Plant-Based Family Favourites: 30 Recipes To Try Together

If you’ve ever wondered how to make delicious, nourishing meals that both children and adults will love, you’re in the right place. Plant-based cooking isn’t just about salads and more ‘grown up’ food, it can also be about creating flavoursome dishes that everyone will enjoy. Not only does more plant-based cooking benefit our health, upping our intake of fibre, vitamins and minerals, it’s also a great way of looking after the environment and believe it or not, cooking together can be fun!

It's also important to note that whilst we don’t believe everyone has to follow a fully plant-based diet, if you are looking to move further in that direction it can be a safe, healthy way of eating for everyone. A range of professional organisations – including the NHS, British Dietetic Association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the American Academy of Paediatrics, the Canadian Paediatric Society and Dietitians of Canada – all agree that appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan diets are not only safe but may provide certain health advantages. The important note here is ‘appropriately planned’. Being truly aware of meeting your nutritional needs is essential in any diet, and it’s really important in a plant-based diet.

Here are 3 easy ways to get your family to eat more veggies.

1. Start slowly

If your family is new to a plant-based approach, then ease in gently, starting with one meal a week. You can also offer meat as a side or cheese as a topping to help keep it more familiar to begin with.

2. Learn together

Make cooking a family activity: choose which recipes to make together and turn the chore of cooking into a way of spending time together. Cooking as a family is often a great way of encouraging children to try something new, that way they feel involved and can feel proud of what they’ve created.

3. Focus on variety

Experiment with different foods, cuisines and recipes: the more you try, the more likely you are to find recipes the whole family loves.

3 reasons to try plant-based cooking together:

1. It helps everyone make healthier choices

Cooking together can be a great way of encouraging children to try new flavours, textures, and foods. If they see an adult that they trust eating something, they’re often more likely to try it too. The more often they try different fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, legumes and wholegrains, they more likely they are to start enjoying some of them.

2. It helps foster a love of cooking

Cooking can either be a joy or one more chore on the to-do list, by cooking together and getting your children involved in the prep, it helps foster a love of cooking that might (hopefully!) last a lifetime.

3. It's good for the environment

Reducing your family’s meat intake is a positive way of protecting the environment, you don’t need to go fully plant-based but starting to introduce a few meat-free meals is a great way of showing everyone how delicious a veggie-first approach can be.

Plant-based cooking as a family can be an enjoyable journey that brings you closer together while nourishing your bodies and doing good for the planet. With a little creativity, teamwork, and delicious recipes, you’ll find cooking plant-based recipes both easy and fun. Happy cooking!

To help you get started, here are 30 easy, family favourites to try at home.