Vegetarian Meal Prep for Weight Loss: 40 Easy Ideas

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Vegetarian meal prep for weight loss can be hard! Meat is the staple of most easy meal prep recipes out there and is great for reheating the next day. Vegetarian meal prep recipes can be tricky because they are notorious for not reheating well.

These vegetarian meal prep recipes will become your secret weapon for saving time and money on your vegetarian diet.

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40 Healthy Vegetarian Meal Prep Recipes

I recently put together a whole list of Vegetarian Meal Prep Recipes so you can sneak more vegetables into your diet! There are also a bunch of benefits for children to be vegetarian if you need a bit of family motivation If you want to meal prep ideas with your slow cooker, you can try one of these easy vegetarian crock pot recipes. 

Meal Prepping Ideas for Breakfast

 For the sake of this list of Vegetarian Meal Prep Recipes, I’ll make them all egg-free breakfast ideas 🙂

1. Peanut Butter Blueberry Overnight Oats

This overnight oats recipe has no added sugar yet it manages to be sweet and delicious. The fact that it uses both peanut butter and yogurt means it is jam-packed with protein!

Note that any low-fat yogurt works great with this meal prep recipe; you don’t need to use the yogurt brand mentioned.

2. Vegan Snickers Breakfast Cookies

My friend Carleigh has an amazing meal prep recipe for you guys. These snickers breakfast cookies are actually healthy and vegan! She uses dates to get some all-natural sweetness into these breakfast cookies. Can’t recommend them enough!

3. Superfood Instant Pot Oatmeal in a Jar

If you’re looking for a quick vegetarian breakfast meal prepping idea, then this instant pot oatmeal is perfect for you! You’ll have to own an instant pot, but if you do, then it takes no time at all to make these oatmeal jars!

This is also the best-looking oatmeal I’ve ever seen. It’s got apples, walnuts, blueberries, sliced up carrots, and flax seed!

4. Slow Cooker Peanut Butter Oatmeal

I LOVE peanut butter so this meal prep recipe totally caught my eye when I saw it. This slow cooker oatmeal takes about 7-8 hours so you can put it on right before you go to bed or before you leave for work in the morning! You only need a few ingredients to make the oatmeal and then you can top it with whatever you want.

5. Sweet Potato and Black Beans Breakfast Burritos

These sweet potato and black bean burritos are the perfect vegetarian breakfast meal prep! They are super easy to make, filling, and you can re-heat them in about a minute and eat it on your way to work. You could also make a couple of eggs to stuff in the burrito for some extra protein.

6. Chocolate Chip Breakfast Squares To Go

Weekday mornings can be a blur. Who has time to cook and clean up the kitchen in the morning? Not me. Who wants to come home to a mess? Hard pass. That’s why meal prep is such a lifesaver. If you’re stumped coming up with a morning meal prepping idea, look no further than these breakfast squares.

Meal prepping them in advance over the weekend, and you’ll see a sweet treat waiting for you to grab and go on your way to work. To up the protein factor, eat one with a scoop of peanut butter and a banana. 

7. Easy Chia Seed Pudding 

Are you looking for a breakfast that’s vegan, gluten free, and comes together in minutes? Look no further than chia seed pudding. Mix and match your favorite flavor combinations. Store them in Mason jars for a quick and delicious gluten free breakfast on the go. They keep for up to five days to make for easy morning meal prepping option. 

8. Make Ahead Vegan Breakfast Tacos

Who says you have to wait until dinner time to enjoy Taco Tuesday? Whip up these breakfast tacos over the weekend, pop them in the freezer, and grab one for breakfast whenever you need a satisfying meal on the go. It doesn’t even have to be Tuesday! The blend of spices makes for the perfect morning wake-up call for you and the whole family.

9. Dried Apricot Bars with Walnuts

A handful of healthy ingredients plus a food processor makes for a quick gluten free breakfast bar that’s packed with vitamins and other ingredients to get your day started right. These bars are vegan and gluten free. Plus, they’re so good, you’re going to want to take an extra one for your afternoon snack or toss some in your kids’ lunch boxes. 

