Plant-Based on a Budget: Delicious Vegan Recipes for Under $30 a Week, in Less Than 30 Minutes a Meal
Eat vegan—for less!
Between low-paying jobs, car troubles, student loans, vet bills, and trying to pay down credit card debt, Toni Okamoto spent most of her early adult life living paycheck to paycheck. So when she became a vegan at age 20, she worried: How would she be able to afford that kind of lifestyle change?
Then she discovered how to be plant-based on a budget.
Through her popular website, Toni has taught hundreds of thousands of people how to eat a plant-strong diet while saving money in the process. With Plant-Based on a Budget, going vegan is not only an attainable goal, but the best choice for your health, the planet—and your wallet.
Toni’s guidance doesn’t just help you save money—it helps you save time, too. Every recipe in this book can be ready in around 30 minutes or less.
Through her imaginative and incredibly customizable recipes, Toni empowers readers to make their own substitutions based on the ingredients they have on hand, reducing food waste in the process.
Inside discover 100 of Toni’s “frugal but delicious” recipes, including:
- 5-Ingredient Peanut Butter Bites
- Banana Zucchini Pancakes
- Sick Day Soup
- Lentils and Sweet Potato Bowl
- PB Ramen Stir Fry
- Tofu Veggie Gravy Bowl
- Jackfruit Carnita Tacos
- Depression Era Cupcakes
- Real Deal Chocolate Chip Cookies
With a foreword by Michael Greger, MD, Plant-Based on a Budget gives you everything you need to make plant-based eating easy, accessible, and most of all, affordable.
Featured in the groundbreaking documentary What the Health
Reviews (193)
NOT Plant-Based
This book should be called “Vegan on a Budget.” Most of the recipes contain oil, which is not a part of your typical plant-based lifestyle. If you do not use oil, don’t bother buying this. WASTE OF MONEY.
I thought I knew a lot about cooking on a budget ....
I thought I knew a lot about cooking on a budget but I was still eagerly awaiting this cookbook's arrival as I had pre-ordered it some time ago, and it arrived this morning! I'm one of those people who will read a cookbook from cover to cover if I find anything useful in the early sections, and I'm so glad that this book does not disappoint at all. From the interesting "My Story" section to the tips for new cooks and seasoned cooks alike, and to the interesting recipes that are going to be really easy to make, I'm so looking forward to cooking from this book. In the past, I'd never have reviewed a cookbook without cooking from it, but it's plain to see that the recipes are wonderful, very budget-friendly, creative and are going to be easy to put together. Tomorrow I'll be making the Banana Zucchini Pancakes for breakfast and the Tofu Scramble for lunch. The Overnight Oats looks and sounds so delicious, I think that will be breakfast for the following day! Everything looks so fresh and interesting that I really want to try every single recipe in this book, and I shall. I like Toni's little stories and the one about her dad holding up the line in a grocery store while making sure he was getting the sale price on an item when she was little, took me back to my childhood and grocery shopping with my mom because she'd do the same thing. Anytime I said "Mom, everyone is looking at us" if mom was taking too long to pick something at the market, or trying to decide if she should put something back, I'd get the same response, "So? They're not paying our grocery bill!" LOL!! Can't wait til' I try every single recipe from this creative cookbook. I'll post updates as I try the recipes.
Crazy Yummy Food Approved by Vegan Jesus
This book is beautifully laid out and the photos are perfect. We used the Plant-Based on a Budget meal plans when we first went Vegan and it really took all the guesswork out of what to eat. We love all the recipes and are so excited to have such a gorgeous cookbook to use all the time. It also has a forward from Dr. Michael Greger, who is our Vegan Jesus (nothing against Earthling Ed), so you know its legit.
Delicious and easy with no weird ingredients needed!
I love cookbooks and trying new things to keep food interesting. However, I hate having to buy some random spice or ingredient I will never use again. This cookbook is PERFECTION. I can flip open to almost any page and create a recipe because it calls for ingredients I buy regularly! The recipes are delicious, quick, and EASY. Did I mention delicious!? Even with a family of picky eaters I can find something in here everyone will enjoy. Being plant based is so important to me and my family and this cookbook is a life saver. Also, follow @plantbasedonabudget on IG! She’s amazing.
This book is boring and useless
This book was useless. It has a million staged photos of the author pretending to eat. That’s like 30% of your book. Ugh. It hardly has any recipes and is way too simple. There are pages on just how to cook plain beans. As if it’s hard or like each bean is sooo different it needs a whole new page. Apples with peanut butter. Oatmeal. A baked sweet potato. Add a vegetable to pasta. Add a vegetable to rice. Have avocado on toast. Then have hummus on toast. Eat soup. Have ramen noodles. No creativity at all. Yes, just eating rice and pasta and potatoes is cheap. But it’s boring and that’s why I was looking for cookbooks. I don’t need a “recipe” to add water to oatmeal.
I feel like an actual cook
I thoroughly enjoy the style of Toni’s book. I like that there are tips from her and others that have tried her recipes. I also like that there is a space after each recipe to put your own tips. It allows for more creativity instead of feeling like I have to stick to the recipe. I made her Minestrone Soup (pg.127) and it came out super delicious. It was perfect especially since I was sick. I added sugar snap peas since I had those available & instead of 2 cans of red beans I used 1 can of black and 1 can red beans. Thanks Toni for such a great cookbook!!
Favorite Plant Based Cookbook
Love everything about this book. It has photos with each recipe, new receipes that arent in any of my new plant base cookbooks, list of grocery staples, informative information, one person meal plan, and much more. It has became my new favorite cookbook.
Healthy, tasty, easy and budget-friendly - perfect for this busy mom!
To summarize my review, this is an awesome cookbook, whether or not you are fully plant-based. I preordered the book and got it earlier this week and have already made several recipes. They have been so good that I plan to work my way through the entire book over the next few months. Today my 3-year old daughter and I made Five-Ingredient Peanut Butter Bites (“cookies”) for a snack, and she loved them. Healthy, tasty, easy and budget-friendly - which is perfect for a busy working mom. !
Great resource
Such a beautiful and helpful book for staying on track with my health and financial goals.
Full of flavor and cheap!
I would buy this book again just for the tofu veggie pasta recipe, it is so good and so cheap! My teenager loves it, too. This is not a book that requires a lot of expensive ingredients that you may not use again. I have too many cookbooks sitting on my shelf with recipes I have not tried because of the specialty ingredients. This book is definitely not in that category. For example, the peanut sauce uses red pepper flakes instead of chili paste. The book has almost 100 recipes by my quick count, almost all with pictures. The vast majority are oil-free or have a substitute listed, there are about three that don't have a substitute. I feel like the plant-based world has been waiting for this cookbook for a long time, don't hesitate to purchase it.
