I’m a big believer in the phrase, live and let live. I don’t judge people for their personal choices and I don’t expect to be judged for mine. I’m just making this clear nice and early because this post is about Meat Free Mondays, and I know the ‘to eat meat or not to eat meat’ argument can bring on the crazy in certain people.
So no, I’m not going veggie or vegan, but I have been trying meat free Mondays for the past few months, and I rate it.
My reasons for giving it a go were financial, first and foremost. I am a meat eater and I always will be, but have you seen the price of minced beef lately? Don’t even get me started on a leg of lamb – you need a second mortgage to serve that up on a Sunday lunchtime. Even rag puddings have gone up in price!
So, meat free Mondays were a way for my family to keep the shopping bill under control, but I found some very tasty recipes to swap in, and I’m going to share them with you lot.
Amazing Meat Free Recipes
Having done this for a few months now, I have tried some incredible meat free recipes – and some bloody awful ones, but let’s forget about those.
These are my favourites:
Avocado Smash
This is such a satisfying meal, and such an easy one too.
It’s basically avocado on toast with a poached egg and some grated cheese on top. Super easy, super cheap, and super delicious.
You need half a large avocado per person, scoop it out and mush it up, then spread it on the toast. One perfectly poached egg per slice of toast, perched neatly on top, then as much cheese as you like grated over the top of it. Chuck a few halved cherry tomatoes on the plate with maybe a bit of cucumber or pepper, and you’ve got yourself a meal. We add salt and pepper too.
Mexican Chilli Beans and Tortillas
This is one of those meals you can make as spicy as you like, but the key ingredients never really change.
I literally buy cans of Mexican chilli beans, plus some sweetcorn, and a bit more spice to it like chilli powder, mix it all up and put it in a deep oven dish. Grate cheese over the top and bake it for about 30 minutes until the cheese is nice and brown. You also need a big bag of tortilla chips which you literally grab a handful of and put on the plate.
Once the beans are ready, plonk them on top, add some sour cream if you like, and/or some guacamole, and get stuck in. The sauce from the beans makes the tortillas change texture and they are beautiful. We don’t use guac because it’s expensive, you can add to or take away from this however you like.
One Pan Pesto Gnocchi
Gnocchi is great. It soaks up flavour really quickly, it’s cheap, filling, and easy to cook. I buy fresh gnocchi and throw it straight in the pan with a bit of oil so it goes golden on the outside then add a splash of water part way through. Or stock. Whatever you like really so long as it’s liquid. This stops it burning or going hard.
Toss anything you like in there with it. Peas, cherry tomatoes, spinach, literally anything that won’t take longer than the gnocchi to cook.
Towards the end, add in the pesto, and if you want to make it a bit fancier you can add something like mascarpone or ricotta to give it a creamier texture. You’ll find how you prefer it after a couple of goes. That’s it! The whole thing takes about 15 minutes but it always looks much more impressive, and it feels like comfort food too.
It’s Cheap
Since we found a few recipes that work for us, we have actually gone veggie two nights a week. I can’t tell you exactly how much it saves us because our shopping bill is never the same and we have implemented some other money saving tactics too.
What I can tell you, is that all of these meals are a good £3-£5 cheaper than a meat alternative, and if you add that up twice a week for a month it could be as much as £40-£50 off your monthly food bill. That’s significant.
It doesn’t feel like we are missing out either, because we genuinely love these meals. You should have seen my man’s face when I suggested going meat free once a week 😲😧😭 He doesn’t complain anymore, he really enjoys them.
It’s not like we suddenly feel flush with spare cash, but we do sometimes have a bit left over at the end of the month in the joint account, and that’s new. Meat Free Mondays might have been invented to raise awareness about the environmental impact of meat, but that was never why we gave it a go.
As it turns out, it has saved us a decent amount of cash and introduced us to some great meals we never would have tried otherwise. If that helps the environment too, then great, it’s a win on three counts.