Finding a vegetarian recipe that's packed with flavour and guaranteed to keep everyone satisfied is harder than you might think. To help you out, we've rounded up our very best veggie recipes, from one-pan lasagnes and zingy salads to protein-packed pies and sensational curries. Whether you need a super-speedy midweek supper, an easy vegan meal or a treat for a special occasion, our tasty gallery has you covered.
October is World Vegetarian Month – so there's no better time to reduce your meat intake and embrace a new roster of veggie dishes. Click or scroll through our gallery for every recipe you’ll need, counting down to the most delicious of all.
Coming together in as little as 35 minutes, this simple recipe is perfect for those who love flavourful curries but can't handle spice. Hard-boiled eggs are added to a rich coconut, ginger and garlic sauce – and the result is truly tasty. Serve with plain rice or naan for a filling midweek dinner.
Across the Middle East, beetroot is commonly eaten in salad form – roasted with olive oil, lemon and garlic. This recipe takes that idea and adds in a few more dimensions. The salty flavours of the halloumi work wonderfully with the fresh lemon and woody walnut in the gremolata topping.
Get the recipe for roasted beetroot with grilled halloumi and gremolata here
In this classic French recipe, leeks are slowly cooked in butter, mixed with eggs and crème fraîche, then poured into a pastry crust and baked. If you're not confident about making your own pastry, skip this step altogether and buy ready-made shortcrust instead. This tart is best served just warm, with a crisp green salad on the side.
This isn't just any veggie burger. The secret here is to marinate tomatoes (overnight if you can) in soy, rice vinegar, chilli, garlic and sugar. This gives the dish a more intense savoury flavour, which is only increased by cooking the mushrooms in a herb butter. Serve inside a toasted brioche bun – and make sure you have napkins on hand, as the veggies get seriously juicy.
Get the recipe for spinach, tomato and mushroom burgers here
Cubes of halloumi – dipped in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, then fried until crisp – take this tasty salad to the next level. Mixed with roasted peppers (you can buy them in a jar to save time), courgettes and tomatoes, and served with a homemade pesto dressing, this is a perfect main course salad for to enjoy on a warm evening.
An easy Spanish-style tortilla is a great way to pack lots of vegetables into one dish. You can throw in whatever you have on hand really, or use frozen veggies, meaning it's a simple midweek meal everyone can try. To intensify the flavours further, add grated cheese to the egg mixture. All it needs is a crisp green salad on the side.
Get the recipe for courgette, pea and broad bean tortilla here
This is such a clever recipe, with the pasta cooked in the same pan as the sauce – all you need to do is add the rich sauce towards the end of cooking. The recipe calls for Parmesan, but you can easily replace it with a vegetarian version. Creamy, herby and full of flavoursome mushrooms, it's a dish everyone will love.
To make this one-pot vegan curry, plantain and chickpeas are cooked in a spicy coconut sauce, and fresh spinach is stirred through at the end. The dish comes together in just 45 minutes, meaning it's an easy meal to whip up on a weeknight. Super filling and delicious, it can be enjoyed on its own or served with a salad on the side.
In this simple traybake, aubergines are baked in a rich tomato and bean sauce, and spiced up with a little chilli and cumin. Once the aubergines are tender, top them with grated cheese and put them under the grill until golden and bubbling. Serve with a green salad and crusty bread.
A different take on cheese and potato pie, this savoury bake is made with shop-bought puff pastry, so there's very little effort involved. Diced potatoes and chopped leeks are cooked and combined with a simple Cheddar cheese mix, then transferred onto rolled puff pastry and baked until golden and flaky. It would be great served with buttery green vegetables or a zingy fresh salad.
This wonderfully simple tart is bursting with fresh veggies and makes for an easy midweek dinner, coming together in just 35 minutes. A mix of fresh and sun-dried tomatoes helps to elevate this dish's flavour, while the basil leaves add a touch of freshness. It's great for picnics, too, and will keep in the fridge for up to two days.
This dish is a lighter vegan version of lasagne. Instead of cheese, there's a paste made with cashew nuts, but you could use any soft cheese if you don't need it to be plant-based. It's made with two types of mushrooms – button and field – helping to give it a lovely savoury note, while the crunchy toasted hazelnuts really complete the dish.
