Vegetarian Protein : Tips, tricks and recipes

Hey friends!

Now I’m not actually a vegetarian but I do eat a lot of vegetarian food and am increasingly eating less and less meat. This has been much easier after educating myself through doing research on the internet, You Tube videos (check out Zanna van Dijk and Plantbased Pixie), recipes and I even attending a Uni Girls Nutrition Workshop (I’ve done a blogpost about this before if you are intrigued). However, *disclaimer* I am not a qualified nutritionist and I will not pretend to be, I’m going to get my dietitian friend to read over this post before it goes live just to make sure I’m saying anything way off base (shout out to Aidan!) but I am just sharing my own experiences of food with you. Recommendations of how much protein you should consume in a day varies depending on your lifestyle, training, age, and weight. I am not going to give advice on how much you should eat because I’m not qualified to do so but it is quite easy to find this out online or by talking to a professional.

I have a few tips and tricks to help you out if you’re training and worried about not getting enough vegetarian protein. First of all, read labels. If you look at the nutritional value of a slice of bread you will find that it might have anything between 3.5-5g of protein. If you have two slices of toast, you could be getting 10g of protein. We need to be wary of macros (macro nutrients are fats, carbohydrates and proteins) but sometimes we categorise certain foods as belonging to only one macro group when this simply isn’t the case. For some reason we are obsessed with having meat, a ‘carbohydrate’ and vegetables on our plates but this isn’t how you HAVE to eat. If you can get a feel for what your food is made up of you will be able to eat a more varied diet, knowing that you will be getting a few grams of protein here and there through various vegetables for instance.

This brings me onto my second point. When you eat meat and fish you can get a large amount of protein one hit – say a fillet of salmon has something like 22g of protein in it. When you are eating plant based, you need to incorporate a lot of different elements to increase the protein levels. ‘Meat substitutes’ – such as Quorn or Soya products - are quite a good way to get a big protein hit in one go but sometimes you don’t want to eat those. The recipes that I’m giving you contain some meat substitute type products but you don’t have to include these and can swap them out for whatever you fancy.

Examples of individual foods that are good for a quick protein hit are:

·         Eggs

·         Yoghurt

·         Nuts (but they are quite high in calories so be wary)

·         Beans (My post-gym lunch yesterday had 37g on protein in through having baked beans, a bit of cheese and toast)

·         Protein Powders (little bit controversial…)

There are a lot of mixed feelings about protein powders and you should be aiming to get all your nutrients from whole foods preferably. The problem with protein powders are that many are not batch tested and so might have contaminants in them.  If you buy one that is batch tested though then you get rid of this risk. They tend to be a bit on the pricier side though. I don’t use protein powder much but if at the end of the day I feel like I’ve not had enough protein I might make myself a fruit based milkshake using soya protein, more for convenience than anything because I am lazy like that. I am going to include it in one on the recipes but it is optional whether or not you include it! Totally up to you. You do NOT need protein powder to have a healthy vegetarian diet.

I’m not really one for specific measurements and if you’re worried about portion sizes have a look at what it says on the packet, for example rice is usually recommended at 75g per person. You know yourself how much you can eat, how much you need to eat and if you’re interested in losing a bit of fat (I’m saying fat because weight loss is a good measure to a point but you could actually become leaner and more muscular but increase in weight) you need to be in a slight calorie deficit and so you need to eat a little bit less. None of these meals are particularly complex or fancy but they are easy and tasty! If you’re going to make these meals for children naturally their portion sizes will be different to yours, but you already know this. You can modify most of these meals (perhaps not the egg based one) to make them vegan and some are vegan anyway! Season them to your personal taste too and use your intuition; if things are sticking maybe add a little more oil etc… Add/ take away any vegetables that you want to include. Also, I’m not very creative with names, sorry about that, ha!