10. Gingerbread Granola

There’s cinnamon, ginger, molasses, and maple syrup. This granola really will conjure up memories of your favorite gingerbread cookie. Keep the meal prep recipe gluten free by using gluten-free oats. Tempting as it may be to just eat this by the handful, you can also serve it with yogurt and grapefruit. As a special seasonal gluten free treat, you can also add pomegranate arils for a burst of flavor and color. 

11. Cheesy Cauliflower Breakfast Egg Cups 

Breakfast on a budget is nice, but not if it means eating lunch at 10am. That isn’t the case with these egg cups. These savory gems are protein-packed thanks to the eggs. They also get a wallop of flavor thanks to the tomatoes, basil, and cheese. Eat them warm or cold, so they’re perfect to dish up before morning carpool. 

12. Make Ahead Super Green Vegan Quinoa Burritos

Unless you’ve been living under a culinary rock, you know that Green Goddess dressing has been all the rage for quite some time. These burritos are served with Green Goddess’s spicy sister. A serrano-chile spiked avocado dressing spices up quinoa, kale, and mung beans for a delicious lunch that’s perfectly portable. Don’t just take my word for it. These burritos are on my list of vegan meal prep ideas as well!

Vegetarian Lunch Meal Prep Ideas

When I was looking for some vegetarian lunch ideas, I really wanted to find some vegetarian meal prep recipes that were healthy, light, and easy to store or reheat. Hopefully these help with your healthy eating!