In this simple vegetable bake, a zingy tomato and spinach sauce is layered between slices of butternut squash, aubergine and pepper. Mozzarella is added in, too, and although most types of this cheese are vegetarian, remember to check the packet to be certain. It's finished with a Parmesan crust, but a vegetarian Cheddar or blue cheese would be equally good.
Here, cubes of firm tofu are folded into a rich, mildly spiced tomato sauce, and the result is truly delicious. It's an easy dish to make – and while frying the tofu can seem time-consuming, it's worth it for that extra-crisp texture. Frozen peas are added towards the end of cooking, but spinach or any other greens you have in the fridge will work perfectly, too.
This is a take on Sicilian peperonata, a dish of slow-cooked peppers that's usually served as a side. Here it's made into a main course with the addition of beans. The one-pot meal is baked in the oven and can be accompanied by thickly sliced bread to mop up the juices. Top tip: it tastes even better the day after you've made it.
Get the recipe for slow-roasted peppers with chilli, garlic and beans here
Toad in the hole is a classic British dish that traditionally stars sausages baked in a savoury batter. Here, however, it's made vegetarian, packed with roasted root vegetables, peppers, onions and tomato. The recipe serves eight, but you can easily freeze any leftovers and reheat them for another meal.
This fragrant curry – packed out with roasted aubergine – has a soft heat to it; the sweetness of cinnamon and clove is balanced out perfectly by the more earthy fennel and cumin. It does take a little while to come together, but the overall result is totally worth the extra effort. This flavourful meal is best served with brown rice or a flaky paratha.
Everyone is guaranteed to love this dish, which is bursting with the flavours of sesame, soy, ginger, chilli and garlic. The recipe calls for broccoli and cauliflower, but you could use whatever veggies you have on hand, really; courgettes and mangetout would work great. Topped with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and crunchy peanuts, and served with noodles, it makes a great midweek meal.
Recipes don't come much easier than this. Butternut squash, red onion, aubergine, nuts and butter beans are mixed with tomato sauce and roasted – and that's really it! The crunch added by the nuts gives the dish such a lovely texture. If you're not catering for vegans, it's extra tasty sprinkled with feta once it's cooked.
Get the recipe for roasted spicy squash, nuts and beans here
When you’re after an intense umami hit, you can’t get better than a shiitake mushroom. This Cantonese-style dish packs a super-savoury punch – and it's incredibly quick and easy. Ideally, this recipe is made with dan dan noodles, which are a bouncy and oily type, but any dried wheat noodles can work.
A warming stew packed with vegetables and fresh herbs, this is sheer goodness in a bowl – plus, it's on the table in less than an hour. It's a vegan recipe, too, with no tricky or hard-to-find ingredients, and you can really mix in whatever veggies you have to hand. Serve this comforting stew with crusty wholemeal bread.
Here, potato salad gets a makeover with pea shoots, radishes, sugar snap peas and asparagus. The vegetables are tossed in a creamy dressing, which has a lovely kick to it thanks to the addition of horseradish. If you want to make it even more filling, add a can of rinsed cannellini beans, too.
Get the recipe for asparagus, new potato and radish salad here
Loaded with umami flavours, meaty shiitake mushrooms are stir-fried with black beans and cashew nuts to make this dish with a difference. Coming together in just 40 minutes, it will serve four and can easily be eaten for lunch the next day. Serve with steamed white rice and top with sliced spring onions.
Get the recipe for mushroom, cashew and black bean stir-fry here
An easy vegetarian centrepiece, this warming dish is made with potatoes, shallots, mushrooms and blue cheese, served on top of flaky puff pastry. The recipe suggests Charlotte potatoes, but any white salad potato works, and you can easily swap the cheese for another style (goats' cheese or Gouda would both be delicious additions). We'd recommend using ready-made puff pastry for ease and speed.
This is an easy, budget-friendly recipe that makes the most of store cupboard ingredients. To make it, two tins of black beans are combined with vegetable stock, onion, cinnamon, cumin, chilli powder (or flakes), garlic and carrots. Smoky and spicy, it only takes 10 minutes to prepare. Serve it with rice, or wrap it up in a burrito.
