How to Go Vegan for Picky Eaters: 10 Tips + 10 Meals

I’m a picky eater, and I’ve been vegan for 14 years now. Over those 14 years, I’ve slowly expanded my horizon quite a bit. But I remember exactly what it felt like at first: I was clinging to my veggie burgers and pasta tightly!

In this post, I’m going to share 10 tips on how to go vegan for picky eaters. These are tips that will allow you to go vegan in a way that won’t overwhelm you! Some of the tips will also help you gradually expand to eating more vegetables and stuff (at your own pace, if you want).

Then I’ll also share 10 specific vegan meal ideas that many picky eaters like. The list includes things like pancakes, corn on the cob, and other childhood comforts—along with tips on how to make them vegan or find them in stores!

Let’s get into the tips:

1. Make a List of Plant Foods You Already Like.

We’re going to start by brainstorming foods for your vegan grocery list. The first step is just identifying vegan foods you already know and love. So, take out a piece of paper, and write down answers to these questions:

• What grains and starches do you like? Do you like pasta, cereal, rice, noodles, corn, or potatoes (mashed, hash browns, baked potatoes, fries, etc)? Make a list of your favorites, check which ones are vegan, and add them to your grocery list.

• Do you like any fruits? All fruit is vegan. That means apples, bananas, oranges, pears, peaches, grapes—they’re all fair game. Add your faves to the list.

• Do you like any nuts or seeds? Nuts and seeds are vegan. That means peanuts, cashews, sunflower seeds, pistachios, almonds, pecans, walnuts—they’re all on the menu. Add your faves to the list.

• What about beans? Do you like baked beans? How about refried beans? (There are vegan versions of both.) Do you like chickpeas, lentils, or black beans? Bean burritos?

• What about vegetables? Any at all? That means carrots, peas, corn, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, brussel sprouts, collard greens, and more.

It’s okay if your list is still small at this point. We’ve got more brainstorming questions coming up!

2. Browse Lists of “Accidentally Vegan” Products.

Did you know that Nutter Butters and OREOS are vegan? Yep. The same goes for Ritz Crackers and Twizzlers. And did you know, Act II “Butter Lover’s” microwave popcorn is actually vegan?

These are what you call “accidentally vegan” foods.

Many of these famous examples of “accidentally vegan” foods are not very healthy. So if you’re going vegan for the health benefits, be sensible with this section! Just because something is “vegan” doesn’t mean it’s healthy.

But here are some lists you may want to peruse. See what foods jump out at you: “Oh, I like those!” And if they fit with your health goals, then add them to your grocery list!

• PETA’s “Accidentally Vegan Food and Snack List”
• Buzzfeed’s “41 Foods You Won’t Believe Are Actually Vegan”
• Plant-Based News’ list of Accidentally Vegan Foods
• VegNews’ “25 Accidentally Vegan Snacks You’ll Find at Virtually Any Convenience Store.”
• Spoon University’s “30 Foods You Probably Didn’t Know Were Vegan”
• And for those of you in England: Read Vegan Food and Living‘s guide here.

3. Look Up How to “Veganize” Your Favorite Meals.

You can make anything vegan. Anything.

Some things are just very easy to “veganize,” and others are a bit harder. Sometimes, it’s as easy as swapping in soy milk for the cow’s milk. Other times, you need to replace eggs for baking—that can be done, too, but it’s a bit more complicated.

I remember when I first went vegan, I had a lot of fun making my first vegan pizza. And then my first vegan cake. (That first cake was a disaster. But now I make them flawlessly. Hint: This is the vegan chocolate cake recipe to go to.)

But it’s not junk food that you can make vegan. Here are a sample of recipes online, just to show you how many things can be made vegan:

• Vegan mac and cheese
• Vegan mashed potatoes
• Vegan egg salad sandwich
• Vegan cheesy scalloped potatoes
• Vegan lasagna
• Vegan naan
• Vegan ravioli
• Vegan matzo ball soup (for my Jewish vegans out there)

So make a list of your favorite meals. Then just type “vegan _________” into Google. You will find recipes and/or pre-packaged versions you can buy!

4. Try Some Mock Meats and Plant-Based Alternatives.

In the vegan community, mock meats sometimes get flack for being processed and not as healthy as whole foods. But if you’re a picky eater, mock meats can be a saving grace as you transition.

Many vegan burgers and other vegan meats are very delicious and very realistic. They can be an easy swap into the meals you already know and love.