• Quinoa and Mediterranean Roasted Vegetables: This meal prep recipe checks just about every box there is. It’s delicious and done in less then 30 minutes. Plus, it only requires a handful of ingredients and each portion comes out to about $2. Is there a better vegetarian meal prep idea out there? I’m not sure. This is one of my favorite healthy recipes with roasted vegetables!
• Asian Broccoli Salad (118 calories): This Asian broccoli salad is perfect for your meal plan. It uses delicious aromantics giving the vegetables a ton of flavor, and it only takes 12 minutes! While being packed with nutrition, this meal prepping recipe contains just 118 calories per serving! This is a super easy asian meal prep that can help you with your healthy eating!
• Curry Vegetable Stir Fry with Zucchini Noodles: This delicious curry vegetable stir fry uses low-carb zucchini noodles, making it perfect for low-carb, Whole30 or Paleo diets. This curry vegetable stir fry uses a tasty curried coconut sauce that adds depth and aroma to the meal prepping recipe.
• Thai Quinoa Salad with Peanut Dressing: For a year now I’ve been obsessed with all things thai peanut! From salads, to wraps, to tacos, and pizza. This thai salad looks truly amazing. The edamame with the quinoa and the perfect peanut dressing to bring it all to life. This is by far one of my favorite vegetarian lunch meal preps on this list. My advice is to prep the veggies and the dressing separately and each day, use however much you want for lunch! 100 bonus points for no crazy long diary entry before the meal prepping recipe.
• Healthy Mushroom Stroganoff: This mushroom stroganoff is healthy, creamy, and delicious. It only takes 20 minutes, so it’s perfect for when you’re meal prepping in a hurry. Serve this dish alongside some brown rice or whole-grain pasta for well balanced vegetarian lunch or dinner.
• Southwestern Power Salad with Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing: One of my wife and I’s favorite healthy eating options is a grilled chicken southwestern salad that I make with an avocado, creamy cilantro dressing. This southwestern power salad is almost identical! It’s loaded up with roasted veggies, beans, potatoes, and pepitas! When it comes to vegetarian meal prep recipes, I personally think salads are by far the easiest! All you have to do is prep the roasted veggies and dressing and you’re done! Meal prep lunches are covered for the week. This creamy cilantro lime dressing would also go great with a veggie taco salad, or even on a breakfast skillet of potatoes and roasted veggies.
• Vegan Italian White Beans: These vegan Italian white beans are delicious, with all the nutrients, economical and a great source of protein! If you are constantly on the go these are a great make ahead meal prep option to keep you on track.
• One Pot Enchilada Orzo: One-pot meal prepping recipes are my favorite. Less clean-up and they are usually easier to cook. Just layer in ingredients every few minutes as directed! It makes a pretty big batch, so you’ll be sure to have leftovers to eat throughout the week for extra meal prep lunches or dinner! This one-pot enchilada orzo looks amazing and would make for a great meal prepping recipe. 
• Healthy Make-Ahead Burritos: These healthy burritos by YummyMummy are incredibly easy to meal prep and one of the cheapest meal prepping recipes on this list! All you need are tortillas, beans, rice, and any veggies you want to add. The beans make this a decent protein option. You could even make some taco style tofu to add to them! Bake them, freeze them, and you’ve got a vegetarian friendly lunch ready for you.
• Vegan Power Bowl: With only 4 main ingredients, this recipe is one of the easiest healthy meal prepping idea on this list! The diced up roasted onion sweet potatoes, chickpeas, and kale make for a super healthy combo with all the nutrients that will make you feel great. The chickpeas are sauteed with a little bit of brown sugar, salt, pepper, and chili powder. By themselves, they could be a great snack or side. Even if you’re not vegan, this meal prepping recipe is a win for all tastes. This is one of my favorite high protein vegan meal prep ideas!
• Lemon White Bean Kale Soup: I haven’t tried this white bean soup yet but it looks incredible. The meal prepping recipe will take some prep time to soak the beans. With the kale, potatoes, and cannellini beans, this one will definitely be a winner for me.
• Chopped Kale Power Salad: A vegetarian diet may be unhealthy if you aren’t mindful of your food choices. It’s easy to load up on starchy carbs and cheese when you’re avoiding meat. This kale power salad is the perfect meal prepping recipe that is healthy, relatively cheap, with all all the nutrients you need and easy to make in advance. It’s got all the vegetarian “power food” staples: Kale, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, beans, almonds, and avocado.
• Rainbow Power Salad: This meal prepping recipe comes to you from my all-time favorite food blog, Pinch of Yum. This rainbow salad comes stocked with a bunch of veggies, and the magic green sauce that has made their blog famous. Once the veggies are prepped, this healthy meal prepping recipe is super easy to eat throughout the week! The key is to keep the sauce separate until you’re ready to eat each meal. Then just put a little bit on your veggies, toss it up, and you’re ready to eat!
• Black Bean Salad with Roasted Sweet Potatoes: This black bean and sweet potato salad is super versatile. You could stuff it into tortillas for tacos, put it on a bed of lettuce for a true salad, or top of a bowl of quinoa to make it a power bowl. Lots of options and ways to change it up, which makes this a healthy meal prepping recipe. You could make this meal once and then eat it several different ways. This is one of my favorite salad meal prep ideas!
• Meal Prep Veggie Stir Fry: My wife and I LOVE all things asian food, especially any kind of stir fry. This veggie stir fry is the perfect easy healthy vegetarian meal. Easy to make, loaded with veggies, and reheats really well the next day. The best part about this recipe is that you could use nearly any vegetable that you have on hand. Have some leftover carrots or bell peppers? Use them. Leftover onions or broccoli, add it in. It’s a great “kitchen sink” kinda meal. Even better, this meal prepping recipe is healthy! Some asian stir frys use a ton of brown sugar and honey, but this one only has a bit of brown sugar.
• Meal Prep Vegetarian Kung Pao Quinoa Bowls: Here’s another awesome meal prepping recipe. Kung pao style veggies in a bowl with quinoa. This meal prepping recipe is also super easy to meal prep because it has so few ingredients other than the sauce. Quinoa, carrots, chickpeas and broccolini. You could also top the bowls with peanuts, green onions, or other goodies.

Low Calorie Meal Prep Recipes for Dinner

If you’re up for a #meatlessmonday, then this list of vegetarian meal prep ideas for dinner should help you find some great options! Give them a try and see how you like them.