This South Indian–inspired dish may look a little complicated on the surface, but it's really easy to execute. Small aubergines are stuffed with a spicy peanut paste, which is also used to make the sauce. The vegan recipe calls for sieved tamarind pulp, but you could replace the same quantity with tamarind paste or concentrate to save time. The tamarind adds a wonderfully sweet, sour and tangy note.
Perfect to take on a picnic or enjoy at a garden party, this flaky filo pastry pie is stuffed with spinach, ricotta and feta. Mint jelly is added for an extra burst of flavour, but you could easily skip this component, and it'll still turn out wonderfully. You could serve it warm, straight from the oven, or cold with a salad on the side.
To make this savoury dish, thin buckwheat pancakes are stuffed with spinach and ricotta, then baked with béchamel and a rich tomato sauce. You can easily use frozen spinach instead of fresh to make things even easier. The finished meal is topped with Parmesan, so use a vegetarian substitute if you need to.
This creamy recipe calls for pumpkin – but if it's out of season, you can easily swap it for butternut squash, and you'll still be left with a warming bowl packed with flavour. If you can't handle heat, fear not; this curry has a coconut milk base, so it's fresh and fragrant, rather than hot and fiery. Fresh curry leaves can be substituted for dried ones, but it's worth the effort to track fresh ones down if you can.
While its cooking time may be on the longer side, this warming tikka masala is totally worth the extra effort. The curry – lightly flavoured with spices such as cumin, paprika and garam masala – is packed with fresh produce and chickpeas, and you can use whatever vegetables you have in your fridge. If you like, you can skip the hassle of making the naan altogether and opt for a shop-bought pack instead.
Coming together in just 15 minutes, this easy meal is packed with fresh flavours and nutty goodness. The satay element comes from peanut butter – which is mixed with soy, rice vinegar and sesame oil to give a wonderfully fragrant flavour. It may be simple to make, but it's certainly big on taste.
This is effectively a mashed tofu stir-fry, brought to life with a cheesy, spicy, custard-like sauce. The tofu takes on the flavours impressively – all while staying delicate and wobbly, like just-set custard. Fresh, moist tofu and nutritional yeast are key to this dish, so they're really worth scouting out from health food stores.
This simple one-pan Mediterranean recipe is loaded with healthy vegetables, and made super filling with the addition of lentils. The ingredients are easy to find, with some dried herbs and fresh basil incorporated to add flavour. Finish with a sprinkle of chopped fresh basil, then serve with some crusty bread.
This easy vegan recipe incorporates everyone's favourite autumn vegetable, but it could easily be swapped with squash when pumpkin is out of season. To add extra flavour, toss the gnocchi with semi-dried or sundried tomatoes and nutty pesto, which has just a hint of garlic.
Bursting with fresh flavours, these easy fritters come together in as little as 20 minutes, making them ideal for a quick work lunch (or a tasty component for a throw-together meal). The batter, combining grated halloumi, chopped spinach, frozen peas and a handful of store cupboard staples, can be made ahead of time, too. Served with a simple spicy yogurt sauce – made with Greek yogurt, hot sauce and lemon juice – you won't be able to resist them.
Cheese and cauliflower is a classic combination, but adding smoked Gouda and Parmesan gives the pairing real depth of flavour. You can also add a creamy soft cheese like mozzarella to give the dish an even richer feel. It's just perfect for when you need some comfort on a cold evening.
Get the recipe for cauliflower and smoked cheese gratin here
When tomatoes are at their sweet, fragrant best, you can't go wrong with this recipe. It's a free-form tart using shop-bought pastry; simply scatter cheese over the base, then layer it up with cooked onions, tarragon, courgette and tomatoes. Serve your tart with a green salad for the perfect meal.
Great if you have several people to cook for, a pulao is a simple dish of spiced rice with vegetables, all cooked in one pot. You can mix and match the vegetables according to what you have to hand. It doesn't need any accompaniments, although adding a herby yogurt dressing would work well.
Coconut dal is great as it is, but adding stuffed aubergines gives the dish extra oomph. This recipe suggests using paneer – specifically one with a texture like compressed ricotta – but you can also wrap slices of aubergine around tofu to create little parcels instead. This is a meal that is great to prep and cook the day before and heat up when you’re ready to eat.
