I was recently thinking about my friend, Julia, who moved to the United States many years ago from her homeland, Germany. Julia is multi-lingual, and after living and working in California for all of this time, she even thinks and dreams in English. That is fascinating to me, because even after taking two years of Spanish in high school, two years of Spanish in college, and touring with a children’s theatre show that utilized the Spanish language, my Spanish is still very… basic. Let’s just say if you needed to find a bathroom or the library in Mexico, I would be capable of asking a local. Once they gave the answer, you’re on your own.
In a way going vegan is kind of like learning a new language. At first, it’s a struggle. You’re looking over a vegan restaurant menu, and some of the things may seem foreign or new – tempeh, seitan, Daiya, perhaps even quinoa. Or you’re at a diner and flummoxed over how veganism can fit in on a menu of burgers, omelets, and various parts of pigs. Maybe you’re at home and thinking about your regular dinner rotations and in your mind crossing X’s through all of your favorites with a big red marker in your mind.
Vegetable & seitan stir-fry with rice noodles
Then after being vegan for a while you become fluent. It’s seamless. You look over a vegan restaurant menu, and you’ve had all those things dozens of times before. Outside of vegan restaurants, you know which things can trip a person up, and you ask your server ahead of time about chicken broth in the rice, lard in the beans, fish sauce and oyster sauce in the stir-fry, ghee on the na’an… You know how to make easy substitutions, like more vegetables in place of meat on your pasta or to request salsa on your baked potato instead of animal-based butter. It becomes second nature.
That’s why when someone I know is considering going vegan, this is my recommended first step – use the idea of learning a foreign language to your benefit. If I wanted to ask, “Where is the library?” in Mexico, I might need to break down each word. (Okay, my Spanish isn’t that bad, but just go with me here…) First I need the word Where. Dónde. Is. Está. The. La. Library. Biblioteca. I just sub in Spanish for English, and I have, “¿Dónde está la biblioteca?” Similarly, it can feel stressful at first when you’re hungry and just want to eat to stare in the refrigerator, think of all of your old habits, and then wonder, what now? Dios mio, tengo hambre.
Instead of eating every meal out at a vegan restaurant or feeling like even a quick lunch requires cracking open a cookbook, think about the 10 meals you regularly eat at home. Then swap out the animal protein with a vegetable protein. Prefer it covered in cheese? Well, there are loads of plant-based cheeses on the market, but when I’m looking for a source of something fatty, rich, and creamy, I opt for avocado or nuts nine times out of ten. After making a list of ten things, maybe it would look something like this, along with the easy swaps I could make:
1. Spaghetti – instead of meat, choose lentils or Great Northern beans in jarred spaghetti sauce over whole wheat pasta. Top with ground walnuts instead of parmesan cheese.
2. Tacos – fill corn or flour tortillas with pinto or black beans instead of ground beef. Stuff with tomatoes, green leafy lettuce, and onions, and top with avocado or guacamole instead of cheese and sour cream.
3. Pizza – put as many vegetables as possible on your favorite pizza crust. Go cheeseless but add avocado, roasted garlic, salsa, sauerkraut, or hot sauce to add a new zing to the top. (If you’re hesitant to try a cheeseless pizza, check out Daiya mozzarella. It’s available in most grocery stores nowadays. Check the refrigerated health market section of your store or next to the dairy-based cheeses.)
4. Soup – think creamy butternut squash or potato soup, split pea soup, lentil soup, and any soup with a vegetable broth base.
5. Sandwich – instead of tuna salad, break down chickpeas in the food processor or with a fork and mix them with an eggless mayonnaise, diced pickles, and chopped celery. (This homemade tofu-cashew mayo from FatFree Vegan is top notch.) Or do a hummus sandwich with grilled red peppers, red onion, and artichoke hearts.
6. Chili – throw in brown lentils and/or as many varieties of beans as you like instead of ground beef. Top with crushed corn chips or salsa.
7. Stir-fry – buy or make baked tofu or seitan instead of chicken or shrimp and stir-fry with a ton of veggies. Splash on tamari and rice vinegar to taste, top with a handful of cashews and cilantro, and serve with a side of brown rice or over rice noodles.
8. Mediterranean wrap – instead of meat on a kebab, bake falafel, add tahini, hummus, diced tomatoes, and chopped leafy greens. Stuff all of that into lavash, a tortilla, or collard leaf. Serve with prepared dolmas and tabouli.
9. Salad – toss leafy greens, in-season vegetables, and your favorite beans or baked tofu with salsa, a vinaigrette, or creamy dressing. Serve with crusty bread smeared with roasted garlic.
