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!
Vegan Pantry (recipes with 10 staple ingredients)
Vegan Pantry is a book of 100 tasty recipes, based around 10 staple ingredients that you likely have in your kitchen all the time. This not only saves money but stops food waste, as you just buy fresh fruits and veggies and a few other ingredients, to add to the staples for varied delicious meals.
The 10 Staple Ingredients
- Oats
- Canned Tomatoes
- Pulses
- Citrus
- Pasta
- Coconut Milk
- Peanut Butter
- Tofu
- Grains
- Jackfruit (a bit more unusual!)
The extra ingredients you need to make these meals are:
- Fresh fruits and vegetables
- Non-dairy milks
- Herbs and spices
- Sea salt and black pepper
- Oils, flour and sugar
If you don’t like cookbooks that require you to find 10 different shops to buy the ingredients, then you’ll love Katy’s books! Her latest offering shows a real understanding that most people don’t live near swanky farm shops (and if they do, can’t afford the prices).
Recipes include:
- Baked Bean Waffle Pie
- Cinnamon & Hazelnut Granola
- Garlic Mushroom Sausages with Creamy Mash
- Creamy Chickpea, Sage & Kale Soup
- Cacio e Pepe-style Butter Beans
- Cauliflower Mac & Cheese
- Fennel & Grapefruit Salad
- Date, Chickpea & Lemon Tagine
- Corn-on-the-cob
There are always plenty of delicious desserts in Katy’s book! The simple affordable ones in this book include:
- Limoncello Tiramisu
- Pistachio, Mango & Coconut Kulfi
- Vegan Creme Brulee
Consider shopping at fruit and vegetable markets, for good prices on seasonal produce. Overheads are less than supermarket chains, so savings can be passed onto the consumer. Be cautious of coupons and vouchers, and purchase only what you will actually use, no matter what the discount.
Tonnes of cooked rice are wasted due to overestimating volumes of uncooked rice (90g of uncooked rice will serve one person – chill unused rice in the fridge for up to 24 hours and thoroughly reheat before serving).
Author Katy Beskow is one of England’s best-selling vegan cookbook authors. She learned to cook while studying in London, and returning to Yorkshire, she began creating affordable no-nonsense recipes, with her blog leading to the first cookbook, and now there’s an army of books!
The Little Book of Vegan Student Food
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!
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).