This is the perfect recipe when you need something speedy during the week. Mushrooms and pak choy are stir-fried with noodles in a hot and sour sauce – though you could swap out the pak choy for another leafy green like cabbage, if you like. It's all made in just one pan and can be on the table in 15 minutes.
Put an Indian twist on a family favourite by making a naan base for your pizza. Here, the classic Margherita topping of tomatoes and mozzarella is taken up a notch with the addition of coriander seeds, nigella seeds and chilli. The naan dough contains milk and yogurt to give it a lovely soft texture, but if you like, you can skip the dough making altogether and opt for ready-made naan instead.
This one may take a little while to assemble and cook, but we promise it’s totally worth it. Layers of creamy potato, caramelised onion, butternut squash and cheese are combined together, then slotted into a flaky puff pastry case. The recipe calls for Gruyère, but you could easily swap it for a vegetarian Emmental. Serve it with a peppery rocket salad on the side to cut through the richness.
Inspired by Mexican tortilla soup, this warming squash dish has a rich spiciness to it. The recipe recommends using chipotle for a lovely smoky flavour, but any sort of chilli paste will work just fine. Meanwhile, lime zest and juice will provide freshness and bring the soup to life.
Paneer is a mild Indian cheese that holds its shape during cooking. In this easy one-pan dish, the cheese is fried off with spices, onion, ginger and garlic, before tomatoes and peas (frozen is fine) are added. Serve with chapatis, toasted pittas or flatbreads.
If your avocados aren't quite ripe enough, grilling them will soften them up. Here, they're added to a rice-based salad along with grilled carrots, roasted tomatoes and raw broccoli stalks. If you aren't catering for vegans, you could also add hard-boiled eggs – or top each serving with a poached egg to make it even more filling.
Get the recipe for grilled avocado salad with tahini dressing here
This recipe uses yogurt instead of cream, which makes it lighter without losing any of the comforting elements you'd associate with a traditional korma. Scattering each portion with a handful of toasted flaked almonds and fresh coriander is optional, but together they add a nice crunch and depth of flavour. The dish comes together in under an hour; serve it with a side of rice, or enjoy a warming bowl on its own.
The perfect dish for a sunny day, this spiced chickpea and potato salad, featuring lemon, red onions, pomegranate and fresh herbs, is vibrant in colour and flavour. It's smothered with a thick, minty yogurt and drizzled with a sweet and sour tamarind and date sauce.
Tuna pasta is given a vegan makeover here. This dish combines jackfruit with nori seaweed, soy and lemon juice to create a fishy flavour without the need for opening a tin. It's topped with herb breadcrumbs and whizzed macadamia nuts to add extra crunch and texture.
Here, a comfort food classic is given an Indian twist – with spices like cumin seeds and chilli added to the rich cheese sauce. Some of the cauliflower is puréed and added into the sauce, which makes it even more comforting. You could add in some broccoli, too.
This vegan twist on a Middle Eastern classic is ready in 30 minutes and packed full of goodness. If you're not catering for vegans, you could swap the plant-based yogurt for thick Greek style yogurt, or even add in eggs (like a classic shakshuka). Serving two, it comes together in one pan, and you could easily double the ingredients to feed more.
If you're firing up the grill, succulent sweetcorn topped with garlic and herb cream cheese and a Mexican-inspired spiced butter will really hit the spot. Serve your corn cobs on their own, or try them as a side with griddled halloumi or a veggie burger.
Enjoying your favourite comfort food is even more satisfying when it's all cooked in one dish. You can use cream cheese or mascarpone to make the sauce – and a good trick to remember when making this creamy lasagne is to add citrus zest, which helps the dish feel lighter and fresher.
The perfect light lunch, these lean, green fritters could be served in a bun as a veggie burger, or on their own. They're really easy to make, too, using frozen vegetables. It's worth preparing extra as they'll keep in the fridge for a couple of days.
Get the recipe for mint, pea, spinach and chia fritters here
This fragrant Sri Lankan curry has a creamy, coconutty base, loaded with cashews, chickpeas, sweetcorn and spinach. If you don't have fresh spinach to hand, you could use frozen spinach, or other leafy greens such as chard or green radish leaves. It's filling on its own, but it could be served with a side of rice, too.
