In the last few years, I’ve tried to plan at least one meatless meal each week. It started as an Eat More Veggies + Save the Planet combo, but it’s gradually just become a habit. My meal planning binder is split up by type of meat, so I have a whole section for vegetarian entrees that continues to grow. Some weeks I don’t realize until I’m making the grocery list that very few of our planned meals have meat.

Did you know that eating one pound of beef is like driving 30 miles in a car (See page 19)? Cutting some meat out of our diet is such an easy thing to do to reduce personal carbon emissions. We’ve also swapped our protein source to chicken most of the time, as it’s only about 1/4 of beef’s carbon input. While I hate that the corporations truly responsible for climate change (just 100 companies produce 71% of global emissions) have managed to shuck the responsibility onto consumers, I also like to do my part.

Add to this the fact that meat prices have fluctuated wildly in the last few years as supply chains have suffered all sorts of weirdness, and it just makes sense to eat less meat! I also have several vegetarian friends, so getting familiar with cooking vegetarian and vegan meals has meant that I can provide better hospitality to people who eat dinner with us. See? Literally no downsides here.

As I’ve posted this journey on Instagram over the last few years, I’ve had lots of people reach out and say that they love this idea but feel so uninspired by the recipes they’ve found - either they keep running into unusual substitutions or the recipes are a million steps long or their partner is convinced that a meatless meal means they’ll be hungry again in two hours.

So I thought I would share some of the best vegetarian recipes in my cookbook. It’s easy enough to eat vegetarian by simply omitting meat from recipes or eating cereal for dinner, but I’m far more interested in having meals that make me forget I ever ate meat to begin with. I want to feel satisfied at the end of the meal! I want protein and umami!

For those just getting started on their meatless meals journey, I’d encourage you to avoid ingredient-hacking your way through it. Making a meatless version of your favorite meaty dish is bound to be a struggle — trying to make vegetarian chicken wings or tacos al pastor is just a high bar to clear! It’s so much easier to expand both your pantry staples and your idea of what a filling, delicious dinner looks like. It can also help to turn an eye to other parts of the world; in many regions, meat is either a luxury or a religious “don’t”, and they’ve come up with all sorts of delicious vegetarian dishes. (An example: Manjula’s Kitchen is a North Indian recipe blog that’s entirely vegetarian.)

I’ve made and love all of these recipes, and I hope they make it into your meal rotation as well!

Note: In descending order of carbon input: lamb, beef, pork, turkey, chicken, tuna, eggs. It is worth noting here that cheese falls somewhere between pork and beef, which is technically a mark against some of the recipes I’ve included in this roundup, but none of them are using a full pound of cheese!

Honorable Mentions:

• Smitten Kitchen | Mushroom Lasagna: Another one that’s a bit long in the oven for a weeknight, but it’s worth eating dinner a bit late (speaking from experience here). Is it particularly healthy? Um, no. Lotta butter, lotta whole milk, lotta cheese. BUT! It is ridiculously delicious and very good leftover. I used a full 2 pounds of mushrooms. I also loathe heating milk separately for my bechamel, so I added the garlic to the butter (no biggie if the butter browns a bit) and just eased the milk into the flour-butter mixture.

• New York Times | Vegan Bolognese with Mushrooms and Walnuts: The walnut and mushroom mixture isn’t going to convince you that you’ve used meat, but it will satisfy! This is a really delicious bolognese that holds its own against the real deal. I skipped the marmite and used more soy sauce.

• Smitten Kitchen | Pizza Beans: Yes, it’s beans baked in pasta sauce, but it’s also… kind of great? I added some Italian seasonings to the sauce but otherwise made as directed. Must be served with garlic bread, in my humble opinion. (I’m serious! I made fresh garlic bread for each serving of leftovers.)

Do you have any favorite vegetarian dinners? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!