Vegetarianism for Beginners: 11 Tips for New Vegetarians
If you’ve decided to give vegetarianism a try, check out my 11 top tips for new vegetarians, and help make the transition to meatfree eating as seamless as possible!
January is always a good time for a fresh start – a time to refocus and think about your life goals. For a lot of people, that might mean finally giving up meat and becoming a vegetarian. Sometimes it can seem like a bit of a big step, and not everyone finds it easy – if you’re used to eating ‘meat and two veg’ type meals, it does involve a bit of a mental shift.
So if that’s you, hopefully these tips for new vegetarians will help you out! Welcome to the green side!
To compile this guide to vegetarianism for beginners, I took to my private Facebook group (Easy Vegetarian Dinners – come and join!) to ask for top tips from some of our more experienced vegetarians. Here’s what we came up with!
1. Don’t feel pressured to label yourself
There are so many different dietary labels out there – vegan, plant-based, pescatarian, omnivore, vegetarian (not to mention lacto / ovo / lacto-ovo vegetarian!)… but you really don’t need to label yourself if you’d prefer not to. I’m certainly not going to police your diet, and nobody else should either.
Just because vegetarians generally continue eat both dairy and eggs, you’re more than welcome to give up one or other of those too, if you want to. You can eat a mostly plant-based diet, but still eat honey if you like. If you want to eat 99% vegetarian, with the occasional piece of fish, nobody has the right to tell you not to.
As long as you’re comfortable with what you’re eating, that’s all that matters.
(and if you’re not comfortable with what you’re eating, there’s no better time to make a change than right now!)
2. Make changes at your own pace
The ‘all or nothing’ attitude can sometimes actually get in the way of making any progress at all – even if you’re not ready to start eating 100% vegetarian all in one go, that doesn’t mean you can’t start taking small steps towards reducing your meat consumption.
There are all sorts of different ways you can start to make changes:
- implement Meatless Monday, where you start with just one vegetarian day each week
- give up one meat at a time – perhaps start by just avoiding red meat, but still eating chicken and fish, then moving onto the next meat when you’re ready
- eat vegetarian Monday to Friday, but still have meat at the weekends
- make sure you eat vegetarian breakfasts and lunches, but still have a piece of meat at dinnertime
- decide there will be certain meals you’ll always make veggie, but not others (e.g. you love vegetarian pizza, but still want to eat chicken curry)
However you choose to start reducing your meat intake, make sure you’re doing it at your own pace. Your vegetarian diet is far more likely to stick if you’re feeling comfortable with the changes, rather than feeling forced to have a total diet upheaval in one go.
3. Start with what you already eat
Even if you’re a real meat lover, chances are you already eat all sorts of vegetarian meals – vegetable soup, margherita pizza, beans on toast, scrambled eggs, tomatoey pasta…
Keeping a few of these familiar dishes on your menu can help you to feel like not so much has changed.
Plus, there will be many more meals in your current diet that can easily be made vegetarian with just a few simple changes. Don’t feel that you suddenly need to be eating exotic meals filled with bizarre vegetarian ingredients – it’s perfectly possible to make a great vegetarian curry, vegetarian burgers, vegetarian meatballs, etc. without too much effort.
Familiar foods, made veggie.
4. Don’t be afraid of using meat substitutes
When thinking about how to change your current meaty favourites into vegetarian versions, don’t be afraid of using meat substitutes, like I often do in my vegetarian ‘beef’ stew.
There are all sorts of vegetarian products available that imitate meat – vegetarian beef-style mince, chicken-style pieces, burgers, meatballs, nuggets… sometimes all it takes is a straightforward swap, and you can enjoy the meat free version of your favourite dinner with no extra effort at all.
If you’re not keen on the first meat substitute you try, don’t let it put you off trying other kinds – some brands and products are better than others. Some don’t actually taste much like meat at all, and are simply designed to be cooked in the same way, whereas others are scarily realistic. So keep trying until you find one that works for you!
I don’t really want to comment on which brands are most meat-like, as it’s been twenty years since I ate meat, and I’m not really qualified to say!
5. That said, meat substitutes aren’t for everybody
While meat substitutes can work really well to ease you into vegetarianism with meals you’re already familiar with, they don’t work for everybody. If you’re an ardent steak lover who’s choosing to become vegetarian for environmental or health reasons, chances are a vegetarian imitation steak is just going to leave you disappointed.
Luckily, there are a million other kinds of vegetarian proteins, so you certainly don’t need to eat processed meat substitutes if you’d prefer not to.
Beans, chickpeas, lentils, tofu, eggs, cheese, nuts, seeds – they’re all great vegetarian forms of protein that you’ll learn to love in their own right.
