16 Vegetarian Meal Prep Ideas (With a 2 Hour Sunday Prep Plan)

These vegetarian meal prep ideas are how I get through a busy week without a single sad desk lunch or a last minute takeaway. All sixteen are my own tested recipes, from oats and granola for breakfast to lentil soup, coconut chickpea curry and baked ziti for dinner, and every one keeps well in the fridge or the freezer.

I have grouped them the way I fill my containers: breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. After the recipes you will find my two hour Sunday prep plan, a Monday to Friday menu, a fridge and freezer chart, a shopping list sorted by aisle, and my best tips for protein, containers and reheating.

Why Vegetarian Meal Prep Works So Well

Honestly, meatless food is the easiest food to cook ahead. Beans, lentils, grains and roasted vegetables hold their texture for days, and there is no raw meat to juggle on the chopping board. So a few hours on Sunday can cover most of the week.

• Cheap staples: tinned chickpeas, dried lentils, oats and pasta do most of the heavy lifting.
• Better the next day: soups and curries deepen in flavour overnight in the fridge.
• Freezer friendly: eleven of the sixteen recipes freeze, either cooked or as a dough or batter.
• Nine are vegan: I have marked every vegan recipe below, so mixed households can mix and match.

Vegetarian Meal Prep Ideas for Breakfast

First, breakfast, because a ready breakfast is the thing that rescues my mornings most. Two of these sit in the fridge, one lives in a jar on the counter, and one comes straight out of the freezer.

1. Instant Pot Oatmeal

This is breakfast for six with three ingredients and almost no effort (vegan). Rolled oats and water cook in my 6 quart Instant Pot at high pressure for just 2 minutes, then a 10 minute natural release finishes the job. It looks loose when the lid comes off, but it thickens as it cools. So I portion it while it is still warm and it sets into neat blocks for the week.

Get the Instant Pot Oatmeal recipe →

2. Homemade Granola

This granola (vegan) is sweetened with maple syrup and baked with coconut oil, so it suits everyone at my table. The secret to big clusters is pressing the mixture flat before baking, then leaving it completely alone while it cools. In fact, it is the first thing that goes in my oven on a Sunday, because it bakes while I start everything else.

Get the Homemade Granola recipe →

3. Chia Pudding

Chia pudding is the laziest breakfast I know. Chia seeds, milk and a little honey are stirred together, stirred again after five minutes so nothing clumps, then left in the fridge overnight. Any milk works, including almond or oat. I portion it into small glass jars on Sunday and keep the fruit in a separate tub, so it stays bright.

Get the Chia Pudding recipe →

4. Freezer Pancakes

Rather than freezing cooked pancakes, I freeze the batter in jumbo silicone freezer cubes with berries or chocolate chips set into the top. Then a cube goes straight into a covered pan and cooks from frozen. Every pancake gets a fresh golden crust on the morning you eat it, and my kids pick their favourite topping from the bag.

Get the Freezer Pancakes recipe →

Vegetarian Meal Prep Ideas for Lunch

Next come the lunches. I like one cold option and one hot option each week, so a salad and a soup, with hummus and flatbread to fill the gaps.

5. Greek Pasta Salad

This is the salad I make for the lunchbox because it gets better, not soggier, as it sits. Short pasta, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, kalamata olives and feta are tossed in a sharp red wine vinaigrette. The one rule is to cool the pasta completely before the feta and dressing go in, otherwise the cheese melts into the pasta.

Get the Greek Pasta Salad recipe →

6. Hummus

Homemade hummus (vegan) is the backbone of my week. I simmer the chickpeas for 10 minutes first to soften the skins, then blend them with tahini, lemon and garlic for a full two minutes. Cold water, not more oil, is what makes it light. It goes into wraps, next to crackers and onto the side of every lunch bowl.

Get the Hummus recipe →

7. Cottage Cheese Flatbread

Three ingredients, no yeast and no waiting: cottage cheese, self raising flour and a pinch of salt make a soft dough you can cook in a dry pan straight away. They puff up with lovely charred spots and stay soft once stacked under a towel. As a result, they are my go-to for wrapping up hummus and salad, or dunking in soup.

Get the Cottage Cheese Flatbread recipe →

8. Vegetarian Lentil Soup

This one pot soup (vegan) is the most hard working recipe on the list. Brown or green lentils simmer with carrots, celery, tomatoes, cumin and paprika in vegetable broth, and a splash of vinegar at the end wakes the whole pot up. It packs 14 g of protein a bowl, and it thickens as it sits, so loosen it as you reheat.

