Even if you are not vegetarian, these kid friendly vegetarian dinners are a great option for healthy, budget friendly and tasty meals.
You may think that kids won’t love eating meat-free meals, but most of these simple, vegetarian meals for kids, are so delicious I’ll bet your family doesn’t even notice they are vegetarian!
Of course lots of us have kids who might be ‘picky eaters‘, so while I’ve tried to choose recipes that are familiar and family friendly, and that are easy tweaked or switched up to suit your families tastes so you have the best chance of including more family0friendly vegetarian meals on your meal plan.
We are not vegetarian, but we have lots of vegetarian dinners on our meal plan these days. It has taken a little while to come up with a list of vegetarian meals that work for our family’s various likes and dislikes, but these kid-friendly vegetarian dinners are our favourite meatless options.
Vegetarian Meals for Kids and Families.
The recipes and meal ideas on this list are all easy to make, with no fancy ingredients. They are all perfect as vegetarian dinners, and lots make great vegetarian lunches for kids too.
I’m sure you’d find a delicious, family friendly, vegetarian meal to try!
Lentil-ese – Vegetarian Spaghetti Bolognese
This is one of the first successful meat-less meals I ever made – a simple lentil based bolognese sauce, that is so similar to the meat version people often don’t know it is vegetarian!
Zucchini Rice from Damn Delicious
We often add Mexican spices to this simple zucchini rice dish. This makes a great side dish, but it’s also filling enough to be a main meal and you can easily swap out veggies according to your preferences.
Felafel Style Veggie Burgers
These falafel style veggie burgers are my kids all time favourite, mine too. They are perfect with some yoghurt dip, and are great as a cold lunch too!
Vegetable Ramen from The Woks of Life
This delicious meat-free family meal is easy to change to use whatever veggies you like.
Easy Zucchini Bake
This is a simplified version of vegetarian lasagne. With layers of tomato based sauce, cheese and zucchini, topped with herby bread crumbs this is quick and easy to make and delicious.
Broccoli and cheddar twice baked potatoes from Baker By Nature.
Baked potatoes are another easy vegetarian meal where everyone can pick their own toppings, which makes this a super east, kid-friendly option.
Tomato and Broad Bean Pasta
The broad beans (fava beans) make it extra good for you, and they are really easy to grow in your garden, but frozen ones from the shop work just as well in this easy recipe.
Creamy tomato and spinach pasta from Budget Bytes
This easy creamy pasta dish is another of our favourite meatless dinners and it’s super easy to make too.
Veggie Nuggets
My kids like these veggie nuggets almost as much as shop bought chicken nuggets! They are easy to make and make a great vegetarian lunch or dinner for kids and adults!
Cauliflower and sweet potato curry from Kidgredients
This easy curry recipe is delicious! I’ve made it with broccoli instead of the sweet potatoes and it worked great.
Easy Corn Fritters
These easy to make, corn fritters make the perfect meat free lunch, dinner or side. If corn is not your think you might prefer these yummy zucchini fritters. We often make both!
Crust-less quiche
This easy quiche is my ‘I have to use up whatever is in the fridge’ recipe since you can add almost any kind of vegetable and it still tastes great!
Broccoli and Garlic Pasta
This easy pasta recipe is quick and easy to make and is the perfect vegetarian meal for days when you really wish didn’t have to cook dinner.
Meal Ideas You Can Easily Make Vegetarian.
If your kids are a bit wary of eating vegetarian meals a great way to introduce them to the ideas is to make a meal they know and love, but take out the meat. You’d be surprised how many of your favourite family meals will work well without the meat, substitute with red lentils or beans if needed, but often you don’t have to add anything at all.
Pasta and Sauce.
The vegetarian lentil Bolognese I mentioned above is the perfect option for this. If your kids already know and love good old spaghetti Bolognese the vegetarian option won’t be a totally new meal for them to get used to. It’s easy to take the meat out of this quick pizza pasta bake too. Or you can slowly replace minced meat in your favourite pasta sauce recipe with red lentils
Chilli / Taco Meat
Another great option for this is the Easy Chili Recipe. Start by adding more beans and veggies to the meat version of the recipe, and reducing the meat each time you make it until it is complete vegetarian. This makes an easy meat-less chilli that is great for tacos, enchiladas, burritos and more.
Fried Rice
Fried rice is another great option to change to a meat-free version. This ten minute fried rice recipe is just as good with or without the chicken. Or try this mexi-spiced version of fried rice.
What’s your favourite kid-friendly vegetarian dinner?
I’d love to add some more meatless ideas to our meal plan. If you’ve got some great ideas for kid-friendly vegetarian dinners, share a link or the recipe in the comments below.
Sweet potato chickpea patties with lots of sauteed onion and capsicum, black bean burgers, and Sriracha ramen (non-spicy for the kiddo) are our current vegetarian meal favourites right now.
They all USED to be toddler-approved, but he’s now trying to win “worlds most picky eater” award, so… I’m going to have to try the veggie nuggets! They sound yummy!
Oh the sweet potato and chick pea patties sound great!!
I’m sure your toddler will come around… my kids all went through a picky stage and only one out of four stayed that way so the odds are in your favour! LOL