Need meatless meal recipe ideas? Here’s how to convince your family to try a once a week meatless meal (and save on your grocery bill)!
With 3 teenage sons, another son that eats like a teenager, and a husband who is a bona fide carnivore, going meatless was, for me, a monumental task.
Totally worth it, though. Because those boys have 2 sisters, and that makes for a lot of mouths to feed.
I knew I could convince this family to embrace a meatless meal just one night per week. And after years of compromises, we’ve found some meatless meals that save money without compromising on taste.
Here is a whole list of meatless recipes that your family is sure to love.
Convincing the Family to Try Meatless Meals
How to Convince the Family
Here are my tried and true methods for convincing your family to try meatless meals.
Start Easy
Start by simply finding ways to cut down on the amount of meat you use.
(Sometimes meatless can just be less meat!)
Try:
- casseroles
- soups
- making a gravy to top a bigger portion of noodles, potatoes, or breads
- use meat as a topping over a hearty salad
Expand Your Concept of “Meatless”
If visions of endless vegetables or tofu comes to mind when you think of meatless meals, I promise you that it’s so much more than that!
Serving meatless meals doesn’t mean skipping hearty, filling foods.
Rice and beans can be delicious if you learn to cook them properly.
Eggs, potatoes, pastas are just some affordable things to feed your family.
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Be Convincing
When you are ready to take the plunge, be sure that your first meatless meals are winners! What foods does your family enjoy?
- Pancakes are nearly always a hit with kids. Top them with whatever fruit is in season (and on sale).
- Breakfast. Scrubs fans (it’s a sitcom) like us call this Brinner (breakfast for dinner). Serve up eggs, hash browns, muffins or biscuits, toast, milk, produce (or whatever you like to scoop up at a breakfast bar), everyone will have full plates, full bellies, and smiles on their faces.
- Mexican. Our family loves tacos! There’s such a big variety of toppings, so no one will even notice that you’re using beans rather than meat at the bottom. Plus it’s easy to use your typical taco seasonings in the beans to make it taste more like your usual meat.
- Soups. A hearty potato soup (this is our favorite recipe) is great comfort food! Or use a 3 bean chili rather than your regular meaty chili.
Show Them The Evidence
Leave a jar on the counter and drop in the amount of money you would have spent on meat for your meal each week.
Your family can literally watch the savings add up.
Maybe you can do something fun with the money you save!
The Best Meatless Meal Ideas
Here are some of our very favorite meatless meal ideas.
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Note: If you want to try using dried beans for some extra savings, it’s not as tough as it seems! I described my method in my Ham & Beans post.
And while those ham & beans aren’t exactly meatless, it is less meat. I usually just use a ham bone that would otherwise have gone to waste for another super frugal meal!
(People gift me the ham bone at meals with family and friends because they won’t use it. So woohoo for freebies like that!)
Some recipes to try:
- Garlic Butter Pasta (Sooo good!)
- Creamy Potato Soup
- Healthy Black Bean Casserole
- One Pot Garlic Parmesan Pasta
- Here’s an idea for doing a baked potato bar (Fun way to use up leftovers!)
- Make a pizza using this super easy recipe for the crust. Top it with whatever you have handy!
- Three Bean Chili Chowder (We omit the chicken to make it meatless, but still yummy!)
- Bean Burrito Casserole (We really love this one!)
- Lazy Lasagna (Family favorite ever since Aldi started carrying ravioli!)
Plus, I’m always pinning great recipes! So if you follow my Meatless Meals Pinterest board, you’ll be sure to find plenty of delicious, frugal recipes to keep the family interested.
Follow Medium Sized Family’s board Meatless Meals on Pinterest.
Take These Steps:
- Find a great meatless recipe you know your family will enjoy.
- Serve it and see how they react.
- If you get complaints about the lack of meat, start talking about the savings you’ll have!
- Save the money in your account.
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These tips will have your family chowing down on meatless meals in no time!
These days, my family is just as excited about bean burritos as they are about taco night. Can we call that a success?
Do you already have meatless nights in your home? What are your favorite recipes?
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
Thanks for all the great Meatless Monday ideas! I am going to implement them immediately. Visiting from Blogging on your own terms.
I’ve been trying to eat less meat. I’ll have to try these recipes.
Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
We are vegetarians by culture and birth and I have been trying to make many recipes with meat into a vegetarian version. It is not that hard and you have some great recipes!
I’m so happy to help! Thanks for the visit.
My parents are vegetarian and I was until college, we try to ‘eat meat sparingly’ because we know its good for our bodies and our budgets. These are some great recipes.
I have been considering this for a long time too, but the logistics of getting everyone on board is just daunting. I will definitely give some of your recipes a try though and see if I can get my family to go along with it at least once or twice a week. Our grocery bill is crazy just because of the meat factor!
Thanks for sharing with us at the Friday Funday blog hop! <3
We rarely eat meat and usually eat veggie or beans! My hubby is actually a big fan of meatless meals. We usually add beans to ground beef for tacos. We have quesadillas with homemade refried beans. We also eat a curried lentil dish that all my kids actually like, and a black bean tortilla pie that my kids also love. I think I started using less meat because of all the questions about where the meat comes from and the ethical questions about meat. Since we started budgeting last month though, I actually just bought chicken and ground beef when on sale at our local store. It’s not ideal in terms of our values but we’re not at a place financially where we can buy meats from our local farmers because it’s too expensive!
I am always looking for meatless dishes to make. Thanks for sharing.
We’ve been trying to have more meatless meals in general and this is a great list to add into our rotation. Thanks!
Thanks for all the good ideas. My other half is a tough customer and difficult to convince.
I’m always trying to save money on groceries so meatless meals are a great idea. Thanks for sharing these recipes! Will definitely be following along on Pinterest to see what other inspiration you have!
I hated mushrooms until I was in grad school and then they became my go to protein since they’re so cheap and filling. Now I love them!
You shared some really great ideas here! We’re big on things like beans and lentils around here – and have found that we can make all sorts of “meat” dishes with these substitutes and still end up with a tasty meal (even if it IS a bit different…) Thanks for linking up with us at #FridayFrivolity and I hope you join us again next week!
Thanks, I’ll be there!
Thanks for the new ideas! My family eats meat very sparingly; we have fish about once a week and other meats only in restaurants or at other people’s houses. There are lots of vegetarian recipes on my site and multi-week dinner menu posts where I explain what we actually ate for several weeks and how we made use of whatever was on sale or in season. Eating less meat saves a lot of money…if you don’t do it by relying on store-bought veggie burgers and other expensive stuff!
Have a blessed Lent.
That sounds like a great resource! Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for the meatless meal ideas. I try to do at least 1 night a week of meatless. Husband is okay with it but my 3 sons don’t really like it all that well. One day when they pay for groceries they will see how much money it saves.
Lovely meal ideas, thanks for sharing with Hearth and soul blog hop, tweeting.
Appreciate the share! Thanks for hosting the hop.
Interesting. My parents grew up during a time when many people (pretty much everyone they knew, including their own families) didn’t eat meat on Fridays, due to religious guidelines. Never thought until I read your post (1) that saved those families a lot of money, (2) all those kids grew up used to the concept of a meatless meal including knowing how to cook a variety of them, so it wasn’t a strange concept if they had to have multiple meatless days due to finances later in life. Another valuable “life skill” the older generations learned. Thanks for the meal ideas!