It’s Ash Wednesday, which means time to start planning some meatless options for today and every Friday until Easter.
When I was younger Lent usually meant we got to eat more Macaroni and Cheese and, while I may or may not have given the kiddos “Snackaroni” for lunch, I love finding new things to eat each Friday that are healthy and delicious!
For us, Lent has always meant looking forward to a welcome excuse/reminder to eat seafood! I have some great healthy recipes for seafood! I also have been experimenting with some awesome meatless recipes and options for meat substitutions.
So, today I’m sharing some of my current favorite recipes – perfect for Lent!
Seafood
Fish w/olive oil and Cajun seasoning. We do this all the time! Next to my dad’s famous (seriously, famous) fish fry, this is my favorite way to eat fish. I typically buy packs of frozen fish at Aldi – I get the Swai because it is the cheapest and a yummy, meaty fish. Tilapia was on sale for the same price last week, so I stocked up on that.
I’s so easy! I take about a 1/4 cup of olive oil and brush it onto each filet. Then I sprinkle each semi-generously with cajun seasoning – yum! Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes.
Crab cakes. This is a recipe I love! It came from one of my many Weight Watchers cookbooks. I’m telling you, it’s an obsession – anytime I find one, I have to have it! We’ve been making these for years and love them. It’s so easy too, we use imitation crab and they are delicious.
Shrimp and potato tapas. Another Weight Watchers recipe! The flavors of this dish are phenomenal!! Something really magical happens when the vinegar is added at the end. Mmmm… I think I saw a bag of raw shrimp in the freezer…
Truly Meatless meals
Lentil tacos. I couldn’t find a photo, but I’ve started doing taco meat with a combination of turkey and lentils. We love it, and don’t miss the extra meat at all. This Friday, I’m going to try with just the lentils. I may even combine some from the Raw Taco recipe below and the Popped Lentils and see what we come up with. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Spaghetti with Lentil Marinara. As you can tell, I’m a big fan of substituting lentils for meat. I even wrote about all the awesome benefits of lentils. This recipe uses lentils in the “meat” sauce for the spaghetti. The recipe didn’t call for it, but I love adding a veggie.
This recipe makes me think lentils would a great substitute in Sloppy Joes too. I used them in combination with turkey for my Manwich Loaded Baked Potatoes, but this recipe wouldn’t miss the turkey at all with a few more lentils!
Raw tacos. This is a recipe I found during the Move, Nourish, Believe Challenge for the “Go Raw” day. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but it was delicious! We made it without the cashew “sour cream” but I think I’d try it next time because it did need a little sauce. This isn’t the exact recipe I followed because that one had the cashew “sour cream” but I think this one is exactly what I did for the walnut taco “meat.”
Breakfast
Egg over-hard with tomatoes, green chilis, and avocado. My favorite way to eat eggs for nearly the past year has been with avocado. I’ll chop up some fresh tomatoes when I can, but we had a can of diced tomatoes with green chilis leftover from another recipe and it was awesome! I’ll definitely be doing that from now on! Who could miss the sausage or bacon with this meal?
Egg white scramble with garlic and shrimp. I would have never believed this one until I tried it! Someone in one of my first dietbets mentioned having shrimp with their eggs, so I gave it a shot. Yum! I keep some olive oil in spray bottle so I just give the pan a spray with a little chopped garlic or garlic salt and scramble some egg whites and add in my shrimp at the end. It is so good and really gets you going for the day!
Get creative!
The following are some great snacks, but are also great options that you can get creative with and make some really amazing meals!
Roasted chickpeas These are awesome! The link I included is they way I’ve made them a few times, but the possibilities are endless! I even tried them with coconut oil and cocoa powder… That one could use a little tweaking, but I think I can get it!
Popped lentils. These are so fantastic and so easy! I always cook my lentils in big batches and freeze some for later, so all I did was take some out and place them in a pan with a little seasoning and olive oil until they started to pop open and get crispy.
Black and White Bean Salad. I’ve raved about this recipe more than once! Ever since I stumbled upon it, in yet another Weight Watchers cookbook, I have been finding so many different uses for it! Check the link for the recipe and some of the first meals I made with this “salad” back when I first started experimenting with it. Recently, we also found that is is amazing with spaghetti squash – I just cut the squash in half and filled the cavities with the Black and White Bean Salad before cooking. Yum!
I hope this list has helped give you some ideas for meals during Lent, or just Meatless Monday. You can find these and other recipes snuggle into my Pinterest boards Meatless Mondays, Lovin’ Lentils, and Food – Healthy Eating.
What are your favorite recipes for Lent? Or, what are your favorite meatless recipes?