7 Days of #Meatless Buffets

It’s the last week of our #Meatless Smarts series, and we’re closing it out buffet style! More specifically, 7 whole days worth o’ buffet meals that are fun to eat and great for the whole family to enjoy together.

  • By Jess Dang
  • May 30, 2016

When people are adapting to new food restrictions, they often focus on the things they can’t eat, when in reality, there’s still so much out there you can enjoy.


A little shift in mindset can open up a world of options.


Meatless meals aren’t just about removing the meat from the picture and only eating the side dish. It’s about replacing the meat with something just as delicious, like vegetables or, as we have shown a couple weeks ago, a variety of tasty vegetarian protein sources.

When you look at it differently, you’ll find that you have even more options to choose from. And the perfect way to show there is a ton of variety even without the meat is with a meatless buffet.

A buffet might seem like a lot of work, but we’ve come up with a way to make a whole week of buffets totally doable. Our guide below shows you how:

Free Download

7 Days of #Meatless Buffet-Style Meals

A week's worth of meatless buffet-style meals offers up variety for everyone to enjoy.

This free downloadable guide offers 7 ideas for buffet-style meals, including baked potatoes, tacos, and fried rice. You start off with one of these bases, and then you top it with a variety of veggies and vegetarian proteins.

For some of these buffet ideas, all you have to do is set out the toppings in separate bowls, so that everyone can customize at the table. But all of these meals allow everyone to personalize their own dish.

What’s not to like about creating a meal to your liking? You don’t have to worry about picking out the cilantro because you can’t stand it but someone else loves it. And no matter how many times you tried broccoli, you just can’t get behind it.


With a variety of toppings, you can pick and choose what you like!


These kinds of meals are especially awesome for parents managing picky eaters. Buffet-style meals can help your children feel like they have more choice while also exposing them to a variety of veggies. You can capture their veggie attempts with our Veggie Discovery Table:

Infographic

Veggie Discovery Table

Let your kids keep track of all the different veggies they eat with this fun chart.

Whether you’re enjoying one buffet meal for the week or doing back-to-back buffets, buffet-style meals are total meal planning smarts. You can make a large batch of veggie toppings to be used across a few buffets, which saves a whole lot of time. Or you can incorporate leftover veggies and veggie proteins from another dinner into your buffet meal, which reduces food waste.

Plus, they’re just fun to eat and could be the start of an awesome mealtime tradition. Who wouldn’t love ‘Baked Potato Bar Wednesday’? What a great way to get through hump day, eh?!

Enjoy your #meatless smorgasbords!


If you missed previous weeks of our #Meatless Smarts series, check out our Guide to Vegetarian Protein Sources, plus Mason Jar salad infographic and video.

As always, we work hard to create these resources to make life in the kitchen simpler and smarter, and we’re always creating more helpful info to raise your kitchen IQ! To get our cooking tips, join our cooking community by signing up for our newsletter, and together, we will make cooking simple, fun, and delicious.

Overwhelmed?

Try our award winning meal plan service for free

Get our Meal Plans

The convenience of meal kits without the waste

Share the love!

Join our community

Enjoy free tips in your inbox

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

How can we help you in the kitchen?

Join our community

Enjoy free tips in your inbox

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Sign up for the Cook Smarts Newsletter

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Cancel

Privacy Policy: We hate SPAM & promise to keep your email address safe.

Skip to content