Bumping up this post from two years ago, since it’s that time of year again!
Here are some of my absolute favorite vegetarian main dish ideas, perfect for your Nine Days Menu Planning.
- Soup & salad – For whatever reason, our favorite (if slightly odd-ball) pairing is creamy cauliflower soup with taco salad made from Morningstar Crumbles. In this heat, though, you might prefer a cooler soup – like my “unusual” gazpacho, or perhaps one of these fruity soups.
- Potato and kale gratin with a nice, leafy green salad – Perfect for using up all your garden and/or summer CSA veggies.
- Aloo Gabi – Fabulous and frugal, this Indian dish typically costs less than $5 for the whole meal.
- Sweet Potato & Black Bean Burritos (#2 on this list) – One of my all time favorite frugal and easy meals, these freeze great, too.
- Creamy Black Bean Burritos – Uh, yeah, we like Mexican-ish food in our house. And why not? It’s the perfect vegetarian meal!
- Breakfast for Dinner – Scrambled eggs and bagels are tasty, quick and inexpensive. I’d say that makes it a win on all three counts. You can fancy things up by adding a kugel (my all-time favorite is peach noodle kugel) and some homemade muffins (you know I love these lemon poppy seed ones).
- Homemade Pizza – We make pizza for dinner every Thursday night. This summer we’ve been experimenting with our garden and doing things like pepper and potato pizza, or white pizza with a layer of basil. I’m currently (well, not *right* this minute) testing out a new dough recipe, but for now – here is the one I recommend (#1 on the list).
- Pasta — You can’t go wrong with lasagna, baked ziti, stuffed shells or regular old spaghetti & homemade red sauce. If you want to try something new, check out this baked pasta with roasted vegetable recipe.
Tell me: What are your favorite vegetarian meals? What’s on your menu plan for the Nine Days?
We made baked ziti last night, and paired it with steamed zucchini circles dressed with fresh lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and salt.
Another great dish is blintzes, with a cheese or potato filling, or cheese/spinach.
Made brown rice, a small stir fry, and roasted tofu for lunch. And three out of the four kids ate most of the foods!
Yum and yum. The Aloo Gabi is right up my alley. Also the pizza, oh, and the burritos…okay everything, really. Much thanks for the link love!
i found these last year during the 9 days, and i didn’t get a chance to try most of them but i’ve made stuff from everyday food before and the recipes are good, healthy and not too time-consuming…here are 85 meatless dinner ideas 🙂
http://www.marthastewart.com/photogallery/quick-meatless-recipes#slide_1
Mac and cheese
Pizza
Calzones using trader Joe pizza dough
Falafel
Bacon egg and cheese wraps (morning star bacon obviously)
Salmon and Alfredo
Sushi
French onion soup
My best pizza/pasta sauce is amazingly easy. I keep a container of it in the fridge and my husband has a habit of putting it on everything! Take one large can of diced tomatoes and add in garlic and basil, I typically use twice the amount of garlic as basil. You can make it to you family’s taste which is what I love about it. Sometimes I do add a little salt and pepper, but not always. This works well with almost any baked pasta dish. Tasty and frugal!