Feta, Tomato and Spinach Frittata (Roughly serves 2 after a big gym session)

Ingredients:

• ·         5/6 eggs (depending on how hungry you are)
• ·         ½ red onion
• ·         ½ yellow pepper
• ·         A good chunk of feta cheese (see what I mean about measurements)
• ·         Handfull of fresh tomatoes (chopped by your fine self)
• ·         Handfull of spinach
• ·         4(ish) new/baby potatoes
• ·         2 cloves of garlic
• ·         Salt, black pepper, mixed herbs, paprika to season (or whatever else you might want)
• ·         Oil of your choice for cooking (I like to use coconut)

Method:

-          Chop the potato into thin crisp like slices. Add a small amount of oil to a frying pan (preferably non-stick) placed over a medium to high heat. Add your potato to the pan and cook until soft.

-          Whilst the potato cooks dice the onion, pepper and garlic. Chop the feta and tomatoes into small chunks. Add your chopped onion, pepper and garlic to the potatoes and fry until soft and browned.

-          Whilst the vegetables soften, crack your eggs into a bowl and whisk, adding a pinch of salt, a decent sprinkling of black pepper and mixed herbs and a tea spoon of paprika (or more – go wild!)

-          Now that the vegetables are cooked, arrange them so that they are evenly distributed in the pan. Sprinkle the tomato, feta and spinach evenly into the pan. Pour the egg mixture over the contents of the pan.

-          As it cooks, gently lift the edges of the frittata with a spatula to try and stop it from sticking to the pan. When you can see the frittata starting to stiffen, with just some raw egg on the top, but solid underneath, place it under a grill.

-          Cook until golden and enjoy!

The beauty of this recipe is that you can eat any leftover cold or reheat!

Lentil, Aubergine and Mushroom ‘Bolognese’ (This makes enough sauce for 4/5)

For this recipe you will need a hand held blender – if not it will just be a bit lumpy but it is more child/ fussy boyfriend friendly when blended.

Ingredients:

• ·         3 handfulls of red lentils
• ·         1 large onion (any colour)
• ·         1 whole aubergine
• ·         Packet of (say 2 handfulls when chopped) mushrooms (type of your choice)
• ·         1 can of chickpeas
• ·         2 tins of chopped tomatoes
• ·         3 large cloves of garlic
• ·         Tomato purée
• ·         Pasta of your choice
• ·         Fresh basil (optional – depends on how fancy you’re feeling)
• ·         Handfull of baby spinach
• ·         Black pepper, salt, mixed herbs, paprika
• ·         Dash of red wine or balsamic vinegar
• ·         Oil of your choice for cooking (I like to use olive oil)

Method:

-          Dice your onion (don’t worry about doing it too carefully as it will be blended). Chop aubergine and mushrooms into chunks.

-          Add a little bit of oil to a large saucepan over a medium heat and add your onions. Cook until softened. Then add the aubergine and mushrooms and cook for 5 minutes. Be sure to keep moving the vegetables around so that they don’t burn!

-          Pour in the cans of chopped tomatoes and stir, swirl out any remaining tomatoes from the tins with water and pour in. Add the lentils. You should add the amount of water that means all the vegetables and lentils are covered. Add black pepper, a dash of salt, mixed herbs and paprika to personal taste. Add a good squeeze of tomato purée. Add a dash of red wine or balsamic vinegar to give it a nice richness.

-          Turn the heat down so that the sauce is gently simmering. Cover and leave for at least 20 minutes. It can be cooked for between 20 minutes and 40 minutes depending on when you want to eat!

-          15 minutes before serving time put your pasta on to boil, following the instructions on the packet. Cook as much pasta as you need for the number of meals you are making!

-          10 minutes before serving drain the chickpeas and stir into the sauce.

-          5 minutes before serving blend the sauce until it reaches the desired consistency.

-          Drain your pasta and add to the sauce, add the spinach to the sauce and stir everything together. Serve with a garnish of fresh basil if you want to! Enjoy!

Easy ‘Chorizo’ Pesto Pasta

Ingredients:

·         Red lentil pasta (I bought mine for Morrisons but you can get it from most big supermarkets but not Aldi)

·         Linda McCartney Chorizo style vegan sausages

·         Vegan friendly green/red pesto

·         Red onion

·         Big handfull of spinach

·         Handfull of fresh tomatoes

·         Omega seed mix (optional)

·         Black pepper

·         1 clove of garlic

·         Oil for cooking

Method:

-          Place your Chorizo style sausages under the grill and cook following instructions on the packet

-          While the sausages cook, chop your onion, garlic (can you tell that I am obsessed with garlic?) and tomatoes.

