The habit of starting cooking for yourself can be a big challenge. I really understand! For years, even after graduating and serving as a nutritionist cooking for everyday life was something far from my reality.
That’s why I want to share in this post some simple and easy-to-access ingredients and ideas for you to start your journey in the kitchen. the key? Always have something cool and tasty to eat when you hit hunger!
Today I will share with you some basic and very versatile items of a vegetarian kitchen to keep you satisfied and happy!
I started cooking after I moved to California in 2012. A matter of need, you know? At first I found everything very difficult, there weren’t many ingredients, recipes didn’t work out… Over time it became more of a passion, or I can even call it a hobby.
where to start?
If you are reading this post, you are probably looking to cook more and learn how to do it by following a more vegetarian line or simply with less ingredients of animal origin. But I think you might be thinking that:
- Not good in the kitchen or doesn’t know how to cook.
- Don’t have time! We live in a scarce-minded society, where we go to sleep saying we didn’t have time to do everything and we wake up thinking we don’t sleep enough… we never have enough.
- It’s expensive to be healthy!
- It’s very complicated and laborious to make your own food..
So let’s go! Even though I’m not a vegetarian, I have a plant-based diet most of the time. And these ingredients will serve as a base and a good start for you to start mixing them and over time, you will feel more and more comfortable to combine them and alternate according to your tastes and intuition..
The 15 Key Ingredients
- extra virgin olive oil
- Vinegar (apple or balsamic or red wine)
- Honey
- Garlic and onion
- Nuts or nuts paste (peanut paste, almond paste, tahini)
- chia or hemp seeds (or nuts and chestnuts) — for milk and toppings
- Canned beans and chickpeas (ingredient list should be minimal: legume + salt and water).
- lentils
- Grains (rice, quinoa, amaranth, millet, etc.)
- Potatoes (common, sweet, purple)
- Eggs
- Greek yogurt (or coconut or kefir)
- green lemon
- Green leaves and herbs (kale, cabbage, spinach, coriander, basil, mint, etc.)
- fruits
The coolest thing is that these ingredients can be used in several meals throughout the day and without being boring! I love to vary, even though I have the same foundation and just changing the final touch so I don’t get sick. I’ll talk about this little secret ahead!
Key ingredients in different combinations:
- Tahini can be used to include in a smoothie, like turning a salad dressing with olive oil, lemon, salt and honey. Or become a filling for a date, for example!
- Eggs can become a beautiful omelet for dinner stuffed with spinach and onions, as well as a banana and oat pancake! Or that classic fried egg!
- Honey can be used for your morning yogurt, such as topping on a pancake, or adding to a recipe instead of sugar.
- Yogurt can be used for your breakfast with fruits and seeds, over de bowls style Mexican food with beans, rice, vegetables and coriander, or to enjoy as a sauce accompanied by roasted vegetables!
- Chickpeas can turn into a hummus, be grilled to crispy over a bowl or incorporated into a vegetable soup.
- Greens can go into smoothies, salad bases and soups!
Now I want to inspire you with some breakfast, lunch and dinner ideas!
Breakfast
- Yogurt with fruit, nuts and honey!
- Oatmeal porridge with vegetable milk, chia, fruits and its nuts paste or if you made a homemade coconut milk, sprinkle the coconut on top.
- Scrambled eggs with vegetables, chopped fruits with chia and yogurt on top!
- Frozen fruit smoothie beaten with vegetable milk, green leaves and yogurt
- 1 banana pancake with 1 egg and 1 to 2 tablespoons of oat bran!
lunch and dinner
I usually use a base of seasoning of olive oil, balsamic, lemon and sea salt. More special sauces with tahini or mustard when I’m more inspired. Here are my ways of setting up my lunches and dinners:
In a hot frying pan I put oil and fried the chickpeas a little (can be canned) with garlic, salt, cumin powder and any dry little vegetables I have. This makes the chickpeas more crunchy and yummy to play in a bowl or salad.
I always have a boiled egg in hand, they are easily incorporated as a snack or in salads!
Tahini can be beaten with garlic, salt, water and lemon and become a beautiful salad or vegetable sauce.
Roasted vegetables I always have for about 3 to 4 days, I leave it well al dente so that when reheating it is delicious! Mix with beans, hummus paste, nuts and suddenly a coconut or Greek yogurt like “Sour cream”.
Recipe ideas for the week:
- lentil dahl with cauliflower rice or brown rice and kale
- Potato toast (just slice and put raw in the toaster) with yogurt on top, beans and spices like salt, oregano and etc.
- carrot soup with crispy chickpeas
- Green omelet (beat eggs with spinach, salt and oregano or dried basil), stuffing with hummus, mushrooms and avocado.
- bowls With a bed of green leaves, chickpeas, tahini sauce (tahini, lemon, honey, garlic and salt), roasted vegetables and boiled eggs with a drizzle of olive oil, sea salt and black pepper!
Where to start organizing:
- Make a market list including the ingredients I suggested making personal adaptations. If you want to download my free checklist, click here.
- Keep the weekly consistency of going to fairs and markets so that you keep your kitchen always favorable.
- If you want more guidance and learn how to organize yourself for the week with your food, I offer a online course on food prep With videos where I show all my valuable and very simple tips to improve your intimacy in the kitchen and your food! You don’t need to know how to cook to take the course, see?
Ingredients to Level Up Your Kitchen! When you feel more comfortable with the ingredients above, you can introduce one item at a time:
- Coconut Aminos / Coconut Shoyu
- ground cardamom
- Nutmeg
- smoked paprika
- nutritional yeast
- turmeric
- pure vanilla extract
- Fennel Seed (Fennel Seeds)