I don’t have the time to prepare all my food from scratch

chicken coleslaw wrap

Being vegan on a budget doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of time cooking all your food from scratch. In fact, it’s possible to save money and time in the kitchen by going vegan. A study, analysing the food diaries of 11,000 Brits over one year, found that, on average, a vegan meal is up to 37 per cent faster to prepare than a non-vegan one.

While it usually works out cheaper to cook from scratch rather than relying on ready meals and premade convenience foods, there’s no hard and fast rule that means you can only cook from scratch. There will be plenty of times when a vegan steak, schnitzel or sausage is the perfect choice for your plate, and you certainly don’t need to start baking your own bread!

But if you do want to prepare most of your food from scratch, there are plenty of quick and convenient ways to cook up a delicious vegan meal. Many meals can be plated up in five to 30 minutes, and although some might require longer in the oven, they only take minutes to prepare.

There are also some staple groceries that it makes sense to keep stocked up in your cupboards and fridge. Therefore, when you’re pushed for time, you always have a few things you can throw together for a satisfying meal. These could include tinned pulses, tinned tomatoes, tofu, broccoli, oats, bananas, nut butter, bread, instant noodles, frozen vegetables, pasta, pesto and soy sauce – they don’t all have to be used together!

A great way to save time preparing food is to get to grips with a handful of easy but delicious and satisfying recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can then ensure you have the ingredients on hand when you need them. Vegan Recipe Club has a library of Almost Instant Vegan Recipes for when time is of the essence.

Quick breakfast ideas:

Quick lunch ideas:

Quick dinner ideas:

For more quick and budget-friendly recipes, go to Vegan Recipe Club or download the app.