We have all heard the term “vegan” thrown around. If you don’t have friends who are vegan, then you probably have seen memes about them floating around online. At first glance, it seems like a strange cult, but when you look a little closer, you’ll see that it’s a pretty beneficial lifestyle.
The term “vegan” just means that a person consumes food that does not contain animal products. Rather than the vegetarian diet of “no meat,” veganism goes a couple steps further in making sure your diet and your life are plant-based. Seems simple enough, but what you may not realize is that this includes things like eggs, milk, and even honey. Veganism involves more thought than vegetarianism, and as a result, one must change the way he or she sees food and products. More than that, many vegans choose this lifestyle to stop animal cruelty. It’s one thing to stop eating meat, but why stop there when you can stop exploiting that meat’s life as well?
Going vegan can have a number of benefits for both you and the environment, but where do you start? Maybe you’ve considered making a change, but you don’t know what foods to cook or how to best adjust your lifestyle. Maybe you have friends who tell you to try veganism but you don’t want to just eat salads for the rest of your life. A major first step in your transition is to find recipes that will make you excited about being vegan!
We have compiled a list of five of the best vegan cookbooks for beginners so you don’t have to go through this alone.
But I Could Never Go Vegan! by Kristy Turner
“But I could never go vegan! I just love cheese too much!” I feel like a lot of us use this phrase because we truly cannot see ourselves going vegan. However, this cookbook is your kick in the pants. If you’ve had doubts about going vegan or you keep coming up with excuses, check out this book! Once you get started you’ll see that it isn’t so ridiculous to have a plant-based diet.
Vegan Cookbook for Beginners by Rockridge Press
When changing your diet, one of the hardest things to do is figure out your essential, go-to meals. While many of us grew up on grilled cheese and chicken noodle soup, those won’t make the cut if you choose to go vegan. This cookbook will give you more of those easy recipes that might be lacking when you cut out cheese and chicken from your diet.
Vegan 101 by Jenny Engel
Sometimes when you’re cooking, you won’t just be making food for yourself. Often we make meals for our f or our roommates, and they may not be interested in transitioning to a vegan lifestyle like you. Vegan 101 will give you recipes that everyone wants to eat, whether they’re fully vegan or not. And because these are beginner recipes, they should be easy for anyone to make!
Vegan Diet for Beginners by Jessica Brooks
A lot of people worry that when you start a new diet, you need to change your whole life in order to accommodate it. While this may be somewhat true for veganism, it doesn’t mean you have to spend hours plotting out your entire meal plan. This cookbook will give you diet plans to make your life easier, so you don’t have to worry about what to eat for weeks at a time. Once you get a diet plan going, it’ll be hard to stop!
Easy Vegan Breakfast and Lunches by Maya Sozer
Since most of our lives are spent running from one place to another, people often think they can’t have quick, on-the-go vegan meals. Maya Sozer’s book gives you quick recipes for those pesky meal times: breakfast and lunch. Sometimes we plan so much for dinner that we forget about the other two meals of the day! With this cookbook, you can not only remember to eat, but you can eat something easy and delicious.
And once you graduate from beginner to master, head over to VegKitchen to see even more of the best vegan cookbooks!