10. Curry – Instead of meat in the sauce, choose chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans, or tofu. Serve with brown basmati rice and cilantro chutney.
With time, breakfast, lunch, and dinner aren’t obstacles. You become fluent in Vegan, and you no longer have to peg in new ingredients into your old habits. It’s just your usual dinner of black bean burritos or your typical breakfast of blueberry-topped oatmeal, and that is deliciously simple in any language.
Your comments make my day! Please share your thoughts below.
What a great primer for new vegans and vegetarians. It not only offers comforting assurances on navigating the veg learning curve, you’ve provided a wonderful list of delicious and easy to prepare meals. You should make a graphic of the list so people can print it out and hang it in the kitchen!
That’s a really good idea, Andrea! I’ll put that together!
Andrea is very smart! Nice work, Cadry!
xo
kittee
Yes, she is! Thanks, Kittee!
Very nice informative post!
Thanks, Vic!
so well put Cadry. It indeed is like learning something completely new, language, skill or anything. A friend’s wife was frustrated about her daughters party not being vegan, so he went to the pizza chef who was catering the event and converted the pizza and salad to vegan. it was a thai peanut sauce pizza, and just needed the cheese off!
The smile on her face for the next 2 days was priceless:)
In the last 2 years, i have started seeing menus in restaurants changing to indicate vegan or can be made vegan options, taking the guess work out and making life simpler. making learning the language so much easier with some english translations in there:)
I like your comparison about “translations” on the menus! It does simplify things so much. I’m much more likely to visit a restaurant regularly when they make it clear which items are vegan-izable. Plus, it gives me some faith that the chefs have a clearer understanding of what “vegan” means.
Insightful comparison.
And like learning a language, it’s extremely helpful to have someone around who knows the ropes and can show you what’s what! It makes a huge difference. A long time ago I dated a vegan guy, and I was a vegetarian at the time, but I learned so much about veganism from him that years later, it was just easy to switch. And nowadays my boyfriend is transitioning to veganism and it’s just easy with all the awesome vegan cheeses and such that exist! The only hassle tends to be eating out at restaurants you don’t choose, but that’s pretty minor. 
So true! It does demystify it when you watch how someone else navigates living vegan in a non-vegan world. It is awesome how many specialty products are becoming mainstream. Even from the time I went vegan five years ago to now, there are so many more products available, especially in small town America. I remember when Daiya was hard to come by even in Los Angeles, and now it’s all over the place! That’s great that you had someone whose lead you could follow, and then you were able to be that guide for your current boyfriend.
I agree that it’s harder when eating out at restaurants that aren’t of your choosing. When I gave the above example about a diner, it made me think of how that would be my last choice when it comes to dining out. An ethnic restaurant is easier most of the time. It can be done at a diner, of course, but the results are sometimes lackluster.
What a great way to explain this transition. You’re right. Initially you have to think carefully at each meal, going step by step. You make goofups. The small successes are huge. And then, eventually, it’s all second nature. Brilliant analogy, Cadry! I may borrow that one when people ask about transitioning to vegan food. Thank you!
I’m glad that the analogy rang true for you! Years later it’s easy to forget that there was a time I didn’t eat loads of lentils, chickpeas, kale, and collard greens. There was a time in my life when I was going through the fast food drive thru or having regular meals of frozen dinners from Trader Joe’s. What is “normal” to each of us is always shifting. Now when I see fast food bags in someone’s car, it seems very foreign! It seems like so long ago that I got my dinner through a window!
This is such a great analogy. I’ve often compared it to moving to a new country, with a different culture- spending hours in the grocery store, staring at foreign food items, trying to figure out what they are and how to prepare them; learning to cook in a foreign kitchen that uses different appliances than your former kitchen; trying to translate menus in restaurants. Veganism is a whole culture within itself and it does take time acclimate.
This post is such a great post for new vegans or those curious about veganism, and you’ve done a great job demystifying the language.
I like your comparison to entering veganism being like navigating a foreign country. It can be a lot to take on all at once! That’s why I think when we can ease into it with our own standbys and a few easy substitutions, it makes the whole process a lot less complicated. Added to the fact that it can make a person feel self-conscious to make requests at restaurants if she/he hasn’t done that before or answer curious family members and friends about the particulars of veganism, and the whole thing can feel a bit like adolescence!
This list is great! I’ve been vegan for 5 years, but I still printed your recipe list out, because it will be nice to reference this list instead of scouring all my cookbooks when I’m in a rush.
Sometimes my mind goes blank when it comes time to answer the question, “So, what’s for dinner?”
I’m so glad it was helpful! I’m working on making a version that will be a bit more eye-catching and streamlined for easy printing. I’ll keep you posted!
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