If you are looking to up your intake of vegetables or just want to have a vegetarian yet keto dinner, try one of these 27 meatless keto dinner recipes. In this week’s keto meal plan we have everything from vegetable noodles, to cauliflower rice to flatbreads for your meatless Monday.
Please check out all of our weekly keto meal plans!
I don’t know if it’s the warmer weather that makes me want to make lighter meals, but I thought this week’s meal plan should be all about all veggie dinners.
Lately I’ve been trying to add more vegetables to my diet and make a few meatless dinners for my family. That’s why today I am sharing 27 keto meatless dinner recipes with you.
Can you eat vegetarian on a keto diet?
Yes you can. Some people think keto is all about meat and fat and that is truly not what it’s all about. The keto diet started out to help people who had seizures and it’s now said to reduce inflammation and lower many health risks.
There are actually keto vegetarians, vegans and pescatarians. Here’s a good Keto-tarian Cookbook if you are interested. While I’m not personally interested in going vegetarian I do think it would be good to have a few meatless keto meals everyone once in awhile.
Reasons to try a few meatless dinners on a keto diet.
- It’s more economical to have a meatless dinner. As a whole meat is usually the most expensive part of the dinner. If you are focusing more on vegetables you will definitely spend less at the grocery store.
- It’s a good way to up your fiber intake. Fruits and vegetables are high in fiber which is not the case with beef, pork, fish and poultry.
- Meat dinners are usually higher in calories than vegetarian dinners. While the keto diet doesn’t emphasize calories, you can eat too many which will halt your weight loss. So having a meatless keto dinner once in awhile might be advantageous calorie wise.
- You can’t get Vitamin C and flavonoids from meat.
However there are nutrients that you can’t get from vegetables that you can from meat such as Vitamin B12. (read more) That’s why it’s good IMO to have a balance in your meals.
Vegetables that are fairly high in protein.
Note the following values were for 100g which is equivalent to different amounts in cups for each vegetable. For example 100g of Brussels sprouts is about ½ cups while for spinach 100g can be 2-3 cups. The source is US Department of Agriculture. (Source: USDA)
- brussels sprouts – 3.98 g protein per 100g raw
- asparagus – 1.44 g protein per 100g raw
- broccoli – 2.57g protein per 100g raw
- avocado – 1.81g protein per 100g raw
- baby spinach – 2.85g protein per 100g raw
- artichokes – 3.27g protein per 100g raw
- edamame – 11.2g protein per 100g raw
- portobello mushrooms – 2.11g protein per 100g raw
And remember nuts and seeds are all very high in protein too. Some of the best being pistachios, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts and cashews. And for seeds there is pumpkin, hemp, chia, flax and sunflower seeds. (good article for this)
So if you are up for adding a meatless meal every once in awhile summer is a good time to try it. With farmer’s markets and fresh produce in season you will have a good selection to play around with.
I hope you enjoy this list of meatless keto dinner recipes. Maybe you can find one or two to add to your regular meal rotation.
27 Meatless Keto Dinners
These 27 low carb meatless dinners are great for a change of pace and to up your veggie intake! There is everything from vegetable noodles to savory waffles to flatbreads.
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H Westner says
I’m a retured dietitian. Your protein values for vegetables like Brussels sprouts, broccoli etc at the beginning of this article are wrong. Brussels sprouts for example only have 5g protein per cup cooked.
Denise Wright says
Thank you for pointing that out. The source I used is no longer there so I updated the information and took it directly from the USDA.