When it comes to serving up a special meal to that special environmentally conscious mom in your life, consider offering up a fantastic vegan or vegetarian dish that is both scrumptious and friendly to another special mom — Mother Earth! Skip the meat with these yummy substitutes.
Spectacular Salads
Salads don’t have to be boring and you can still include protein by using beans or healthy fats like avocados and, of course, lots of delicious crunchy veggies. Toss together an elegantly earth-friendly salad this Mother’s Day using these ideas:
- Mix chopped hearts of romaine with heirloom tomatoes or pico de gallo, rinsed organic black beans and organic corn. Top with slivers of avocado. Mix together a simple dressing of lemon or lime mixed with a tablespoon or two of high-quality olive oil, and a dash of salt and pepper. For a vegetarian version, feel free to add some spicy Pepper Jack cheese or creamy Cotija cheese.
- Greek salad can easily be made vegan or vegetarian. Top a bed of greens of your liking with tomatoes, cucumbers, Kalamata olives, red onion and quinoa for a hearty touch. Vegetarians can add some sprinkles of feta cheese, if they choose. Splash it all with a mixture of red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh parsley or oregano, from your own herb garden, perhaps?
Vegan and Vegetarian Main Meals
- Roasting a spaghetti squash and serving a nest of its cooked strands drizzled with olive oil then topped with roasted tomatoes, pine nuts, fresh parsley and parmesan cheese (for those vegetarians), is a fancy yet simple meal that Moms will love.
- Quinoa and couscous are other great bases to a hearty and elegant vegan or vegetarian meal for Mother’s Day. You can add them to salads, or serve them as a main dish cooked with veggies.
- Looking for more inspiration? Toss cooked couscous with diced green apple, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts (or nut of your choice), fresh chopped thyme and rosemary and a sprinkling of goat cheese, if you wish. Once again, a simple dressing of fresh squeezed lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper is all is takes to turn this simple side dish into the main event.
- Take some cooked quinoa, mix it with your favorite tomato sauce and Italian seasonings and stuff that mixture into cleaned and seeded bell peppers. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until peppers are tender. For other hot meals, check out these vegan slow cooker meals.
Another healthy tip for you — buy locally and organically whenever possible. Remember to support your local farmer’s markets, where you’ll find many of the yummy ingredients we’ve mentioned.
Regardless of what you decide to serve at your Mother’s Day meal, your efforts to make a dish that speaks to you mom’s dedication to a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle surely won’t go unnoticed!
Feature image courtesy of Tom Hensel