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Want to eat more vegetables? These easy plant based recipes are packed with flavor and please everyone around the table.

Plant based recipes
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Eating a plant based diet can be life changing! Health professionals are even finding it can treat and prevent disease. Take it from us—we’re two cookbook authors and recipe experts who have been eating mostly plant based for over a decade.

What’s a plant based diet? Put simply, it’s choosing more of your foods from plant sources than from meat or dairy. Here we’ve put together a list of our most delicious plant based recipes that everyone always loves! Each one is also a vegan recipe, meaning it contains no animal products (meat, dairy, eggs, and honey).

How to make vegetables filling

A misconception we hear is that plant based meals are just a pile of carrot and celery sticks and not filling. Au contraire—vegan main dishes need to be packed with plant-based protein! For more, see our Guide to Plant Based Protein. These recipes focus on protein and fiber packed ingredients like:

Without further ado, here are our favorite plant based recipes that are both filling and delicious!

Our top plant based recipes

More plant based recipes

Looking for other types of plant based recipes, like breakfast, snacks, or desserts? Head to these posts:

Want a meal plan? Try our 28-Day Vegan Meal Plan or Plant Based Diet Meal Plan.

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50 Plant Based Recipes: Falafel Bowl & More!

Falafel Bowl
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This falafel bowl makes a satisfying meal, full of bright Mediterranean flavors! Featuring homemade baked falafel and crunchy veggies, it’s a delicious healthy lunch or dinner idea.

  • Author: Sonja Overhiser
  • Prep Time: 20 minutes
  • Cook Time: 25 minutes
  • Total Time: 45 minutes
  • Yield: 4 1x
  • Category: Main Dish
  • Method: Baked
  • Cuisine: Mediterranean
  • Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

Scale

For the Falafel Bowl

  • 1 recipe Baked Falafel (recipe below; or purchased falafel), plus leftover cilantro to garnish
  • 1 handful Pickled Cucumber and Onions, plus leftover sliced English cucumber
  • 1 dollop hummus (purchased)
  • 1 handful sliced or chopped tomatoes
  • 1 handful olives
  • 1 handful baby arugula
  • Feta (optional; or vegan feta)
  • Olive oil, to drizzle
  • Sumac (optional)

Baked Falafel (or go to Baked Falafel)

  • 15-ounce can chickpeas
  • ½ cup Old Fashioned rolled oats (or use ½ cup oat flour)
  • ¼ cup red onion, roughly chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled
  • ½ cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, loosely packed (or fresh parsley)
  • 2 tablespoons tahini
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons cumin
  • 1 teaspoon coriander
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
  • Fresh ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Make the Pickled Cucumbers and Onions: Start the Pickled Cucumbers and Onions, which take 30 minutes to pickle (or make in advance). Alternatively, you can use fresh sliced cucumber and red onion.
  2. Make the Baked Falafel: Preheat the oven to 425°F. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Dab the chickpeas with a paper towel to remove extra moisture and set them aside. Place the rolled oats in a bowl of a food processor. Process 30 seconds to 1 minute until they are the texture of flour. Pour into a separate bowl and set aside. (If using oat flour, skip this step.) 
  3. Roughly chop the red onion and peel the garlic. Place them into the food processor with the cilantro and pulse until finely minced, stopping and scraping down the bowl once. Add the chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, cumin, coriander, baking powder, salt and pepper and process until combined, stopping and scraping the bowl once. Then add the oats and pulse until a uniform dough forms. (Try not to over-process the dough: you’ll want it uniform and shape-able with a little texture.)  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  4. Use your hands to roll the dough into 16 balls that are 1 ½ tablespoons each, then flatten them into discs (it’s helpful to use a size 40 cookie scoop, if you have it). Place the discs on the baking sheet and brush the tops with olive oil. Bake the falafel for 15 minutes until golden brown, then flip. Brush the tops with more olive oil. Return to the oven and bake for 10 minutes, until golden brown on the other side. Allow to cool at least 5 minutes before eating. (Refrigerate up to 1 week or freeze up to 3 months; consider making a double batch and storing leftovers.)
  5. Make the Falafel Bowl: To make the bowl, add a generous handful baby arugula and dollop of hummus to a shallow bowl. Surround with handfuls tomatoes, pickled cucumbers and onions, fresh cucumber (left over from the pickled recipe), olives, and feta cheese (if using). Add the falafel to the bowl and drizzle with olive oil. If desired, sprinkle with sumac. 

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About the authors

Alex & Sonja

Hi! We’re Alex & Sonja Overhiser, authors of the acclaimed cookbooks A Couple Cooks and Pretty Simple Cooking—and a real life couple who cooks together. We founded the A Couple Cooks website in 2010 to share seasonal recipes and the joy of home cooking. Now, we’ve got over 3,000 well-tested recipes, including Mediterranean diet, vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, smoothies, cocktails, and more!

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5 Comments

  1. Marge Phipps says:

    Look forward to receive healthy receipes

  2. Manu Madan says:

    The best on promoting healthy eating is trying new ideas. How about plant based meat in addition. Your website is scrumptious and I want to get all needy about Live Animal Exports, feeding more and more people, particularly our islander neighbours (don’t we all have them) and the poor mums stuck with halal methods and young impressionable kids.

  3. Sherry says:

    Thank you for the wonderful Cauliflower Curry recipe. It was amazing! Looking forward to trying the pizza recipes.

  4. Kelli @ Hungry Hobby says:

    I’d love to eat more plant based but I don’t like beans so that can post a challenge! That pizza recipe looks to die for though!

  5. Deb Hatton says:

    These are awesome! I recently decided to try going vegetarian for a month and have started to work through these recipes. They’re really softening the blow of dropping the meat!