Nasoya’s Plantspired Meal Solutions allow you to create fast, flavor-forward, and nutritious plant-based meals in no time!

The last few weeks of December are always busy. Even under the circumstances this year, they involved a lot of frantic catching up.

Not to mention all of the extra cooking and baking.

January is often full of encouragement (and sometimes pressure) to cook and meal prep from scratch. I’m not sure about you, but I can’t remember the last time I entered a new year as fatigued as I feel right now.

So I’m giving myself permission—and issuing an invitation to anyone who needs to hear it—to keep things simple. Embrace a shortcut or two. Give yourself a break from time to time.

In this context, I couldn’t be more grateful for fast, semi-homemade meals. It’s a stroke of good fortunate that Nasoya’s new Plantspired dishes have entered my life.

What are Plantspired Meal Solutions?

Nasoya tofu has been my tofu of choice for many years now. It’s a wonderful product, always organic, always non-GMO, and available in many different consistencies.

I use the firm, extra firm, and super firm for marinating and baking, as well as stir fries and hash. It’s even the base of my homemade vegan cream cheese. Meanwhile, I turn to the silken tofu for dressings and soups.

Nasoya’s Plantspired Meal Solutions are the perfect bridge between plain tofu and a complete, home-cooked meal. They are available in two plant-based options: a pre-seasoned, pre-cooked, ready to heat chili and a classic Bolognese.

Tofu is the central protein in both meals. The hearty chili also contains kidney beans, which give it extra protein and extra fiber.

Both meals come ready-to-eat. They simply need some heating in a skillet before serving. They feature rich, flavorful sauces with lots of spices.

How to serve Plantspired Meal Solutions

I like to think of the Plantspired dishes as meal starters. They’re the central protein for a plant-based meal.

To turn them into a balanced meal with all three macronutrients (in other words, a Power Plate!), you need only add your favorite starch or whole grain.

Serving Plantspired Hearty Chili Meal Solutions

A few ideas for serving the Hearty Chili:

• Over a baked sweet or white potato
• With my whole grain vegan cornbread or my pumpkin cornbread
• With grits
• On a toasted burger bun (Sloppy Joe style)
• With brown rice

As you can see, that’s what I’ve been doing a lot lately! And I love some vegan cheese shreds on top. A few more topping ideas:

• Vegan sour cream
• Chopped green onions
• Yum sauce
• Cashew cream
• Toasted pepitas

Serving Plantspired Classic Bolognese Meal Solutions

The Plantspired Classic Bolognese is equally versatile!

To be honest, I’ve been very content piling it on top of pasta, and I have no plans of stopping soon. But there are many other options. You could serve it:

• Over farro
• With zoodles (or another veggie pasta)
• In toasted ciabatta, maybe with some garlicky sautéed greens
• Mixed with veggies and bake over pizza crust
• Over toast

And, just as with the chili, you can further customize your Plantspired Meal Solutions by playing around with different toppings. My choices:

• Vegan parmesan
• Vegan mozzarella-style shreds
• Cubed bread or bread crumbs (a great use for bread that’s about to get a little stale!)

By the way, I’ve made a lot of different attempts at vegan Bolognese. I’ve used lentils, mushrooms, cauliflower, vegan meats, vegan sausage. Nothing I’ve made is quite what I want it to be—yet.

But this tofu Bolognese hits the spot. It’s the Bolognese I’ve been most happy with, even though I didn’t make up the recipe myself! There’s something to be said for turning kitchen projects over to the experts sometimes.

Plantspired nutrition

The Plantspired Hearty Chili Meal Solutions feature thirteen grams of plant protein in each serving. That’s a good amount, and it becomes even more robust if you add some veggies or protein-rich accompaniments to the meal.

The chili also packs in six grams of fiber and an impressive 20% of the recommended daily allowance of iron for adults. The Bolognese is equally robust.

These meals are intended to provide good, balanced nutrition for plant-based eaters who don’t always have time to cook from scratch.

Meet yourself where you are

Speaking of that, it’s worth mentioning  a conversation that I have with my nutrition clients on a near weekly basis.

It usually begins when I recommend a vegan product—or a whole slew of products—that are intended to help someone cut back on cooking while also eating wholesome, plant-based foods.

My clients often express incredulity, or even a little discomfort around this. I think we all like to cling to the idea that we can do it all ourselves. All the work, all the caretaking, all the cooking.

But one of the biggest lessons I learned in 2020 was to meet myself where I am. And I mean that I really learned it, in the sense that I accepted it and acted on it, rather than talking about it.

I stopped trying to do everything. Month by month, I learned to accept that there are some things I really don’t have energy for. Even if they seem doable, and even if I’ve been able to do them regularly in the past.

This isn’t the past. It’s the present.

The longer I do nutrition work, the longer I observe how profoundly healthy a realistic mindset is. Elaborate meal planning isn’t worthwhile if a person is too exhausted, distracted, or busy to actually cook the food. Wholesome vegan products are much better than “homemade” food that never gets cooked at all.

And products like the Plantspired dishes prove that semi-homemade can be as wholesome and nourishing as anything one might make from scratch.

A healthy, practical new year

As we kick off a new year, I cheer you on in meeting yourself where you are, not where you wish you were. It’s great to have goals and intentions, of course. But creating steady habits usually feels better than short-lived bursts of effort. And habits develop when we aim to do what’s actually achievable.

Or, to quote the yoga teacher whose words left such an impact on me years ago: “when it can be easy, let it be easy.”

Thanks to Nasoya and its Plantspired Meal Solutions for making my holiday season a little easier. You can check out the Nasoya website to learn more about how I plated these tasty dinners!

• Plantspired Chili Rice Bowl
• Plantspired Bolognese Bowl

xo

This post is sponsored by Nasoya. All opinions are my own. Thanks for your support!