🌱 One week, one simple plan, lots of leftovers doing the heavy lifting. This sample week comes from the VA’s free guide Practical Plant-Based Cooking. Tap any recipe name to open it in the guide. 📖
🧭 A gentle note: This is general cooking information for learning, not personal medical or nutrition advice. If you have kidney disease, diabetes, food allergies, are pregnant, or take medicines affected by diet, please check with your clinician or registered dietitian before big changes.
☀️ Sunday
- 🌅 Breakfast: Microwave Blueberry-Walnut Oatmeal (guide p. 29)
- 🥗 Lunch: Green Lentil and Vegetable Soup (guide p. 60), Mixed Green Side Salad (guide p. 74), fruit
- 🍚 Dinner: Simple Vegetable Stir-Fry over Rice (guide p. 44), fruit
- 📝 Tip: Save stir-fry for Monday’s lunch and soup for Monday’s dinner.
🌙 Monday
- 🌅 Breakfast: Green Machine Fruit Smoothie (guide p. 32), toast with avocado and eggs
- 🥗 Lunch: Stir-fry leftovers, fruit
- 🌮 Dinner: Black Bean Vegetable Tacos (guide p. 41), lentil soup leftovers
- 📝 Tip: Save tacos for Tuesday’s lunch.
🌤️ Tuesday
- 🌅 Breakfast: Peanut Butter-Berry Toast (guide p. 35), scrambled eggs
- 🥗 Lunch: Taco leftovers
- 🍛 Dinner: Curried Tofu Vegetable Skillet (guide p. 46), fruit
- 📝 Tip: Save curry for Wednesday’s lunch. Stir together tomorrow’s overnight oatmeal tonight.
🌿 Wednesday
- 🌅 Breakfast: Cinnamon-Raisin Overnight Oatmeal (guide p. 28)
- 🥗 Lunch: Curry leftovers, fruit
- 🍆 Dinner: Ratatouille-Inspired Warm Quinoa Salad (guide p. 65)
- 📝 Tip: Save quinoa salad for Thursday. Peel, slice, and freeze a banana for tomorrow’s shake.
⚡ Thursday
- 🌅 Breakfast: Peanut Butter-and-Jelly Protein Milkshake (guide p. 90)
- 🥗 Lunch: Quinoa salad leftovers
- 🫘 Dinner: Three-Bean Chili (guide p. 56), Mixed Green Side Salad
- 📝 Tip: Save chili for Friday. Start slow-cooker oatmeal tonight.
🎉 Friday
- 🌅 Breakfast: Slow Cooker Apple Harvest Oatmeal (guide p. 30), scrambled eggs
- 🥗 Lunch: Chili leftovers, Mixed Green Side Salad
- 🍝 Dinner: Spaghetti with Vegetable Sauce (guide p. 71), steamed broccoli, fruit
- 📝 Tip: Save oatmeal and spaghetti for Saturday.
🌲 Saturday
- 🌅 Breakfast: Breakfast Egg Muffins (guide p. 34), oatmeal leftovers
- 🥗 Lunch: Spaghetti leftovers, steamed broccoli, fruit
- 🍔 Dinner: Baked Chipotle Bean Burgers (guide p. 50), steamed broccoli, microwave-baked sweet potato
- 🌡️ Tip: Bake egg muffins until a thermometer reads 160°F. Extras keep 3–4 days in the fridge.
🔄 Kitchen Monk Swap Ideas
These are Kitchen Monk suggestions, not part of the VA plan.
- 🍳 Want it egg-free? Try the tofu filling from Vegan Breakfast Tacos (guide p. 36) in place of scrambled eggs or egg muffins.
- 🍁 Choose maple syrup instead of honey in the salad dressing.
- 🌻 The VA guide suggests other nut or seed butters (like sunflower seed butter) in place of peanut butter.
⚠️ Allergens this week: soy, peanuts, walnuts, wheat, eggs, milk, sesame, and coconut. Swaps are ideas, not promises of safety for allergies or medical diets. Always read labels, since recipes and packaged foods can change.
🧊 Leftover safety: Refrigerate within 2 hours, eat within 3–4 days, and reheat to 165°F.
🗺️ More From the Free Guide
On some phones the guide opens at page 1. Just scroll to the page shown on the button.
🖨️ To print this week, use your browser’s Print button (Ctrl+P or Cmd+P).
ℹ️ About This Page
The sample week is adapted from Practical Plant-Based Cooking by the GEMS Clinical Work Group with the Nutrition and Food Services Healthy Teaching Kitchen, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (May 2023), guide p. 14. Recipes appear only in the original guide. Kitchen Monk is independent and is not sponsored or endorsed by the VA. The original PDF is not tagged for screen readers.
Written by Nathanael Elijah Smith, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, DipACLM, with AI-assisted drafting · Clinically reviewed by Nathanael · Independent external review: not yet completed · Last updated: October 2026
