Going Vegetarian but Still Eating Mostly Cheese and Pasta? Here’s What to Add
There’s a very common stage of going vegetarian that looks something like this: you stop eating meat, then realize that a surprising number of your meals are now pasta, pizza, grilled cheese, or something involving eggs.
Honestly, that’s not a terrible place to start. You changed a big part of the way you eat, and familiar foods make the transition easier.
But eventually, it’s worth asking what you can add rather than what else you should take away. A balanced vegetarian diet has room for cheese and pasta. It also needs a little more variety.
Start giving protein a bigger role
Cheese has protein. So do eggs, if you eat them. But if they’re doing all the heavy lifting every day, start bringing some other vegetarian protein sources into the rotation.
Beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu, tempeh, edamame, nuts, seeds, and seitan are all easy places to start. Pulses such as beans and lentils also bring fiber, vitamins, and minerals along with their protein.
And this doesn’t require inventing entirely new meals.
Add white beans to pasta. Put lentils in tomato sauce. Throw chickpeas into a salad. Add tofu to fried rice. Spread hummus on your sandwich before piling everything else on top.
Basically, keep the meal you already like and give it something extra.
Add vegetables to meals you already eat
You can absolutely eat vegetarian and somehow still barely eat vegetables.
So rather than deciding you’re suddenly going to live on enormous salads, start with whatever is easiest.
Frozen peas can go straight into pasta. Mushrooms and spinach work in an omelet. Roasted peppers can go in sandwiches. Broccoli, zucchini, tomatoes, or eggplant can all be mixed into the foods you’re already making.
This is much easier to maintain than dividing your life into “healthy vegetable meals” and the food you actually want to eat.
Give beans and lentils a chance to become normal food
If you didn’t grow up eating legumes regularly, they can feel like something you’re supposed to eat rather than something you actually want.
That usually changes once you stop thinking of them as a sad side dish.
Black beans belong in tacos and quesadillas. Lentils work beautifully in curries and soups. Chickpeas can become falafel, hummus, or crispy toppings. White beans are great in tomato sauces and creamy soups.
They’re also useful nutritionally because they provide protein, fiber, iron, and other nutrients. All you have to do is find two or three versions you genuinely like. That’s enough to get them into regular rotation.
Look beyond pasta—but please keep eating pasta
Pasta is not the problem here.
The problem is when pasta, bread, and maybe rice are the only carbohydrate foods that ever appear on your plate.
Try rotating in potatoes, oats, barley, quinoa, whole-grain bread, brown rice, or whatever else appeals to you. Whole grains and other starchy foods can contribute fiber, iron, B vitamins, and other nutrients to a healthy vegetarian diet.
This is about adding variety, not replacing every bowl of spaghetti with quinoa.
Make cheese part of the meal instead of the entire meal
There’s a difference between eating cheese and accidentally building your entire vegetarian diet around it.
Keep the feta on your salad. Put Parmesan on your pasta. Have the mozzarella.
But also add the lentils, beans, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, and other foods that make the meal more complete.
Going vegetarian doesn’t mean you immediately have to become adventurous in the kitchen or start cooking everything from scratch. Start with meals you already enjoy and add one or two things that weren’t there before.
After a while, those additions stop feeling like something you’re consciously working on. They’re just dinner.
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