What Are 3 Staples of the Vegetarian Grocery Shopping List?

Choosing a meatless diet makes an excellent choice for your health and the planet’s health. A vegetarian diet can help you accomplish these worthwhile goals. In addition, following a vegetarian meal plan can allow you to enjoy a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, beans, and grains, much to your taste buds’ delight. However, while vegetarians might still consume some animal-based food ingredients, such as milk, cheese, eggs, fish, and honey, others who follow a stricter diet plan rule out all animal ingredients. These diners, known as vegans, can also enjoy several vegetarian recipes by substituting a few plant-based food items.

For those new to vegetarian eating, it might not seem straightforward when you head out to the grocery store exactly which items to place in the shopping basket that will allow you to create great vegetarian recipes from home. However, if you ensure to include some or all of these three staples for vegetarian recipes, you will start your journey to creating excellent plant-based meals for breakfast, lunch, or dinner for you and your family.

1. Fruits

Under the category of fruits, you will discover a delicious variety of choices. Therefore, pick your and your family’s favorites to bring home from the store. Some fruits, such as blueberries, make excellent choices for superb taste and health because they help fight damaging free radicals on the cellular level. Moreover, they contain high amounts of antioxidants, plus they have significant quantities of vitamin K, which enables better bone and heart health.

2. Vegetables

Vegetables offer the discerning vegetarian dinner great flavor with beautiful color and can ably function as the star of most meals. Some vegetables, such as eggplant, cauliflower, and mushrooms, can substitute for meat in vegetarian recipes like lasagne, for instance, and thus make a great addition to your vegetarian shopping basket. Additionally, salads also make a quick meal. When you include substantial vegetables, such as potatoes, and some meatless protein, you can easily create a healthy one-dish meal that fills you up. Therefore, include your favorite salad greens on your shopping list. In this area, spinach deserves special mention. It brings a large amount of folic acid, vitamins A, C, and K, to each serving, along with other nutrients that help reduce blood pressure, fight against cancer and promote eye health. Add this flavorful nutrient powerhouse to your vegetarian lunch or dinner salad to reap the benefits.

3. Proteins

You can add many proteins to your vegetable-based diet. Include staples like tofu, for instance. This protein, made of soy milk, can easily feature in savory or sweet recipes. You can fry the tofu in savory stir-fries, for example, to give it a crisp texture, or silken tofu can go into the food processor to make salad dressings and even sweet puddings with a yogurt-like consistency. Other protein options can include lentils, beans, soy milk, nuts, and chia seeds, which gives you a tremendous variety of options for creating vegetarian and vegan recipes at home.

When you add some or all of these staples to your grocery shopping list, you will significantly boost your health. In addition, due to your savvy shopping, you can enjoy a flavorful wealth of cooking options suitable for vegetarian dining.