6. Be prepared with a well-stocked pantry
Over the years, we all develop our own arsenal of quick weeknight meals – the kind of thing you make after a long day at work, and you don’t want to actually use any brain power.
If you’re used to rustling up something meaty, it might require a bit more effort to come up with a quick vegetarian meal, so if you don’t want to end up reverting back to your old ways (or just eating beans on toast every single time), it’s important to have plenty of vegetarian ingredients on hand.
I shared a post not long ago about how to stock a vegetarian pantry. It details everything you’ll need to keep in your cupboards – all those simple base ingredients that will mean there’s always something quick and easy you can rustle up without too much thought.
If you look in your cupboards and see that they’re full of tasty foods that you can eat, you’ll put a lot less thought towards those things you can’t eat.
7. Cook with recipes, at least to begin with
Until you get used to vegetarian cooking, it’s probably worth cooking with a recipe, at least some of the time. Without the added flavour and juices of meat, you may find you need to put more thought into how you’ll get plenty of flavour into your vegetarian cooking.
It can definitely be done! Vegetarian food can be just as irresistible as the meaty food you’re used to, but you might need to give it a little more consideration than usual – for example using fresh herbs, plenty of spice, a wide variety of veggies, etc.
That’s why it can be useful to have a recipe in front of you for inspiration – have a browse through my huge collection of vegetarian recipes, and see what inspires you! Even if you don’t follow the recipe exactly (I love it when people make my recipes their own!), it might just spark some ideas about how to make a tasty vegetarian meal.
Once you get more used to vegetarian cooking, of course, you can be more independent.
8. Try to experiment!
Although my recipes on Easy Cheesy Vegetarian are full of everyday ingredients that can easily be found in most supermarkets, there is probably the odd ingredient that’s less familiar to meat-eaters – a lot of omnivores don’t eat much tofu, for example, and may not be as familiar with edamame or paneer.
That’s why it’s so great to experiment in the kitchen – get excited about the new world of vegetarian food in front of you! Focus on the positive – there are so many amazing foods out there that you may not have ever experienced before.
If you enjoy cooking, a great challenge is to try one new recipe every week, especially if it contains a new-to-you ingredient.
9. Reframe your thinking
For a lot of ‘meat and two veg’ eaters, meat forms the centre of every meal – that’s the thing you decide on first, then you figure out the side dishes to go alongside it.
While some vegetarian meals can certainly have this structure (my carrot and white bean cutlets are great in a roast dinner type meal, instead of meat!), most vegetarian meals are a little different. If you browse through all my vegetarian dinner recipes, very few take this form – so rather than choosing a main dish and then choosing sides, it’s better to think of a vegetarian meal in its entirety.
10. Beware hidden ingredients
If you’re deciding to make the move to a vegetarian diet gradually, you might not initially worry about ‘hidden’ ingredients in foods that may seem vegetarian at first glance.
But if you do decide to be stricter about your vegetarianism, beware! It’s always worth checking the labels on your food to make sure it’s really veggie-friendly, at least until you get more familiar with your new diet.
A few examples:
- gelatine in gummy sweets, marshmallows and jelly
- animal rennet in some cheeses (including ‘real’ parmesan cheese – though veggie versions are easy to find!)
- animal suet in some traditional puddings and dumplings (luckily most are vegetarian now, so you don’t need to give up your favourite suet dumplings!)
- animal-derived flavourings, e.g. in higher quality packets of crisps (chips)
As mentioned before, it’s up to you where you draw the line when it comes to your vegetarianism, so you may decide that you’re okay with eating ‘hidden’ animal products, but it’s worth being aware either way.
11. Go easy on yourself
If you do find yourself having a slip up, don’t beat yourself up about it. When I first became a vegetarian at around 10 years old, I think I lasted about a week before being tempted by my Grandma’s pigs in blankets. Luckily, when I tried again soon afterwards, it stuck, and I’ve now been veggie for more than two decades!
So if you do get tempted once in a while, and eat something you would usually avoid, it’s really not the end of the world. As with anything – just get back on track the next day.
Be kind to yourself!
Veteran vegetarians, help me out – what would you add to this list? What are your top tips for new vegetarians?
I’m not vegetarian, but I actually find non-meat meals quicker and much simpler to prepare than ones with meat! Especially if you aren’t vegan – an omelette, for instance, with crusty bread and butter; how about pasta with grated cheese (that used to be my end-of-the-month staple when I was young and broke!). You can add all kinds of vegetables to this. A microwave is your friend…. Or, when in not so much of a hurry, chop a mixture of vegetables and cook them on a low heat in a lidded frying pan, stirring frequently but keeping the lid on as much as possible. When cooked, stir through some cream cheese – or hummus, if you are vegan – and serve with pasta.
