Vegan Meal Plan: Breakfast

Vegan meal plans are a great resource for new vegans (or people like me who want to try new food ideas). I'm making this post as a way to use my experience to show my support to other people that are similarly concerned with what they are eating.

My meal plans will use ingredients you should already have in your cupboards, limit the recipes to taking 15 minutes or less to prepare, and make them simple enough that anyone can prepare them!

Here are 7 breakfast ideas that will allow you to prepare a new one every day of the week. :) In the future I expect to make vegan meal plans for lunch, dinner, snacks, and dessert, so keep checking back!

1) Monday:

Bagel or toast with peanut butter or jam, a glass of orange juice, and a banana.
Most bread products are vegan, but double check for bizarre ingredients like amylase or L-cysteine and avoid them. Jam is usually vegan, but watch out for gelatin and select jams that have pectin instead. You can use margarine as a topping instead, but you have to be very careful to make sure it's a vegan brand (no D3, whey, or milk solids).

2) Tuesday:

Oatmeal, fresh berries, and a glass of orange juice.
Instant oatmeal or cooked oatmeal are both easy to make. You can eat raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, or blackberries on the side or put them in your oatmeal.

3) Wednesday:

Cereal with soy or almond milk and an apple.
Most cereal is vegan but double check that it doesn't contain milk or honey in it.

4) Thursday:

Pancake or waffles with fresh berries, maple syrup, and orange juice.
This is a very easy pancake recipe I found in a "Compassion Over Killing" I picked up at a Vegetarian Fair a few years ago. I use it in my waffle maker to make waffles. You can put the berries on the side or right into the mix.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 cups soy milk, almond milk, or water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Preparation: 1. Mix together the dry ingredients, then stir in the wet ingredients. If the batter is too thick add 1 tablespoon of water at a time until reaching desired consistency.
2. Pour into a pan or nonstick surface and cook like a regular pancake!

5) Friday:

Smoothie made of soy or almond milk, flax, and fresh fruit.
I usually fill a blender up half way with almond or soy milk and put in cut up fruit. You can use frozen fruit or fresh berries, bananas, and mangoes for example. I grind (or you can buy already ground) and put in 3 tablespoons of flax seed (lots of omega and fiber!) and a tablespoon of molasses (masked by the other flavors but packed with iron and calcium!).

6) Saturday:

Fruit Salad.
Mix berries, apples, melon, pineapple and other fruit in a big bowl. You can season it with maple syrup, agave, or brown sugar. You can also add mint leaves to give it a kick.

7) Sunday:

French Toast with orange juice.
Vegan french toast is surprisingly easy to make. It doesn't taste exactly the same, but close enough I think. I have used the recipe here and been really happy with it. That one uses bananas as an egg substitute. Here is another one that uses tofu instead and looks like it should work just as well.