It’s World Vegan Day 2022! We wanted to use this as an opportunity to show that you can still eat some of your favourite meals when vegan, so below you’ll find breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes. Why not give them a try and go vegan for the day?

Breakfast – Vegan Crepes

Ingredients

To make 2 Crepes:

• 31g plain flour
• 31g wholewheat flour
• ½ tablespoon avocado oil
• 132ml soy milk
• ½ – 2 tablespoons coconut sugar (depending on your desired sweetness)
• ¼ tablespoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon (optional to add flavour)

Directions

1. Before you start, ensure all your ingredients are at room temperature. This is important as, if you are using cold milk, you will create flour lumps that will require an electric beater to be dissolved.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour. Whisk for a few seconds to remove any big lumps (you shouldn’t need to sift it).
3. Add vanilla, sugar, avocado oil, and soy milk (all at room temperature).
4. Whisk until the crepe batter forms with no lumps. It is ok to have a few small lumps at the end for a crepe recipe, but if you really don’t like these lumps, you can use an electric beater to get a smoother batter. The batter should be slightly thick but runnier than a pancake batter.
5. Warm a non-stick frying pan or non-stick pancake griddle under medium/high heat.
6. Add the avocado oil into the pan and you can use a piece of absorbent paper to ensure the pan is coated evenly if you wish. This avoids leaving drops of oil on the pan that will fry the crepes.
7. Either pour the batter into the pan or ladle it, then tip and rotate it to spread the batter as thinly as possible. Note that 1/2 cup of crepe batter perfectly covers a 28 cm pan and makes a thin crepe.
8. Brown for 2-3 minutes on one side. You know it’s ready to flip the crepe when the underside is getting crispy and unsticks by itself.
9. Loosen sides and then slide a spatula under the crepe to flip on the other side.
10. Cook for 1 more minute on the other side, then put on a plate and repeat this until no more batter is left.
11. Top with whatever you would like and enjoy!
12. You can store your crepes in the fridge for up to 3 days. Place them flat on a plate and cover them to ensure they don’t dry out.

Notes and ideas on the ingredients (including costs)

Flour– If you don’t have wholewheat flour, don’t worry about buying it particularly for this recipe. You can substitute in more plain flour instead. Plain flour can be found for less than 60p at most big supermarkets, so is definitely a cheap and diverse ingredient to have in the cupboard.

Oil– Avocado oil is suggested in this recipe, however, this is a bit out of budget for a lot of people. Due to the very low volume of oil in this recipe, you can use whatever type of oil you do have in the cupboard (we won’t tell anyone).

Soy Milk– Similarly, you can use whichever vegan milk alternative you would prefer, for example oat milk. You could even try and switch up the recipe when you’re more comfortable to include flavoured milks such as Alpro vanilla milk.

Coconut Sugar– Again, this can be substituted for what you have at home. The best substitution would likely be caster sugar, as the grains are smaller, however you can always put granulated sugar (like you’d use for tea or coffee) in a blender if you’d like it to be finer. Granulated sugar can be found for as little as 60p, whereas coconut sugar could set you back as much as £5.50 for the same amount.  

Lunch – Sweet potato and coconut soup

Ingredients (serves 4 so feel free to adjust):

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1-2 tsp thai curry paste (red or green depending on your preference)
• 750g sweet potatoes
• 700ml vegetable stock
• 1 can coconut milk
• Coriander to your preference

Directions:

1. Grate the sweet potato.
2. Heat the oil in a deep saucepan, then soften the onion for 4-5 mins.
3. Stir in the curry paste and cook for 1 min more until fragrant. Add the grated sweet potato and stock, then bring quickly to the boil, simmering for 5 mins until the potato is tender.
4. Remove the soup from the heat, and stir in the coconut and seasoning.
5. Cool briefly before whizzing with a stick blender until smooth. Sprinkle with coriander and serve.
6. You could even make some vegan naan breads to serve it with.

Notes and ideas on the ingredients

Thai Green Curry Paste– This may be the most difficult aspect of this recipe to come by. You could, of course, buy your thai green curry paste, however finding a vegan one in the supermarket might be quite difficult. There are several options online, such as Geo Organics Thai Green Curry Paste which costs £2.99, but you may even prefer to make your own using one of the countless recipes online?

Vegetable Stock– The type of vegetable stock you use for this recipe is entirely up to you. You could splurge on some Tesco’s Finest Vegetable Stock, or simply get some stock cubes and make it to your taste for as little as £0.75.

Dinner – Lentil Bolognese

Ingredients (4 servings, 45min prep time):

• 2 onions
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 carrots
• 2 stalks celery
• 3 tbsp tomato purée
• 2 cans (440g total) lentils
• 125ml vegan red wine (optional)
• 3 cups tomato passata
• 2 tsp Italian herbs
• 2 bay leaves
• 350g Spaghetti

Directions:

1. Finely chop the onions, garlic, carrots and celery
2. Sautée the onions and garlic in a few tbsp of oil of your choice.
3. Add the carrots and celery to the pan and fry for 4-5 minutes
4. Add in your tomato purée and the red wine (if you’ve chosen to include it), and let the wine cook off.
5. Add in the lentils, passata, Italian herbs and bay leaves, and add salt and pepper to your taste.
6. Allow to simmer for 20-30 minutes (during this time you can cook the pasta to your preference)
7. Serve and enjoy!

Notes and ideas on the ingredients

Red Wine– As stated, this is completely optional. Alternatively, you could add 1-2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar, which will mean your sauce is less dry without losing flavour.

Lentils– Although this recipe mentions canned lentils, you may prefer to buy dried ones and cook them before adding them into the pan. This is one way to personalise this recipe to your preference.

Vegetables– Vegetables for this recipe are quite reasonably priced, especially when bought by weight from your local supermarket. Buying veg loose can be a good way to save money and waste less food simultaneously, for example, you may not use a whole 1kg bag of carrots, and buying them loose is roughly £0.07 per carrot.

Dessert ideas:

Dessert is up to you, however, here are some ideas for things you may like to make for dessert:

Chocolate tart

Vanilla ice cream

Eton mess

Avocado and strawberry ices

Let us know if you decide to take up the challenge and go vegan for the day, and don’t forget to tag us if you make any of these recipes (@UoRStudentLife on Instagram).