High Protein Vegan Meal Prep (5 days of food):

See below for the written recipes + measurements!

Today’s meal prep video, I wanted to focus on making HIGH PROTEIN vegan meals. Even after many years of following either a vegan diet or mostly plant-based diet, I still get the question “where do you get your protein?” or “what are your protein sources?” pretty frequently. So it shows that lots of people still believe that plant-based diets are lacking in protein.

For this meal prep, I made enough food for 5 full days (you can add simple snacks if needed, of course). This is perfect for those of you that go to school or work and you don’t have much time during the week to make food. One of the keys to saving money on a vegan diet (or any diet, really) is to PREP YOUR MEALS IN ADVANCE. Not only does this save you SO much money, it also helps you eat healthy and stay on track.

Plus you can get some insta-worthy meal prep shots…

I also made SEITAN for the first time. Can you believe that as a VEGAN for over 3 years and a “cooking” YouTuber, I have NEVER attempted to make seitan?! It’s actually a little ridiculous that I’ve never actually tried making it. I think I was discouraged because one of my friends made it once and while it tasted great, she told me it took about ten million years to make…hah.

Now I’m sure there are a million and one ways to make seitan, but I aimed to find the easiest possible way so I looked at a few different “easy” seitan recipes and found a couple that looked doable enough.

I have a long ways to go and I’m sure I’ll be doing a LOT of experimentation when it comes to seitan-making, but I think I did a fairly decent job seeing that it was my very first time making it. When it comes to flavour, I think I did pretty well (other than the fact that it was a bit salty…). The texture could definitely be improved – I got a bit of a “rubbery” texture rather than a meaty texture. If you have any tips on how to make better seitan texture, let me know!

 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Muffins (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Oil-Free)

Makes around 12 muffins

Ingredients:

• Dry ingredients:
  • 1 cup gluten-free oat flour (you can grind up your oats to make oat flour)
  • 1 cup almond flour
  • 1/4 cup chocolate green super food powder OR chocolate protein powder (see Note* below)
  • 3 tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
• Wet ingredients:
  • 1.5 cups non-dairy milk
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
  • 3-4 tbsp natural peanut butter
  • 1/4 cup agave nectar or maple syrup

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add all dry ingredients and mix well.
3. In a separate medium-sized mixing bowl, add all wet ingredients and mix well. You can blend these ingredients in a blender/food processor to make your life easier.
4. Pour the wet ingredients mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until well-combined.
5. Line a muffin tray with muffin cups and fill them in about 90%. I noticed that with almond & oat flour, the flour definitely doesn’t rise as much as when you use wheat-flour.
6. Bake at 400 degrees F for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Let it cool for about 15 minutes or longer before serving.

Note* I used Garden of Life Chocolate Green Super Food Powder instead of Chocolate Protein Powder because I accidentally bought the wrong thing. I actually really enjoyed it with the green super food powder cause it had a really nice chocolate taste. I haven’t tried it yet with chocolate protein powder, but the consistency and taste may not be the same since protein powder does have a distinct flavour. I imagine it will still be delicious though!

 

High-Protein Spaghetti with Chickpea Balls (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Oil-Free)

Makes approximately 5 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Explore Cuisine Organic Black Bean Spaghetti (227g) – you can obviously use whatever spaghetti of your choice, but this is purely made from black beans making it much higher in protein than regular spaghetti.
• Chickpea balls ingredients:
  • 2 cans of chickpeas/garbanzo beans (rinsed and drained)
  • 1 cup gluten-free oat flour
  • 1 cup almond flour
  • 4 tbsp ground flax seeds
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tbsp dry basil
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional)
  • 1.5 cups water (add a little more if you needed)
• 1 jar of tomato pasta sauce (mine was 560g)
• Optional sides: vegetables of choice, side salad

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Pulse the rinsed & drained chickpeas in a food processor until it is mostly mashed up. Don’t worry if there are some chunks.
3. Add the mashed chickpeas in a large mixing bowl along with all other dry chickpea ball ingredients. Add water at the end and mix until well-combined.
4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminium foil and make small “ball” shapes out of the mixture (size of regular meat balls). Place them onto the baking sheet.
5. Bake at 425 degrees F for about 6-8 minutes on each side until nicely cooked on the outside.
6. While the chickpea balls are baking, you can cook your spaghetti according to instructions and prepare your sides (if applicable).
7. Now you can assemble into a container: place the cooked spaghetti and top with pasta sauce of your choice, the bean balls (either with the spaghetti or separate) and sides… you know how to assemble a lunch container, I hope! Top your spaghetti with more nutritional yeast if you want!

 

Seitan & Vegetables Stir Fry with Brown Rice 

  Makes approximately 5 servings

Ingredients:

• 3 cups uncooked brown rice
• SEITAN ingredients:
  • For the SEITAN itself:
    • 1 cup vital wheat gluten
    • 1 tsp ginger powder
    • 1 tsp paprika
    • 1 tsp garlic powder
    • 3 tbsp liquid aminos, tamari or soy sauce
    • 1/2 cup vegetable broth
  • To cook the seitan:
    • About 4 cups of vegetable broth
    • 2-4 cups of water
    • 1/4 cup liquid aminos (optional – I would omit this step if you don’t want your seitan to be too salty!)
• For the stir fry:
  • 1 cup chopped carrots
  • 2 cups chopped broccoli
  • 1 cup chopped bell pepper
  • 1/2 cup (or more) cashews
  • and other vegetables of your choice
• 4-5 tbsp of homemade bulgogi sauce (or any stir fry sauce of your choice!)

Instructions:

1. Let’s prepare the seitan! In a medium-sized mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients: vital wheat gluten, ginger powder, paprika, garlic powder (and/or other spices) and mix well.
2. In a separate small bowl, add liquid aminos and veggie broth. Pour this mixture into the dry mixture and stir gently to combine. It will come together very quickly and you can start using your hands to mix. Add a little water (one tablespoon at a time) if needed.
3. Once combined, knead the seitan mixture about 10-15 times. (now I am NOT an expert in this and I could’ve done this wrong – according to one of the pages I followed to make this, you’re supposed to knead 10-15 times then let it sit for about 5 minutes and knead again a few more times).
4. Add seitan pieces to about 4-5 cups of vegetable broth (I also added 1 cup of water into this) in a large pot and bring to a slow simmer. Seitan will expand so make sure there is enough liquid and that the pot is large enough. You can add more flavours in here at this point – I added some more liquid aminos, but I found my seitan to be a bit saltier than I prefer so next time I may skip this step.
5. Cover the pot and allow to cook for about 1 hour or longer.
6. While you’re waiting for your seitan to cook, you can cook your rice according to package instructions.
7. In a large skillet or wok, you can stir fry your vegetables. Start with carrots as they take the longest to cook, then add in broccoli, bell peppers and cashews.
8. Once your seitan is finished, you can add that into the stir fry mixture (optional: I first pan-fried the seitan on a skillet with a little bit of oil before I added it into the stir fry so that I could get a slightly golden & “crispy” exterior).
9. Add your favourite stir fry sauce; I used my bulgogi (Korean BBQ) sauce which is super yummy.
10. Now you can assemble into a meal prep container! I added the cooked rice, some of the seitan stir fry and also some lettuce leaves so I could make lettuce wraps. DELICIOUS!