Get the Vegetarian Lentil Soup recipe →

9. Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup

This minestrone (vegan) is the soup I set going in the morning and forget about. Softened onion, carrot and celery go into the slow cooker with cannellini beans, tomatoes, courgette and vegetable stock. Then the pasta and greens go in at the end. If you are batch cooking, cook the pasta separately, because it keeps drinking the broth overnight.

Get the Slow Cooker Minestrone Soup recipe →

Vegetarian Meal Prep Ideas for Dinner

After that, dinner. Two of these are hob suppers that reheat beautifully, and two are bakes that feed a crowd, so I usually make one of each and freeze the leftovers.

10. Coconut Chickpea Curry

This curry (vegan) is creamy from a tin of coconut milk and savoury from browned shiitake mushrooms. The mushrooms are the trick, so brown them in a single layer before the spices go in. Two tins of chickpeas make it filling enough for six. I always hold back the lime and coriander until I reheat a portion, because both lose their sparkle in the fridge.

Get the Coconut Chickpea Curry recipe →

11. Vegan Lasagna

This lasagna (vegan) gets its meaty bite from tempeh or smoked tofu and mushrooms, and its creamy layer from macadamias or cashews blended with lemon and nutritional yeast. Instant sheets mean no boiling. Better yet, you can make the sauce and the nut cheese in advance, assemble it the day before and keep it unbaked in the fridge.

Get the Vegan Lasagna recipe →

12. Baked Ziti

Baked ziti is my freezer insurance. Ziti, marinara and ricotta are stirred together, topped with mozzarella and a hard Italian style cheese, then baked until bubbling. Traditional Parmesan is made with animal rennet, so use a vegetarian hard cheese to keep the dish truly vegetarian. Cottage cheese also works in place of the ricotta for extra protein.

Get the Baked Ziti recipe →

13. Cauliflower Mushroom Masala

This masala (vegan) is my Friday night curry. Mustard and fennel seeds sizzle in the oil, then onions, ginger, garlic and warm spices cook down with tomato until the oil separates. Cauliflower and mushrooms simmer until tender, and grated coconut thickens the gravy. It is gently spiced with Kashmiri chilli, so it is friendly enough for the whole family.

Get the Cauliflower Mushroom Masala recipe →

Vegetarian Meal Prep Ideas for Snacks

Finally, the snacks, which are what stop me raiding the biscuit tin at four o’clock. Two need no oven at all, and one turns sourdough discard into something you will actually want to eat.

14. Energy Balls

My children call these after school balls, and they disappear just as fast from my own bag. Oat flour, hemp seeds, butterscotch chips, rice crisps and sprinkles are bound with honey and melted butter, then rolled with damp hands. No oven, no blender. If the mixture is too sticky to roll, chill it for ten minutes rather than adding more flour.

Get the Energy Balls recipe →

15. Granola Bars

These no bake bars beat anything in a wrapper. Oats, crisp rice, flaxseed, nuts and mini chocolate chips are coated in warm honey, almond butter and coconut oil, then pressed very firmly into a lined tin. Pressing hard is what gives you clean slices. Of course, do not let the honey mixture boil, or the bars set hard and brittle.

Get the Granola Bars recipe →

16. Sourdough Discard Crackers

If you keep a starter, these crackers (vegan) turn a cup of discard into a week of snacking. Discard, flour, olive oil and salt make a soft dough that you roll almost paper thin between parchment, brush with oil, sprinkle with herbs and score. They crisp up as they cool, so wait before you break them. With hummus, they are my favourite afternoon snack.

Get the Sourdough Discard Crackers recipe →

My 2 Hour Sunday Prep Plan

This is the order I cook in when I turn these vegetarian meal prep ideas into a week of food, so the oven, two pots and the food processor are all working at once. It covers granola, lentil soup, coconut chickpea curry, hummus, Greek pasta salad, chia pudding, energy balls and granola bars. That said, it is a busy two hours, so on your first go pick four or five and build up.

The granola goes on a half sheet pan, which gives the mixture enough room to press flat into one thin, even layer.

The Timeline, Step by Step

A 5 Day Vegetarian Meal Plan

Here is how that Sunday cook turns into Monday to Friday. Midweek I start the minestrone in the slow cooker one morning, and Friday leans on the freezer and one fresh curry. The baked ziti and freezer pancakes come from an earlier batch in the freezer.

