Easy & delicious vegan meals on a budget are for you if you live in an area where it’s difficult to find fresh produce or you’re cooking on a budget. You can still create a delicious vegan meal with frozen food and pantry staples, we have a few tips and tricks to make frozen and canned foods taste great, such as our Smoky Southern-Style BBQ Vegan Meatloaf and Vegan Root Vegetable Pot Pie.
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.
Hi there! We’re Linda and Alex, the mother daughter duo and creators of Veganosity. Thanks for visiting us, we’re so happy you’re here. If you’re looking for Southern inspired vegan comfort food recipes, you’ve come to the right place.
We love vegan comfort food and we’re really good at making it. Take a tour through our site and you’ll find all of the recipes that scream, stretchy pants required!
The good news, they’re all plant-based recipes, so you don’t need to feel guilty eating them. Now sit back, relax, and eat happy. 🙂
Also, in case you didn’t know, we’re published cookbook authors. We’ve written two vegan cookbooks that will help you make amazing vegan BBQ (you don’t even need a grill) and everyday meals, from breakfast to dessert.
Click on the titles to check them out. GREAT VEGAN BBQ WITHOUT A GRILL and THE ULTIMATE VEGAN COOKBOOK
.
Inexpensive Frozen Vegetable and Pantry Staple Meals
You don’t need fresh vegetables and fruit to make tasty meals. It's possible to make incredible frozen food recipes; you just need to know how to cook and spice them.
Frozen veggies don’t have to end up mushy and bland. We’ll show you how to get them to cook up crispy and delicious.
Additionally, you’ll find recipes that use canned beans and dry pasta that taste amazing!
We even include some frozen fruit recipes you’ll love.
Cheap Homemade Vegan Meals
We're all about eating well, and we realize that many of our readers are on budgets, or can't always find fresh produce.
This is a collection of some of our favorite recipes for you and your family to enjoy.
Vegan Root Vegetable Pot Pie
If you keep frozen pie crust in your freezer, go ahead and use it. If not, our homemade vegan pie crust is super easy.
This pot pie recipe calls for onion, potatoes, carrots, celery, and butternut squash. You can replace those veggies with a mix of frozen vegetables.
What You Can Use
- Mixed frozen veggies or frozen:
- Broccoli
- Cauliflower
- Peas
- Corn
- Carrots
- Any vegetable you like, just add at least three different kinds.
Smoky Southern-Style BBQ Vegan Meatloaf
The only fresh ingredient you'll need in this bean loaf recipe is an onion. If you don't have one, feel free to add a teaspoon of onion powder, more if you love the flavor of onion.
This meatless meatloaf recipe is one of our reader's favorites. It has a great texture and it's full of flavor.
It uses black beans and chickpeas, cornmeal, oat flour, spices, and vegan Worcestershire sauce.
You can serve this with your favorite frozen vegetable and mashed potatoes, or whatever side dish you feel like whipping up. It also makes a great meatloaf sandwich.
Vegan Sheperd's Pie
This tasty comfort food recipe calls for frozen peas and corn, your favorite vegan meat crumbles (usually stored in the freezer), onion and garlic, and potatoes.
Potatoes are an inexpensive vegetable that are easy to find, which is why we included this recipe.
If you don't have fresh onions and garlic available, substitute with dried. Usually a half to one teaspoon will flavor the dish well. It's really up to your taste.
Southern-Style Vegan Chicken & Biscuits
This delicious vegan recipe is made with a variety of vegetables, jackfruit, and homemade drop biscuits that are made with pantry and refrigerator staples.
Although peas are the only frozen vegetable in the written recipe, you can easily substitute with a variety of your favorite frozen vegetables.
Like the recipes above, if you don't have fresh onion and garlic, dried is your friend. A half to 1 teaspoon of each should do it.
If you don't have jackfruit, leave it out, it will still turn out great. You could substitute with chickpeas to add texture and protein.
Baked Vegan Mac 'n' Cheese
The ultimate vegan comfort food!
This cozy homemade macaroni and cheese recipe is made with noodles, cashews, cannellini beans, spices, and an herbed breadcrumb topping.