-          Add oil to a frying pan over a medium heat and cook onions and garlic until soft and browned.

-          Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet.

-          When the pasta is cooked and drained add the sausages, onion and garlic, spinach, tomatoes, black pepper, a good amount of pesto and stir over a low heat. Add a sprinkling of omega seed mix if desired and you’re good to go!

“Mum please can we go to MacDonalds?” Friday Night Tea

This one is for all the parents out there with children who LOVE nuggets… it’s very simple, seriously.

Ingredients:

• ·         Packet of Quorn nuggets
• ·         Sweet potato (amount depending on how many people you’re feeding)
• ·         Broccoli
• ·         Peas
• ·         Pepper, salt
• ·         Coconut Oil

Method:

-          Preheat your oven to 180 degrees (roughly)

-          Wash your sweet potatoes and chop into wedge shapes (leave the skin on) and place on a baking tray with a decent amount of space around each wedge. Either add a tea spoon of coconut oil and rub in with your hands as it will melt at skin temperature or melt in a mug in the microwave and pour over the wedges. Season with salt and pepper.

-          Pop into the oven – they will take roughly 40-45 minutes to cook depending on how thick you cut them but keep your eyes on them.

-          Cook the Quorn nuggets according the instructions on the packet (around 12 minutes) in the last 15 minutes of the wedge cooking time.

-          Chop up your broccoli and boil for around 7 minutes so it softens but stays bright green (there’s nothing I hate more than overcooked broccoli) and add peas for the last 5 minutes.

-          Throw it all on a plate and there you have it, quick, cheap, easy ‘fast’ food but it’s healthy and nutritious!

Butternut Squash Soup

This isn’t massively high in protein but it is pretty yummy and if you have a piece of toast or a pita bread with it that adds a little bit more protein. You can also add sweet potatoes and carrot to this recipe but this is just how I made it this evening. You will need a hand held blender for this recipe.

Ingredients:

• ·         1 whole butternut squash
• ·         1 red onion
• ·         2 cloves of garlic
• ·         Vegetable stock cube
• ·         Red lentils
• ·         Black pepper
• ·         Soya protein powder (optional)
• ·         Mixed milled seeds (optional)
• ·         Cream cheese (optional)
• ·         Olive oil

Method:

-          Preheat your oven to 180 degrees

-          Chop your butternut squash in half and place on a baking tray, flesh side up (skin side down) and drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil over. Put into the oven and bake for one hour.

-          Remove from the oven and leave to cool (probably about 40 minutes)

-          Chop the onion and garlic roughly and throw into a saucepan over a medium heat with a little bit of oil.

-          Scoop out the seeds from the butternut squash and put them in the food recycle bin/on the compost/ in the bin.

-          Scoop out the rest of the flesh and add to the onions and garlic. Pour in boiled water from the kettle until the vegetables are covered. Pour in a decent sprinkling of red lentils. Add a vegetable stock cube and black pepper.

-          (Optional step) Add one scoop of soya protein powder and stir in – don’t worry if it looks a bit lumpy because it will blend in nicely.

-          Leave to simmer for around 20 minutes (a little bit longer if you’ve added in extra vegetables).

-          Blend and serve into bowls.

-          (Optional step) You can stir in a spoon full of cream cheese to make it extra creamy if you want to and add a sprinkling of mixed milled seeds for texture.

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So there you have it, some meat free meals to try. I know that none of them are extremely fancy and maybe you already know how to make them all! But if you are new to eating meat free meals I hope that they have given you some ideas of how to get your protein in without meat. Let me know how you get on with them, if you modify them, if you make them better, I would love to know. Tag me in any photos on Instagram/Twitter so I definitely see them! 

Happy Eating!

Em x

P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures but I didn't have them for all meals... however, I am CONSTANTLY and I mean all the time, posting photos of food on my Instagram so if you are interested and are after inspiration be sure to head over there and follow me. 

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