The Best Budget-Friendly Vegan Cookbooks

Learning to cook your own food is empowering, as you no longer have to rely on expensive plastic-wrapped ready-meals and takeaways. Master your favourite cuisines at home. Then every night is restaurant night!

Liv B’s Easy Everyday Recipes is a lovely book of recipes by a Canadian chef (who with her husband has hundreds of thousands of followers on her blog, and 1 million YouTube monthly views). You only get that with good recipes! This is effortless and inexpensive plant-based cooking.

Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (many ingredients are unsafe near animal friends). Bin allium scraps (onion, garlic, leeks, shallots, chives) as acids may harm compost creatures (same with tomato/citrus/rhubarb scraps).

Find over 100 recipes that are tasty and easy, baked on just 5 ingredients, or in one pot or baking tray. From meal prep to freezing instructions and from cooking tips to pressure cooker recipes, enjoy:

One Pot Mac n Cheese
Sheet Pan Pot Pie
One Pot Mushroom Stroganoff
Frying Pan Granola
Chorizo Tempeh Breakfast Wraps

Liv B’s Budget-Friendly Vegan Recipes

Also check out Liv’s other book: Liv B’s Vegan on a Budget. The author loves to share how easy it is to eat yummy plant-based meals that are fast and simple, with accessible ingredients that don’t break the bank. Recipes include:

Homemade Smoothies
Spicy Mango Salsa
Lasagne Soup
Ginger-Glazed Carrots
Sweet Sriracha Cauliflower Wraps
Tomato Fettuccini

Liv B (short for Olivia!) is one of Canada’s most popular recipe bloggers. She runs the site with her husband, who is also a mean cook!

The couple’s most popular recipe is this Vegan Big Mac Toast (5 ingredients), one of which is their vegan Big Mac sauce (just over 5 ingredients, including spices). So to be fair, this is 10 ingredients, but this is for two combined recipes!

The Little Book of Vegan Student Food

The Little Book of Vegan Student Food is not just for students, but for anyone on a budget, and those of us who prefer simple affordable recipes over big coffee-table books of recipes that often are too complicated or time-consuming or expensive to make.

Store cooked leftovers in the fridge for up to 2 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months (write date it was cooked, on the lid). Defrost thoroughly overnight in the fridge, and don’t refreeze or reheat.

You won’t find pictures of authors in their luxury kitchens in this book, just simple recipes made with simple ingredients (beans!) that you could start making this evening.

This pocket-size guide is handy to take with you to university or on holiday and is packed with nutritionally-sound plant-based meal that are tasty and easy-to-make. Spice up your student suppers with recipes easy enough to make on a hot-plate.

For example, the recipe for nachos just needs a can of beans and tortilla wraps, a tomato and onion, olive oil, a little vegan yoghurt and grated ‘cheese’, along with paprika, salt and pepper. And a squeeze of lemon. The recipe is simple to fit on one page.

Mid-Week Mac. While pasta cooks, make a roux with Flora plant-based butter (no palm oil), mustard, onion/garlic powder and cheesy-tasting nutritional yeast. Add flour to make a thick sauce, cook and add tomatoes and sweetcorn.

Simple Soup makes a nice garlic onion stock in broth, then just add a baked peeled pumpkin, cool and freeze into portions, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

Around half of all students are now plant-based, and the good news is that on campus, you don’t need much equipment. The must-haves include:

A set of affordable quality knives (and chopping board)
A saucepan and frying pan
A wooden spoon, mixing bowl and baking tray
A set of cup and spoon measures
A measuring jug (a 3/4 full standard mug is 250ml)

A Charity That Helps Young Vegans

The Vegetarian Charity is a small charity that gives grants to vegans and vegetarians under 26, who need help. You need to provide proof from two people, via signed reference requests.

Typical grants are for educational courses, special needs, and daily living (fridges, bedding, sewing machines etc).