of vegan pasta options as well as links to recipes. That said, there of course hundreds of different vegan pasta recipes out there.
- If you’re looking for something simple, such as rice and plant-based chicken, here we have a good option for you to check out. This is a super simple single serve teriyaki plant based chicken bowl.
- There are also plenty of amazing grains and legumes that you can eat for dinner. You don’t always want to take the time to cook, but there are ready-to-go options out there. For instance, here we have a selection of bowls that you can easily heat up. These include Millet and lentil bowls, mung bean and rice bowls, quinoa and lentil bowls, as well as rice and lentil bowls.
- Something that we personally recommend as a great vegan dinner food is any kind of wrap or taco. The cool thing about these foods is that you can also use super vegan-friendly options for the shells. Many people just use lettuce leaves or cabbage leaves. You can then put absolutely anything you want on the inside. There are plenty of vegan taco meats that you can make out of nuts. There are then also plenty of different kinds of vegan salsas and even vegan sour cream. The great thing about vegan tacos and lettuce wraps is that you can put anything on the inside as you see fit.
- Yet another great vegan dinner option out there is any kind of vegan soup. You can make broccoli soup, bean soup, wild rice soup, curry lentil soup, cozy white bean soup, potato soup, cauliflower soup, kale soup, and so much more. For some great vegan soup ideas, follow the link that we have provided here. In case you don’t feel like cooking, check out this 100% organic and vegan vegetable lentil and roasted red pepper soup.
- If you like a lot of spice, an important fact to know is that a ton of Indian food is vegan. If you don’t want to do any cooking or order takeout, check out this Kitchens of India Ready to Eat Dinner Variety Pack.
Vegan Snacks
Vegans need snacks too, so let’s see what some of the best ones are.
- Hands down one of the best vegan snacks out there are nuts. Pistachios, almonds, cashews, peanuts, and so much more. They’ve got tons of healthy oils, plenty of calories, and more, all to keep you going. Snacks like trail mix always work really well too. If you don’t want just one kind of nut, go for a mixed nut option.
- Another go-to snack option, whether vegan or not, is fruit. Fruit contains some sugar, some calories, and tons of essential vitamins. There’s never a good time to not eat some fruit. That said if you don’t want to get messy, and you like something a bit sweeter, go for some dried fruit. You can get dried pineapple, apple, mango, raisins, and so much more. Some people even really like their dried prunes.
- In case you want to go for something more substantial, there are plenty of great vegan snack bars out there. You’ve got vegan protein bars, granola bars, and a variety of other snack bar types too. These are definitely ideal for being on the go or if you are a fitness oriented person.
- Sometimes there is just nothing better than some chocolate as a snack. That said, most chocolate is of course not vegan friendly. However, here we do have one type of chocolate that is vegan friendly, and comes in many different flavors too.
Vegan Desserts
There are plenty of really tasty vegan desserts out there, so let’s take a look at exactly what these might look like.
- When it comes to dessert, there is rarely anything better than some good old ice cream. Fear not, because there are plenty of vegan ice cream options out there.
- If you want something a little more solid, you’ve also got plenty of vegan cookies out there to choose from.
- If you want a really nice dessert, go for a piece of cake. There are plenty of vegan friendly cakes that you can make. You can make vegan gingerbread cake, vegan applesauce spice cake, vegan chocolate beet cake, vegan cinnamon spiced sheet cake with vegan cream cheese frosting, vegan vanilla cake, and so much more. Here we have linked to a resource that is chock full of vegan cake ideas.
- In case you’d like some fruit with whipped cream, or anything else with whipped cream, there are vegan options as well. Here we have one great vegan whipped cream for you to consider.
- There are plenty of other great vegan dessert options out there too. For instance, you can make chocolate-covered bananas, vegan apple crumble, vegan chocolate pudding, vegan classic strawberry crumble, pumpkin oatmeal cookies, and so much more.
Read also: 13 Easy Raw Vegan Recipes
How to Eat Vegan for Beginners – Final Thoughts
As you can see, for vegans, there are actually plenty of awesome foods that you can eat. A lot of them require just a little bit of cooking, whereas many can also be eaten completely raw.
The trick is to find a variety of ingredients that you really enjoy cooking with and eating. Once you do this, being a vegan is a breeze. We guarantee that once you have switched over to a 100% plant-based diet, just after a couple of weeks, you will feel much better.