What to Eat When You Want to Go Plant-Based but Your Family Doesn’t

Eating more plant-based is fairly straightforward when you’re only feeding yourself. It gets trickier when everyone else at the table wants chicken in the stir-fry, beef in the tacos, and absolutely no lentils hiding in anything.

Cooking two completely different dinners every night gets old very quickly.

A much easier approach is to make meals that can go in either direction. Start with the same base, then let everyone add the protein, toppings, or extras they want.

Make meals everyone can build themselves

Tacos are probably the perfect example.

Put tortillas, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, salsa, corn, and whatever other toppings your family likes on the table. You can build yours with black beans or seasoned tofu while someone else adds meat or cheese.

The same idea works with burrito bowls, baked potatoes, grain bowls, wraps, pizzas, and noodle bowls.

These kinds of plant-based family meals are especially useful because nobody feels like they’re being served the “vegetarian version” of dinner. Everyone is basically eating the same thing and customizing it.

Keep the base plant-based

Another easy trick is to cook most of the meal without animal products and deal with the protein separately.

Make vegetable fried rice, for example, then add tofu to your portion and chicken to someone else’s. Cook a tomato and vegetable pasta sauce, then stir lentils into yours and meatballs into theirs. Make curry with vegetables and coconut milk and offer different proteins on the side.

This saves far more time than making two complete meals, and it also makes experimenting with a plant-based diet feel less disruptive to everyone else in the house.

Find a few dinners nobody considers “plant-based food”

Some meals happen to contain no meat without announcing themselves as vegan dinner.

Think bean chili, falafel wraps, vegetable curry, pasta with lentil Bolognese, black bean tacos, hummus plates, or a hearty vegetable soup with good bread.

Start with foods your family already likes or flavors they recognize. A person who recoils at the phrase “vegan dinner” may be perfectly happy eating a bowl of chili that happens to be made with beans.

And if they hate lentils? Fine. There are plenty of other plants.

Make your portion more substantial

Sometimes the family meal is almost plant-based already.

Maybe dinner is roasted potatoes, vegetables, salad, and chicken. Your solution isn’t necessarily a whole separate recipe. Add chickpeas to your salad, heat up some marinated tofu, have hummus with the vegetables, or toss some beans with the potatoes.

Keeping a few quick protein options around makes this much easier. Canned beans, frozen edamame, baked tofu, hummus, lentil pouches, and veggie burgers can turn side dishes into dinner in minutes.

Those are the nights when easy plant-based meals really can be easy.

Let everyone else eat what they want

If you’re excited about eating more plants, it can be tempting to start campaigning for the rest of the household to join you.

That can make dinner exhausting for everyone.

Instead, concentrate on making food that tastes good. Let people try things when they’re curious. Maybe they’ll steal some of your crispy tofu. Maybe they absolutely won’t. Either outcome is manageable.

Your family doesn’t have to eat exactly the way you do for you to eat more plant-based.

Once you have a handful of flexible meals and a few quick proteins in the fridge or pantry, cooking for a mixed household becomes much simpler. Most nights, you’re not making two dinners. You’re making one dinner with a few different endings.