Filling vegetarian meals (crock pot and breakfast)
December 11, 2015 3:30 PM   Subscribe

Point me in the direction of some delicious, filling, vegetarian crock pot meals and/or breakfasts for our overly-busy family.

We're trying to eat more home-cooked and less processed foods and could use help with recipes and suggestions for both breakfasts and dinners. The new addition to our household is a crock pot - but all of our crock pot proselytizing friends are not vegetarian. We've found a bunch of recipes that just don't have enough protein for our very active family. Do you have any suggestions?

We're only really interested in recipes that are very simple - you shove everything in the crock pot, turn it on and go go work, and then come home to food. We can cook some on the weekends, so simple recipes that require shorter cooking times are okay. (as these but more vegetarian/high protein focused.)

Similarly, we're stuck in a breakfast rut. We eat muesli or scrambled eggs basically every day. We already eat yogurt for a mid-morning snack, so that's not a good breakfast. We don't have a lot of time, but enough to cook pancakes or similar if there was something that was sufficiently sustaining.

Thanks for all your suggestions.
posted by lab.beetle to Food & Drink (20 answers total) 58 users marked this as a favorite
 
I love these crockpot sweet potato lentils. The coconut milk helps make them very filling and satisfying.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:56 PM on December 11, 2015 [7 favorites]


Oatmeal with tons of nuts, dried fruit, spices?
posted by ian1977 at 4:30 PM on December 11, 2015


mrs graymouser is lacto/ovo and Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker has been on our shelf for years. (It has a Borders sticker on it, to give you an idea.) There are some great chilis and stews in it that you can use your slow cooker for. There's a bookmark next to the Slow Spanish Rice and Beans and a spicy bean stew.

(The same author's Vegan Planet has been a favorite of mine for some time, and I'm not a vegetarian.)
posted by graymouser at 4:32 PM on December 11, 2015 [4 favorites]


Crock Pot Steel Cut Oats! Get steel cut oats, put them in the crock pot at night with a 4 to 1 water ratio. Add cinnamon, apples, etc. to taste. Leave crock pot on low overnight. Wake in the morning to delicious, piping-hot steel cut oats. (If you want to make it extra creamy and increase the amount of protein, crack an egg into the piping-hot, still cooking oatmeal and mix like crazy (it sounds gross but you don't even notice it if you do it right).)
posted by sleeping bear at 4:39 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Make it Fast, Cook it Slow is my bible of slow cooking and it started with a blog. Here is a link to her vegetarian recipes.
posted by amapolaroja at 5:10 PM on December 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


I've found that adding a tablespoon of canola oil to oatmeal makes it much, much more filling. Although I recommend using a rice cooker for oatmeal instead of a crockpot.
posted by Jacqueline at 5:33 PM on December 11, 2015


If there's a veggie meal that you want to add more protein too, just add a few cans of beans. If you find a meat recipe that you otherwise like, substitute beans or lentils for the meat. You can find 50 vegetarian slow cooker recipes here.
posted by FencingGal at 5:44 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Depending on how you do your scrambled eggs right now—sometimes I put salsa and hot sauce on the eggs and have them with refried beans and half an avocado on the side, which certainly feels like an entirely different meal from my more customary eggs, toast, and veggie sausage.

Wikipedia's list of egg dishes can be inspiring reading too. Just close your eyes and scroll past the "B" section so that you don't have to see the balut.
posted by XMLicious at 5:45 PM on December 11, 2015


Almost forgot one of my favorite breakfasts I picked up somewhere here on AskMe: refrigerator oatmeal. It's amazing how much oatmeal+whole milk+sweetner+tons of cocoa can turn into something like a jarful of brownies overnight, except with soluble fiber and other healthy stuff.
posted by XMLicious at 5:50 PM on December 11, 2015 [6 favorites]


Avocado toast will get you out of a breakfast rut.

Meals that can be made veggie-friendly and are crockpot-adaptable and will fill you up: kimchi jigae or posole. You could also whack together a pretty straightforward lentil-seitan-veg casserole.
posted by holgate at 6:53 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


all of our crock pot proselytizing friends are not vegetarian

I don't think this is a coincidence. I don't know of any vegetarian dishes where a slow cooker is a boon. They do terrible things to vegetables for the most part. You're pretty much limited to beans, some stews, slops that nobody wants to admit are slops, and things that are made in the slow cooker for the sake of using the slow cooker. I've tried so many vegetarian slow cooker things, and I use mine mostly when I want to keep something hot for a large and long sort of dinner party.

