It isn’t always easy to cook healthy vegan food. Cooking the healthy way not only takes up a lot of time and money, but it requires proper skill and equipment as well. This is one reason people find an excuse before they choose to go vegan and eat healthy food. However, in reality, this is not quite true.
Vegan cooking does take some time to get used to it, but if you stock your pantry with the right ingredients, keep patient and are willing to go a bit creative, cooking a plant-based meal is a doable task. Follow a few tips to take vegan cooking the easy way.
1. Bring Home A Food Processor
Although you can do without a food processor for a while, vegan cooking needs one to reach its full potential. When you start cooking vegan food at home, you will need to start experimenting a lot. This means that you will need to make substitutes for a lot of things and use alternatives for non-plant-based products. For example, you will need to replace cream in sauces with avocado or make a puree out of a cauliflower and a squash for puddings and desserts. You will need to replace ice-creams with smoothies and banana nice-cream, and all of these foods can be prepared in a jiffy with a food processor at your reach.
2. Fall In Love With Adventurous Cooking
It is true that vegan cooking means that you cannot use many ingredients such as eggs, milk, butter, cream, etc. However, if you keep your mind open to clever substitutions and use a certain amount of creativity in the kitchen, you will achieve amazing results even without the standard ingredients. Take a look at vegan recipes and do not hesitate to use even those substitutes that sound the weirdest. For example, for vegan macaroons, you might need to use pureed lentils and the brine of chickpeas!
3. Avoid Bringing Fake Meat To Your Table
Do not intend to replace the veggie burgers with beef and the turkey with Tofurky as you will be surely disappointed or get bored of them. They do not provide enough nutritional value and these fake meats are often processed, filled with many kinds of additives that give the look and taste of meat, and have a very high sodium content. Instead of bringing these fake meats to your table, fill your kitchen with tofu and tempeh, and go experimenting with legumes. These will not only give you the taste and feel of meat but also, act as alternative sources of protein.
4. Get Friendlier With Beans And Legumes
You must take care of the fiber and protein content even if you are on a vegan diet. Beans and legumes will help you keep yourself healthy and work well as delicious substitutes for many foods as well. Start experimenting with beans and legumes and fill your wraps, burgers, and sandwiches with them. They can used to make sauces and desserts as well. For example, white beans make drool-worthy dips and spreads and red lentils make mouthwatering desserts.
5. Keep Your Pantry Well-Stocked
Never fail to stock your pantry with fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and plant proteins. A healthy and delicious meal will always need the right ingredients to cook it with. Take some time off your daily chores and invest in setting up a well-stocked pantry to start with your vegan cooking. This will help you stay away from getting discouraged and overwhelmed and provide you with a happy start.
With these five tips, cooking delicious vegan food at home will not be quite a challenge anymore.