Now, of course, you won’t be getting all the health benefits of switching to a whole-food diet if you’re eating vegan hot dogs all day…

But in most cases, vegan mock meats are at least a small improvement over real meat health-wise. For example, they don’t contain as much saturated fat or cholesterol as real meat. (And of course, you’re not killing animals when you eat vegan hot dogs, either!)

Here are my top recommendations for vegan mock meats and the like:

• Look for anything by Field Roast. This brand is awesome at what they do. The best-tasting vegan meat I’ve had. The “apple sage” sausages are especially good.

• Try Beyond Burgers. These are known to be some of the most realistic vegan burgers. I love them.

• Be willing to try a few plant-based milks. I have a friend who hates almond milk but loves soy milk. For me personally, I like all of them except coconut milk (and rice milk is only so-so). There’s oat milk, cashew milk, hemp milk, flax milk, and more.

• Really try to get into eating nutritional yeast. It may seem weird at first, but I personally love it so much—on popcorn, in pasta, on salads, etc. It’s a cheesy, nutty seasoning that you can make sauces out of, and it’s really healthy, too.

5. Listen to This Audiobook.

For me, one of the biggest ways to convince myself to eat more vegetables is by learning about how healthy they are.

If you start telling me about all the evidence showing that kale can reverse cancer or something like that… I’m going to start getting excited about eating it! (Even though I don’t really like kale.)

This is why I highly recommend the book How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger (Amazon link). It’s essentially a 576-page sales pitch about how vegetables will solve all your problems and make you immortal.

Specifically, I recommend the audiobook. I like listening to a few minutes every day—just to remind myself of all the health benefits I’m getting when I eat veggies, fruits, beans, whole grains, and the rest. It provides all the motivation I need.

Just be sure to listen to the audio sample before getting the audiobook.

The audiobook is narrated by Dr. Greger himself, and his style can be “too much” for some people. (I personally love his enthusiasm, but some people find it annoying. So go listen to the sample on the Amazon page first!)

6. Try Some Smoothies.

This is especially a tip for people who are picky about eating vegetables. One of the big ways I increased my vegetable consumption was by making green smoothies.

You can put huge amounts of spinach into a smoothie, along with fruit and other flavors (like peanut butter), and you won’t even taste the spinach.

Start with a small amount of veggies (or none), mostly just blending up fruit you already like. Then slowly increase the amount of veggies over time.

If you’ve never made a smoothie before, here’s a simple formula to work from: Banana + plant-based milk + one more ingredient for flavor. Now let’s break that down:

1. Usually, you’ll want to include bananas for the creamy texture (unless you don’t like bananas). Personally, I like frozen bananas in my smoothies—it’s more like soft-serve ice cream or a milkshake. (You peel the bananas before freezing them!)

2. Plant-based milk (like soy milk or almond milk) will give a creamier texture than water. But water is fine to use if you prefer. You’ll probably only need 1 cup or less, but it depends on what else you add and the power of your blender.

3. Something else for flavor. I like adding peanut butter. Cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and cinnamon are good choices, too. Or go for fruity: Add some berries. My go-to is frozen strawberries. (Blackberries and raspberries have seeds that can be a little annoying in smoothies.)

You can find vegan smoothie recipes on Google, too. But there’s lots of experimentation and fine-tuning you can also do based on your personal preferences!

7. Find Vegan Sauces You Like—And Slather Them on Everything.

Similar to how fruit can mask the taste of veggies in a smoothie, a good sauce can be slathered on veggies and easily make them taste good.

It could be something really simple: Do you like BBQ sauce? There are a bunch of vegan BBQ sauce brands (listed here). I actually have a vegan friend who slathers Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce on all his veggies.

There are other pre-made sauces at most grocery stores, too. One that I like is “General Tso’s” sauce. You might know it from Chinese restaurants. General Tso’s sauce is usually vegan—just be sure to check it doesn’t contain fish sauce.

Another thing you can do is to actually blend up additional veggies in your sauces. This works especially well with red pasta sauce (marinara). You can eat a lot more veggies this way and not even taste them.

That’s a great way to trick kids into eating more veggies with their pasta, by the way.

One more idea: I mentioned nutritional yeast above. There are so many “vegan cheesy sauce” recipes you can make from nutritional yeast. Some are really healthy and simple, too. Find one you like, and it could potentially make any vegetables tasty.

8. Sign Up for Nutriciously’s Free Vegan Transition Course.