I agree, a vegetarian dinner can be so quick to make! And delicious too :)
Awesome collection of tips! It’s been a while since I went veg, so I sometimes forget some of the challenges in making the transition. I get asked for advice on this a lot and I’m sure this will be a great place to point people. Thanks so much for including a tip from me!
love this list – need to come back and read the comments when I have a bit more time – I think that I would say to new vegetarians, go easy on yourself: you might find yourself eating shrimp paste or gelatin by mistake but we have all done it – you might arrive at a wedding and forgotten to tell them you are vegetarian (as I did once) but you just smile and remember that wedding isn’t all about food and you will probably get some cake anyway :-) It gets easier, you learn more tricks and if you do miss bacon then I highly recommend making tofu bacon on regular rotation like we do!
When I first went vegetarian I started by eating vegetarian lunches (at school) and eating meat with my family in the evenings. Then after a while I gave up meat for lent, and that gave me the confidence to go completely vegetarian. I used to really miss Sacla Pesto, but now they do a veggie one too!
I’m not vegetarian but Husband is, so I only ever have meat when we go out, if I’m home alone or sometimes a little bit for my lunch at work. Everything else I eat is vegetarian because we’re just two people and it would be ridiculous and wasteful to cook two different meals. So I feel a bit like I’ve got a foot in both camps here. Husband says I’m ‘no-man’s-land-itarian and a whole new word ought to be invented for the likes of me. Consequently I find I have a lot to say about the subject.
On the one hand I could, at this point, see myself having given up on meat entirely. Not as a conscious decision, but as a more gradual process. I’ve even found myself occasionally having the same as Husband when we go out too. On the other hand, I don’t really want to give up meat completely. I really really don’t want to. I don’t want to end up like Husband who, after 20 years of vegetarianism, has lost the ability to process it, so if you accidentally give him a soup based on a chicken stock, for example, he’ll get sick as if it was a regular food poisoning. I really really really don’t that for myself.
RE 6, though, it depends on where you’re from. In the UK you can go into pretty much any restaurant and expect there will be at least one vegetarian option, and it will almost always be clearly marked as vegetarian. In Denmark, you can only do that if you go into a pizza place. Vegetarianism is not unheard of, but it’s very uncommon indeed here. We’re a HUGE meat eating nation. You can usually get some sort of vegetarian alternative in a restaurant, but they’ll want to know in advance and you won’t know what you’ll get. When we got married one of our presents was a gift certificate for a fairly fancy restaurant here in town and we had to tell them about Husband’s dietary requirements in advance. It was so fancy, in fact, that we ended up having to pay half the bill ourselves. We had four courses, mine were the meaty ones from the menu and Husband’s the planned in advance alternatives. What did he get? A salad and a soup and a salad and a dessert. And a cheese sandwich when we got home. So yeah, depending on where you’re from, eating out can actually be a bit of a bother. We have had a better experience elsewhere, but really, in this country you just can’t know. We generally tend to avoid places where there isn’t something vegetarian already on the menu. If you look at a lower price range, it’s generally easier to find something suitable (in this country.) Especially if it’s some sort of ethnic place.
Finally, if I could add a tip to the list, it would probably be more of a tip for the meat-eaters who suddenly find themselves in the situation of having to cook a vegetarian meal for someone. Relax. It’s not actually difficult. In fact, in many ways cooking a vegetarian meat is much easier than cooking a meaty meal. With meat you always have to make sure that it’s cooked properly or you can make people sick. Nobody will get sick if you vegetables are a little undercooked. They’ll just be a bit crunchy and obviously the flavour will suffer some, but they won’t make you sick. :)
And for the actual new vegetarian, my tip would be that yes, the feeling of being full after eating a vegetarian meal feels different from that of eating a meaty meal, and it takes time to get used to this. When I first knew Husband and we had eaten together, I would frequently find myself needing a snack of some sort later in the evening, because I’d get hungry again. After a while, though, that stopped. I got used to the change. I think it took maybe a year or so for me, but at that point I wasn’t having vegetarian food every day because we didn’t live together yet. Had it been every day, I’d have got used to it much quicker. :)
Coincidentally I’m actually in Denmark right now!! And yes, we did have to walk around a bit to find a place for dinner that had a vegetarian option!
I love your tip about cooking for veggies – I definitely think it’s less stressful cooking vegetarian food! :)
Oh neat! Whereabouts in the country are you? (If you are comfortable sharing) We live near Aarhus in Jutland.
