- A vegan diet can help prevent cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and aid weight loss.
- Plant-based dietitian Julieanna Hever shared her three favorite lunch recipes with Insider.
A vegan diet can provide a range of health benefits from a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes to weight loss. And, according to a plant-based dietitian, "it's never been an easier time to change your diet."
Julieanna Hever, a Los Angeles-based dietitian who follows a plant-based diet and has written nine books on the subject — including, "The Vegiterranean Diet," and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition" — told Insider that a healthy vegan diet should include as many whole plant foods as possible, including legumes such as beans and chickpeas. She aims to get seven to ten servings of fruits and vegetables a day, with lunch being a great opportunity to pack some in.
"One serving is like one cup of raw vegetables, one medium piece of fruit, or half a cup of cooked vegetables. So it's really easy to sprinkle seven to ten of those servings in a day and that will give you the most benefit," she said.
Hever shared three of her favorite vegan lunches with Insider.
A huge salad
Hever likes to make herself a huge salad for lunch because it's a great way to get all of her daily vegetables in one meal. "If your salad's not bigger than your head, it doesn't count," she joked.
She often fills her salad bowl with some cooked vegetables, potatoes, corn, and a can of beans for protein.
Two or three times a week, Hever makes a fresh salad dressing that she keeps on hand in the fridge, which typically lasts for three to five days.
She whips them up in a blender and adds nuts and seeds, which are very healthy cardio-metabolically she said, and spices for flavoring. One of her favorites is a "cheesy," cashew-based dressing.
Cream of mushroom cauliflower rice
Hever's favorite recipe is her cream of mushroom cauliflower rice. "It tastes like Thanksgiving in a bowl," she said. This dish is a herby mixture packed with fresh vegetables.
Ingredients:
16 oz cauliflower (or cauliflower rice)
1/2 cup cashews
4 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp anchovy-free Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp low-sodium tamari
1 tbsp poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp red chili flakes
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp arrowroot (similar to corn flour)
2 cups plain unsweetened almond milk
1 medium yellow onion (diced)
2 celery stalks (diced, 1/2 cup)
1 jalapeño (deseeded and diced small)
1 tbsp minced garlic
40 oz fresh mixed mushrooms (de-stemmed and roughly chopped)
Optional (but recommended):
1 tbsp fresh thyme (de-stemmed)
1 tsp fresh rosemary (de-stemmed)
1 fresh sage leaf
2 cups kale (de-stemmed and chopped)
If you are making the cauliflower rice yourself, place the florets in a food processor and pulse until they are the consistency of rice.
Then combine the cashews, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, tamari, poultry seasoning, red chili flakes, black pepper, arrowroot, and almond milk and pulse in a blender until they form a smooth sauce.
In a large pan, sautée the onions, garlic, celery, and jalapeño until lightly browned.
Next, add the herbs, if using, and the mushrooms and cover with a lid until the mushrooms have sweat out their liquid. At this stage, uncover and leave for three to five minutes before adding the cauliflower rice and blended sauce to the pan.
Lower the heat and cook for a further 20 minutes and, if using, stir in the kale until it is wilted.
Either eat the dish immediately or let it cool down to room temperature and place it in an air-tight container in the fridge. It will last for four to five days.
Chipotle tofu bean chili
A go-to lunch or dinner for Hever is a chipotle bean and tofu chili.
To make it, she sautées a red onion, a red bell pepper, and a jalapeño in a large saucepan. Then she adds lots of herbs and spices including smoked paprika, cumin, oregano, chili powder, ancho chili powder, and coriander, as well as two minced cloves of garlic, and mixes it all together.
Then, she adds the plant-based proteins: a packet of firm tofu that she has crumbled up with her hands, a can of chickpeas, and a can of kidney beans.
Lastly, she pours in some store-bought chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, tomato paste, chopped tomatoes, and vegetable stock, and leaves it all to simmer for around 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it is thick, signaling that it is ready to eat. She recommends eating the chili on top of baked potatoes, cauliflower rice, cooked greens, or as a salad dressing.