Beware, especially, of wasting a lot of food with the help of amateur food bloggers. Seriously, look at this garbage -- overcooked veg, curdled sauce. It's from a "New York Times bestselling author. Slow cooking expert." For inexplicable reasons it is mostly flavoured with garam masala and jalapeno. There is so much junk out there from people who did not bother to learn the basics -- this lady had trouble with a roux! -- and who do not bother to test their recipes. ("I haven't ever had a homemade quiche," she says, before giving a recipe for a lousy quiche.) I find it infuriating.

I am so sorry to be so down on this, but I have really looked hard for a way to have the convenience of a slow cooker mesh well with good vegetarian food, and it just doesn't work out very well, save for a small handful of dishes which work just as well or better on the stove or in the oven.

I really like a sort of breakfast faux-taco that is a corn tortilla folded over cheeses, cubed cooked potato, marinated zucchini, schmears of sour cream or cream cheese and and salsa, and scrambled egg. I make them in huge quantities and freeze them.
posted by kmennie at 8:57 PM on December 11, 2015 [16 favorites]


Yep, pretty much what kmennie said. I grew up vegetarian, and while a pressure cooker is useful if you're making South Indian food, vegetables really, really don't do well in slow cookers.
posted by Tamanna at 9:24 PM on December 11, 2015


Chana masala.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:35 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm a crock pot hater too and this is the only recipe I really love. If I was not using pancetta I would make extra sure to use a ton of parmasan rind; it's what turns it into a silky, rich opaque broth versus just some beans in pot liquor.
posted by Juliet Banana at 11:40 PM on December 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Batch cooking for breakfast too. We make french toast by the loaf and then stuff it back into the bag and put it in the freezer. Reheat in the toaster oven or on a cookie sheet if you're doing a bunch.

Rice and beans for breakfast is another easy to make in vast quantities and everyone enjoys. Add some salsa, cheese, hot sauce avocado to individual liking.
posted by five_cents at 4:01 AM on December 12, 2015


For breakfast, how about smoothies? You can use a variety of fruits and veggies, with protein powder.

Rather than crock pot, think about casserole-type items that you can make ahead and freeze. When using pastas, chose those that are using chick pea flour (Dreamfields) for extra protein.

Lasagna
Ziti
Enchiladas
Quiche
Mushroom Stroganoff
Mushroom Crepes
Chili
Soups

There are things that are pretty quick to throw together that you can do in about 30 minutes:

Egg Salad sandwiches and soup (split pea, tomato, lentil)
Grilled Cheese sandwiches and soup
Burrito/Tostada night
Falafel (make the patties ahead and reheat in the oven)
Omelets

You want easy meals and when you're vegetarian, sometimes it's just not possible. As noted above, veggies don't benefit from long days in a crock pot. Legumes do, but there are only so many things you can do with lentils, peas and beans.

To make this easier, when making one lasagna, make 4, ditto batches of marinara sauce.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:10 AM on December 12, 2015


Pea soup or lentil barley soup or...you get the idea... Com prime my vegetarian crock pot recipe repertoire and we live out of it sometimes. If you have a friend who will trade you for a rice cooker though, rice bowls are awesome; we do a 2/3 rice 1/3 quinoa deal and chop everything we can the night before. Just search on rice bowls for ideas.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:31 AM on December 12, 2015


I am not a vegetarian, but I make endless vegetarian recipes in my crock pot. I highly recommend The Indian Slow Cooker. Don't be intimidated by the long ingredient lists for some of the recipes - all of them are basically beans/lentils, an onion, and spices.
posted by congen at 6:58 AM on December 12, 2015 [2 favorites]


For breakfast, I like this chocolate chia pudding. Throw like four ingredients into a tupperware on a Sunday night, stick it in the fridge, breakfast all week.

If you want to sweeten it, I'd wait till you're ready to eat.
posted by jameaterblues at 5:59 PM on December 14, 2015


Response by poster: Thank you all! We've found some great recipes, and am enjoying the book: Quick and Easy Vegan Slow Cooking.
posted by lab.beetle at 7:05 PM on January 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


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