I’m in Copenhagen, just for tonight – flying home tomorrow :) beautiful city!
Did you find somewhere to eat in the end then? Shame I didn’t know, I’d have recommended Ambrosia’s Have to you. We found it a few years ago and they do a vegetarian buffet. They are associated with a yoga place and make you take your shoes of when you come in, and they only do vegetarian food. It’s a bit different from a ‘normal’ restaurant, but we thought it was a nice place. ‘Hyggelig’ as we’d say in Danish. :) One of those untranslatable words meaning sort of an amalgamate of cozy, nice, pleasant and stressfree all in one. :)
Aww that place sounds lovely!! We are around for lunch tomorrow, but I just looked it up and it looks like it’s a bit of a walk from where we’re staying :( if I come back again I’ll definitely make sure to put it on the list!
There is a word for you – flexitarian. For the most part, you are a vegetarian but eat meat infrequently, say a few times a month. I am striving to be a flexitarian and needing more vegetarian recipes found myself here, and, boy, am I glad I did! The only thing I would request is more slow-cooker recipes. That really helps with meal planning and makes sure I have a meal or two ready at all times! Looking forward to trying some of these recipes!
Thanks Pat, so glad you found me! :) I’ll definitely be sharing a few more slow cooker recipes as we move into the autumn! For now, you can see my slow cooker recipes here: https://www.amuse-your-bouche.com/tag/slow-cooker/
I’m a veteran Vegetarian but am always looking for new ways to cook easy, satisfying meals that will also appeal to rest of the family that are mostly meat eaters. Hence the fact that I am always looking for recipes on this site! One thing I have learned over the years is that beans are a great substitute for meat in some recipes and there are also a ton of things you can do with them. There are so many varieties that the choices are endless! Black beans, red, white, refried, I could go on but you get my point. I love them all and they give you that much needed protein as well. Hope this is helpful!
I <3 beans!!
I’d actually restate one of those – “Don’t worry about hidden ingredients.” If this is your first foray into vegetarianism you have more than enough to do without getting down into the weeds trying to make sure that the last fraction of a percent of animal-derived rennet is removed from your cheese, or whether the restaurant you’re eating at used chicken stock to season the rice.
Good point Richard! I guess it depends how deep people want to get into their vegetarianism :)
Sometimes its the “I’m famished and can’t think what to eat quickly” that sinks people. They can’t face one more salad. That’s where I grab my frozen hashbrowns – the plain loose shreds in the freezer section – and fry them in just a tablespoon or two of oil (one when I am being good). What? Potatoes for dinner? Well, here’s where they get good. I’ve added chopped onion, definitely salt and pepper, brussels sprouts cut in half, asparagus cut on the diagonal in pieces, and any other veggie you like. It makes a great almost instant dinner and for me, it’s comfort food. It’s not fancy and it doesn’t look fancy either but it tastes great and if you add a cut up apple or orange on the side if it doesn’t seem like a full meal you will think it is after you eat a plate full. I end up with 1/3 to 1/2 veggies to potatoe amounts. And it’s good reheated so make plenty. I do use a non-stick pan for this.
I especially liked the hint to not worry about labeling yourself veggie to start with. That’s a sure way to have friends and family give you a hard time if you slip up making you feel like a failure. You aren’t. There isn’t a timetable. Every meal eaten veggie style is a good step forward.
Another hint: Everyone is having pancakes or waffles with bacon or sausage and you are just left with the pancakes or waffles? Set out a small bit of almonds or other raw nuts by your plate. Just a small amount like 10 or there abouts will give you that break in taste and texture plus be good for you.
Totally agree about needing some go-to quick meals! That’s when I often turn to ‘fake meat’ – just throw it in the oven and you’ve got most of a meal. Your hash brown idea sounds ace! :)
And I love your comment that ‘every meal eaten veggie style is a good step forward’ – completely agree!
Becca – thanks for great post! I have found that following lots of vegetarian/vegan recipe blogs, like yours (and some of the ones you quoted above, there are a couple new ones I will start following!), I get inspired and feel more like part of a community. It is also cool that it is an international community! You are in UK, I follow Simple Vegan Blog from Spain, and lots of folks in USA. I pin lots of recipes and try to make a new one every weekend. I have discovered so many wonderful ways to eat vegetables and no, protein is not an issue (which is always the first question people seem to ask..”how do you get enough protein?”, “What do you eat?”). Looking forward to making your chickpea biryani this weekend!
Glad you found a few new blogs to follow Lisa! :) enjoy the biryani!
I still consider myself a newbie at this and I really appreciate this sort of thing! I’ve been lagging the last couple of weeks and needed a pep talk :)