• Slow Cooker Chipotle Bean Chili: There’s no doubt that some meal prep recipes can be a bit bland or repetitive, but this one is packed with flavor. The blend of onion, garlic, chipotle, and spices makes for the perfectly rich chili. This is also on my list of cheap crockpot meals!
• Enchilada Meal Prep Bowls with Butternut Squash and Cauliflower Rice: Most meal prep recipes on this list are filled with all of the usual vegetarian ingredients into some variety of a bowl or salad. They’re all great and super healthy! But if you want something with a bit more to it, then this enchilada meal prep bowl might be perfect.
• Roasted Vegetable and Chickpea Meal Prep Bowls with Lemon Tahini Sauce: I haven’t made this recipe yet, but my wife and I have been looking at making meal prepping recipes with tahini sauce lately so this one came up! All you have to do is prep the veggies, spread them out in a sheet-pan, and roast them! Add whatever grain you want (rice, quinoa, etc), and the lemon tahini sauce. This one is super low in carbs and would be great as a side or full on meal.
• Jerk Spiced Crispy Tofu Meal-Prep Bowls: This tofu actually looks pretty darn good! My goal was to find some vegetarian meal prep recipes to consume less meat. I wasn’t originally looking for tofu meals, because I’m not too concerned about getting in enough protein each day. But, if you eat vegetarian 100% of the time, then tofu is a great source of protein for you. The key to this recipe is to get extra firm tofu and cook it on high heat with oil. Once cooked, you can pair the crispy tofu with any veggies or potatoes that you want! I bet, it’d also be pretty good wrapped up in a tortilla with some salsa or avocado.
• Proper Vegan Gumbo (with okra): This recipe brings you down to the bayou with the classic tastes of Louisiana cajun style gumbo, veggie addition! The reason why I love gumbo so much is because the options are endless! Spice it up with some extra cajun seasoning or even bulk it up with beans for added protein.
• Vegan Burrito Bowl: The great thing about most vegan and meal prep vegetarian recipes is how easy they are to prep in bulk. This burrito bowl only has a few main ingredients + making the salsa (you could also just buy some to save time). Some of the ingredients come canned, which cuts out your prep time and others you can do in one long chopping session. You can get creative with whatever toppings you have on hand with this one!
• Crockpot Vegetarian Curried Lentils: I’ll be real, lentils are not the most photographic of foods. Even if it doesn’t look great, it tastes amazing and takes maybe 10 minutes to prepare before putting them in your crockpot or slow cooker. This one also might just be the cheapest recipe on the whole list! So if you’re really trying to save some money, this one is a win for you.
• Tomato Risotto with Roasted Mediterranean Vegetables: This tomato risotto rice with veggies looks incredible. My wife and I haven’t tried it yet because I’ve been trying to eat low-carb (sorry risotto). But if you want a rich, flavorful meal prep recipe, this one is sure to fill you up! This is one of the best vegetarian meal prep ideas on this whole list because the risotto + vegetables is the perfect combo when you eat it for leftovers.
• Instant Pot Spinach Mushroom Pasta: I purposefully didn’t include a ton of pasta dishes on this list because I’m trying to eat lower-carb, but pasta is one of the easiest ways to eat vegetarian! Easy to make and easy to reheat! This spinach mushroom pasta dish checks all the boxes: vegan, vegetarian, dairy-free, and gluten-free. This is a super easy pasta meal prep you can make on a weeknight!
• Instant Pot Sweet Potato, Lentil, and Chickpea Soup: Soups and stews are my favorite ways to make really satisfying vegetarian meal preps. Salads are great, but sometimes you want something that fills you up and makes you feel warm inside. This instant pot recipe looks amazing and like the perfect fall or winter soul-warmer. It’ll take you about half an hour to make 6 servings!
• Roasted Brussels Sprout Polenta Bowls: File away this allergy-friendly meal idea for an easy entertaining option as well a vegetarian meal prep option. The caramelized onions and balsamic Brussels sprouts are taken up a notch thanks to the harissa sauce. If you’re not familiar with harissa, this isn’t your average hot sauce. In addition to the heat from the peppers, there are layers of lemon and garlic as well. This hearty and filling dish is comfort food at its finest. 
• Italian Bean Soup: This Italian bean soup is the ultimate soup for vegetarians! This soup includes three different types of beans making it packed with protein, low calorie and super high in fiber. If you wanna take a trip down to little Italy this is the way to go! This is one of my favorite vegetarian meal prep ideas because the soup reheats so well.

I hope these vegetarian meal prep ideas will help you stick to your meal plan!