Instead of using the fresh herbs, add 2 teaspoons of dried Italian herbs. You can also replace the fresh onion and garlic with dried. A half to one teaspoon should do it.
Vegan Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto
If you have Arborio rice, vegetable broth, olive oil, and frozen butternut squash, you can make this delicious creamy risotto.
We realize that this recipe calls for vegan butter, white wine, fresh sage, and vegan parmesan cheese. Here's what you can substitute for those ingredients:
Vegan butter - 1 extra tablespoon of olive oil, or if you don't cook with oil, leave it out.
White wine - add a tablespoon of white wine vinegar (this adds a bit of acid for flavor) or just leave it out.
Fresh sage - use 1 teaspoon of dried sage.
Vegan parmesan - feel free to leave it out. Arborio rice gets nice and creamy on its own.
TIP: If you don't have frozen butternut squash, frozen peas and/or spinach are a great substitute.
Easy Tomato and White Bean Soup
This easy vegan soup recipe can be made with all pantry items, nothing fresh.
Substitute the onion, celery, and garlic with dried celery seed, onion, and garlic. Add these slowly and taste until you get the right ratio for you and your family.
Dairy-Free Fettuccine Alfredo
This recipe calls for vegan Greek yogurt, but you can make it without it. The creaminess and tanginess of the yogurt adds to the sauce, but it's still great without it.
Slowly add extra plant milk as you blend the sauce to replace the yogurt. You want the sauce to be thick, but pourable.
Hearty Vegetarian Chili Con Carne
Canned beans, tomatoes, spices, and frozen cauliflower rice make a great meaty vegan chili!
If you can't find fresh onion, garlic, and jalapeno, add dried onion and garlic and a bit of cayenne pepper for heat. Add slowly and taste until you get it just right for you.
Healthy Vegan Taco Filling
If you have frozen cauliflower, black beans, sunflower seeds (pepitas or chopped walnuts will work,too), and spices, you can make this delicious taco filling.
Substitute the onion and garlic for dried if needed. If you don't have fresh lime juice and cilantro, don't worry, it won't break the recipe.
Use this in tacos, taco bowls, or burritos. You can also switch the spices to Italian spices to make a meaty marinara with spaghetti.
Teriyaki Broccoli
You can use frozen broccoli florets to make this awesome side dish. Although, we've been known to eat it as a meal.
To get the broccoli to have the same texture as fresh, thaw it out and pat it dry with a paper towel before cooking. This will remove excess moisture and prevent it from being limp and slightly mushy.
You can make our homemade teriyaki sauce or use store bought if you have it.
The Best Vegan Seitan Chicken
This easy pantry/refrigerator recipe has received a lot of praise from our readers.
If you're craving a chicken dinner, this will satisfy you.
Serve it with our teriyaki broccoli recipe above.
Sweet Frozen Fruit Recipes
When you get a sweet tooth, keep it simple with our easy vegan frozen fruit recipes.
Coconut Mango Rice
This creamy rice recipe can be made with frozen mangoes.
Vegan Strawberry Shortcake
From the shortcake biscuits to the whipped coconut topping, this can be a total pantry/freezer dessert.
Sprinkle the sugar over the frozen strawberries and thaw them in the refrigerator. So delicious!
Blueberry Thyme Skillet Pie
Swap the fresh blueberries for frozen and add a half teaspoon of dried thyme in place of fresh.
We recommend thawing the blueberries in the refrigerator and draining the excess liquid so the pie isn't too wet.
You can also add dried lemon zest in place of the fresh, and omit the lemon juice or use bottled.
Make all of our cheap and easy vegan recipes and let us know what you think. We love to hear from you! And, don’t forget to take a picture of your gorgeous creation and tag us @veganosity on Instagram.
Let’s connect on Instagram and Twitter. You’ll get a peek into our everyday lives in our stories and see what we’re sharing in our feed.
And, don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to the blog so you never miss a recipe. Scroll below the recipe or in our side bar to become a Veganosity subscriber.
Pin Me for Later!
Christine @ Run Plant Based says
Lots of great inspiration here, we're trying to enjoy being more creative in the kitchen since we're stuck home. Thanks!
Linda Meyer says
Our pleasure, thank you, Christine!