This dish of spinach, mushroom and ricotta encased in buttery puff pastry is a delicious centrepiece that can be made ahead of time. Using ready-made pastry means all you need to do is combine the ingredients for the filling together, pile the mixture onto the base, roll it into shape and bake. Note that Gruyère is included in this recipe but isn't vegetarian, so it's worth replacing it with another strong, hard cheese if you need to.
Meatball lovers needn't miss out if meat is off the menu. These 'meatballs' are made from mushrooms and lentils and served with a rich marinara sauce. You could switch out the Worcestershire sauce for a vegetarian brand, or try soy sauce – it'll work just as well thanks to its rich, salty flavour.
Get the recipe for vegetarian meatballs with marinara sauce here
This hearty veggie burger is made by combining baked sweet potatoes and black beans in a food processor, mixing in spices and breadcrumbs, then forming into patties. Serve your burger in a bun with garlicky avocado cream and your favourite fillers – tomato, crisp lettuce, mayonnaise and jalapeño peppers all work great and add extra bite.
Cook up a taste of Thailand with this tofu-based take on a popular curry. Panang curry paste is bursting with wonderful flavours – ginger, lemongrass, chilli, lime, garlic and coriander – and in this recipe, they're quickly whizzed up in a blender, so it's worth making your own for fresh flavours you won't find in a jar. The recipe is really simple, coming together in 40 minutes. When ready, serve your curry with steamed rice.
Frozen spinach reigns supreme in this speedy 20-minute recipe, helping to add a greater depth of flavour to this simple dish. The health-packed green is cooked down with garlic and olive oil before cream and starchy pasta water are added in. Orecchiette is used here as it catches the sauce, but if you can't find it in the store, you could use fusilli.
Caramel-like sweet potatoes are combined with creamy feta and sweetened red onions to create a rich flavour combination in this simple recipe. Once the veggies are cooked, you can add beaten eggs and scatter in your feta before heating on the stove for five minutes and finishing under the grill. Not a feta fan? Turn to goats' cheese or ricotta instead. You can serve the frittata hot, warm or cold – and a slice is fantastic the next day, too.
Get the recipe for sweet potato, feta and red onion frittata here
Kimchi – spicy Korean fermented vegetables – partners beautifully with cheese, so this recipe is a real treat. Whether you make your own or find it ready-prepared in the supermarket, it's essential for adding a spicy element to this dish. You can use whichever combination of vegetarian cheeses you like, but do add in a blue cheese for a pleasing tangy flavour.
Achieving complex Indian flavours is made easier with this simple dal. Low in calories and saturated fat, it's a healthy meal that comes together speedily and can be cooked in bulk, too. As for accompaniments, you'll need nothing more than chapatis, flatbreads, naan or roti to serve with this deliciously spiced lentil dish.
Bring this deliciously rich mushroom and lentil Wellington out at your next dinner party, and you’re guaranteed to impress the whole table. Mushrooms help to add a savoury, meat-like texture to this riff on a British classic, while lentils make the dish even heartier. Use a classic egg wash to cover the pastry before baking, or combine tamari and plant milk for a vegan alternative.
Named after Zuo Zongtang, a Qing Dynasty statesman and military leader, this dish is comfort food at its finest. Perfect for those who like spicy food but are trying to cut down on their meat intake, it's incredibly easy to make – so simple, in fact, it comes together in just 15 minutes!
In this veggie lasagne, a meat sauce is replaced with mushrooms, onion, garlic, courgettes, spinach and tomatoes. Using just one pan, it comes together in as little as 40 minutes on the stove – and it's finished under the grill to allow the cheese to go extra oozy and delicious. If you're catering for strict vegetarians, you can replace the Parmesan with a vegetarian cheese, but mature Cheddar would work well, too.
This is quite different from classic shakshuka, but we think that sweet potato provides just the right amount of moisture and heft to act as a base for these eggs. Serve it with the leftover potato skins and homemade pickled onions, and it'll make for the perfect weekend brunch.
This curry is usually made with chicken, but our recipe substitutes the meat with tofu – a plant-based alternative that's packed with protein. Deliciously creamy, and made with spices such as cumin and turmeric, the dish comes together in 35 minutes and can be served with steamed rice, naan or even a side salad.
Get the recipe for butter tofu curry here
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Last updated by Lottie Woodrow.