For a fully vegan week, swap the chia pudding for oatmeal, the pasta salad for extra soup, the ziti for the vegan lasagna, and the bars and balls for granola and crackers.

Fridge and Freezer Chart

Here is how long each of these vegetarian meal prep ideas keeps. Every time below comes from the recipe itself. Where a recipe gives no time, I say so rather than guess.

For the two recipes without a time, I follow the general rule from the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition, which advises eating most cooked foods within three to five days of refrigeration. If in doubt, throw it out.

When the tubs run out, I freeze soup portions flat in gallon freezer bags, so they stack like books and thaw in no time.

Containers and Reheating

• Shallow containers cool faster. I split soups and curries into single portions, so they chill quickly and reheat evenly.
• Glass for anything saucy. Curry and tomato soup stain plastic, and glass containers go straight into the microwave.
• Small jars for breakfast. Chia pudding and granola with yogurt fit perfectly, with the fruit kept apart.
• Leave room in freezer tubs. Soup expands as it freezes, so I stop a couple of centimetres from the top.
• Label everything. Write the name and the date, because every frozen lentil soup looks the same in February.
• Loosen as you reheat. Lentil soup and oatmeal thicken in the fridge, so add a splash of broth, water or milk. Similarly, cook fresh pasta for the minestrone, and thaw the ziti overnight in the fridge before warming it at 325°F.
• Freshen at the end. A squeeze of lime over the curry or lemon over the lentil soup brings day four back to life.

Shopping List by Aisle

This list covers the Sunday prep plan plus the minestrone and masala, so you can shop once. Check the cupboard first, because you will already have many of the spices.

• Fruit and veg: onions, carrots, celery, garlic, fresh ginger, shiitake and button mushrooms, a cauliflower, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, a cucumber, a red onion, a courgette, spinach or kale, lemons, a lime, parsley and fresh coriander, plus fruit for topping.
• Tins and jars: chickpeas, cannellini beans, chopped tomatoes, coconut milk, kalamata olives, tahini, vegetable stock and soy sauce or tamari.
• Grains, pasta and pulses: rolled oats, oat flour, dried brown or green lentils, short pasta, small soup pasta and crisp rice cereal.
• Baking aisle: chia seeds, hemp seeds, ground flaxseed, almonds and chopped nuts, shredded and grated coconut, dried cranberries, mini chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, sprinkles, maple syrup, honey, vanilla and coconut oil.
• Spices: cumin, paprika, bay leaves, curry powder, ground coriander, turmeric, chilli powder, Kashmiri chilli, garam masala, mustard and fennel seeds, oregano, thyme and cinnamon.
• Fridge: milk, butter, feta, cottage cheese and yogurt for the granola.
• Store cupboard: olive oil, red wine vinegar, almond butter, salt and pepper.

Protein Tips for Vegetarians

The question I get most about meatless meal prep is whether it keeps you full. It does, as long as every container has a proper protein in it. Here is how I build that in.

• Lean on pulses. The lentil soup has 14 g of protein a bowl, and the chickpea curry has 11 g.
• Use dairy and eggs if you eat them. The baked ziti has 26 g a serving, and the cottage cheese flatbreads add 9 g each to a soup lunch.
• Mix your sources through the day. Colorado State University Extension explains that a variety of plant foods eaten over the day provides all the essential amino acids, so you do not need to combine them at every meal.
• Add seeds and nuts to breakfast. Chia, hemp seeds, almonds and almond butter all add a little more to oats, granola and bars.
• Pair hummus with bread. Hummus with flatbread or crackers is a filling snack that tides me over to dinner.

All protein figures come from the recipe cards and, like all my nutrition information, are estimates.

Tips for Better Vegetarian Meal Prep

• Cook components, not just meals. A tub of hummus, a jar of granola and a pot of lentils turn into far more combinations than three finished dinners.
• Keep dressings and toppings separate. Fruit for the chia pudding, lime for the curry and fresh herbs all go on the day.
• Check the cheese. Parmesan is traditionally made with animal rennet, so buy a vegetarian hard cheese, and look for vegetarian rennet on the label of other cheeses too.
• Read stock labels. Use vegetable stock or a vegan stock cube, never chicken stock, in the soups and curry.
• Freeze on day one. Anything you will not eat by Thursday goes straight into the freezer on Sunday, rather than on Wednesday when it is already tired.
• Rotate the menu. Instead of the same five meals every week, swap one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner from these vegetarian meal prep ideas each Sunday.

Frequently Asked Questions