9 year old wants to be vegetarian - need help meal planning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our 9 year old DD wants to be a vegetarian and while I’m fine with her exploring this, I’m having difficulty planning family dinners. Can anyone recommend sites or accounts or meals that can help when you have a mix of meat and non-meat eaters in the family? I want to make sure she’s getting enough protein.

I figure we have some options- plan more meatless nights as a family, plan meals as a family where we can remove the meat for her so long as the rest of the meal is sufficient and balanced, or make her something separate to last a few nights if what the rest of the family can’t be modified. We’re a pretty busy family, though, and our other two kids are pretty picky already so I’m looking for recommendations and existing resources in the hope that I can get some recipes and ideas. Thanks!

Well, vegetarians eat vegetables, so be sure there are a lot of those.

[Anonymous]

Just feed her salad daily, like a little rabbit. She’ll be carnivorous again in no time and you won’t have to worry anymore.

[Anonymous]

I made shepherds pie tonight and used the fake beef crumbles. ( soy based) it was delicious. Find an easy recipe and substitute the soy crumbles for beef.

[Anonymous]

There are all kinds of meat "alternatives" so buy a bunch and see what she will eat.

Simple - bake or air fry tofu. Drain in container, slice, press out water on a paper or regular towel (I use regular), then coat with cooking spray, then season - I usually do salt, garlic and onion. It reheats well so you can make a batch to reheat.

[Anonymous]

Trader Joe’s has beefless beef crumbles. I am vegetarian and so is DD ( 9) my spouse is a carnivore but says they can’t tell the difference when I use these in a recipe. We usually put them in pasta one night then mix with blk beans and do tacos another night.

[Anonymous]

Do some research on the dangers of soy before just substituting all the real meat with it

[Anonymous]

For a while I was feeding a family that included a pescatarian, and an elderly family member who thinks every meal should have meat, fish or eggs.

I got pretty good at making meals where the meat was the add on, and there was also another protein.

Examples

Pasta, red sauce, riccotta cheese (to stir in the red sauce), meatballs (to top the red sauce), broccoli

Egg roll bowl, edamame, cashews, spicy ground pork as your choice of toppings, egg fried rice on the side

Baked ravioli with cheese, Italian sausages on the side, caesar salad

Homemade pizza, choice of toppings

Grilled cheese sandwiches, choices of chicken noodle or lentil soup

Quesadillas with or without chicken, vegetarian taco soup with lots of beans

Hot dogs, vegetarian chili, cheese and sour cream, cut up raw vegetables (Yes, DCUM, I admit that I serve hot dogs)

Smitten Kitchen's Pizza beans, crumbled Italian sausage to add, something green

Scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, whole wheat waffles, fruit salad