Never gets old how most people never care about nutrition until someone vegetarian/vegan shows up. Then they’re protein and/or B12 deficient, and they’ll die for sure!
As a carnivorous fattie, I do care about nutrition. And in all fairness, I'm open to suggestions for naturally vegetarian foods.
Now, before I get a list of "vegan beef and tofu", what I mean by naturally vegetarian, is foods that don't include tofu (which I personally don't just like), or need to advertise being vegan. I am looking for foods that, from the beginning of the time, have never had meat removed, or replaced. I want "accidentally vegetarian" -foods.
My current favourite is bean-tomato soup, but it gets rather one note.
I think I get what you're saying, and I agree. It isn't really as simple as "just remove/replace the meat", because plant proteins simply just cook and handle differently than meat, and often time the meat is the core focus of a dish. Instead, the focus should be on recipes that are built around their ingredients. They can have a similar purpose to a traditional meat dish (I will take a black bean burger over a regular hamburger any day), but ultimately should be prepared different.
Also, in my opinion, tofu is amazing when it isn't just used as a drop-in meat replacement. It goes really great with sauces and also fries pretty well.
If you enjoy spicy foods (not necessarily hot, but richly flavoured) have a look at Indian cuisine. If you dodge the dishes that are more westernised most things are made with vegetables, and delicious. There's a lot of variation between regions, so there should be plenty to keep you interested.
There are vegetable versions of every "incorporated" meal where all the ingredients are mixed together, like pasta, soup, curry, stir-fry, etc.. And for every other meal, the meat portion is easily replaceable with another portion of vegetables.
Going vegetarian really is as simple as "don't put meat in it". Just take it off the ingredient list. Meals do not naturally contain meat, so if you don't add any, they won't have any. It's not something to be "substituted" unless you are wanting to mimic a specific meal.
Ethiopian cuisine has a lot of dishes that are traditionally 100% plant-based and really good:
For instance, stuff like Kik Alicha (a sort of split pea stew) to things that are more like a stir-fry on top of injera bread. Here's one website talking about some of the various stuff though you can probably find more just from googling
Outside of Ethiopian cuisine, I also really like Koshary, which is an Egyptian street food with lentils, chickpeas, elbow macaroni, rice, crispy onions, and tomato sauce. Admittedly Koshary is a bit of work to prepare compared to most other dishes, but it's really good.
There's also stuff like falafel and hummus that are more widely known about in the West and plenty good too. There's plenty more I missing because this comment is getting too long. Looking up "traditionally vegan dishes in [random country]" will give you a lot of good recipes you'd never have known about
I've been making black bean burritos for my kids for years, and they actually prefer that to burritos with meat in them. We are not vegetarian or vegan, but try to incorporate 3-4 meatless meals per week. Mainly because my wife has a degenerative kidney disorder that is compounded by proteins from animals.
Ingredients are:
Lime
Can of black beans
Bell pepper
Onion
Sharp cheddar cheese
Avocado or guac
Cumin
Chili powder
Salt
Burrito sized tortillas
Hot sauce (optional)
Crispy jalapenos (optional)
Slice up the onion and pepper and toss it in a pan or skillet on medium-low. Add a little salt to help them sweat. Cook these till the onions are caramelized. At the end, add the juice from half of the lime and season with cumin and chili powder to taste.
Remove from heat and set aside.
Put another pan/skillet on heat or rinse the pan you just used and placed back on heat.
Drain and rinse the black beans, then season with cumin, and salt to taste.
Shred the cheddar cheese and slice the avocado if you have one.
Assemble and toast the burrito, turning it as it browns.
One of my favorite facts about nature is the fact that practically nothing is vegan. Herbivores are basically constantly eating insects off of the plant matter they eat, and pretty much anything will eat eggs if they find them unguarded.
My point is that if you want to be “closer to what nature intended”, being a vegan with cheat days is probably the closest you’ll get.
Being vegan is a lot of things to a lot of people. It’s not only about animal suffering. This is true for some people but plenty of people are vegan for health reasons.
I absolutely hear that argument all the time though, that “our stomachs aren’t designed to eat meat so you shouldn’t”.
Personally, I have absolutely cut back on meat, especially beef, but still eat it probably twice a week. It’s a far more realistic ask than veganism, though I perhaps should’ve specified only the most deranged of vegans act like I was describing in the first place.
One of my favourite facts about people hating or finding "gotcha" moments to vegans/vegetarians is that most the time they don't have a clue why people are vegan or vege and miss the whole point.
... people are vegan precisely because they don't think we should derive our notions of morality from random observations of charismatic megafauna.
what on earth gave you the other idea? it's always carnists that are like "see you have stubby little canines, eat meat" or "see lions eat the children of a pride when they take over so we should... wait fuck I mean lions eat gazelles alive sometimes so, wait sorry I'll get it. Lions eat meat and are good role models as previously established so you should too"