The first place to get protein as a vegan is from certain fruits and vegetables, I bet you didn’t realize that spinach and cauliflower are a complete protein. There are many ways to eat these two vegetables. I don’t like to overcook spinach, but I usually cook cauliflower to the point that it is soft, either by steaming or sautéing it. In my opinion, cauliflower is a great substitute for rice and is healthier than traditional white rice. I often mix it with curry or beans like rice or quinoa. I make my salads with spinach instead of plain, watery lettuce. Spinach has a high nutritional value that makes it the perfect substitute, so I like to mix it with avocado, oil, and chickpeas to make it creamier and more chewy. Some fruits are believed to be complete in protein, such as goji berries, because they contain 18 amino acids. I usually buy dried goji berries by the pound at my local organic grocery store and eat them with my other dried nuts and seeds. These fruits and vegetables are one of the many options that nature offers for protein.

Nuts and seeds are a perfect snack to give you what you need in terms of amino acids. Walnuts, chestnuts, pumpkin seeds, cashews, chia seeds, hemp seeds have all the necessary amino acids to be considered a complete protein. There are many ways to incorporate these foods into your diet, such as baking granola bars and adding nuts and seeds to them or mixing these nuts and seeds into a paste and mixing it with fruit preserves in some bread to make a tasty sandwich. Another cool thing I like to do is get the hemp in powdered form and mix it in almond milk with a healthy natural sweetener and psyllium husk for fiber. You can also get a lot of these nuts and seeds in powdered form and mix them into your guacamole, which is what I do. You can also mix the powder into your pancake or muffin batter etc. Although I normally eat most of these protein sources throughout the day, if I want to avoid cooking, you don’t have to, it’s entirely up to you.

The third place I get my protein from is peas, quinoa, and lentils. You can consume these ingredients already baked into chips, boiled, etc. My main way of preparing them is in a large pot of boiling water with a little salt and maybe other seasonings added. Once that’s done, don’t be afraid to give it a creamy vegan twist by adding avocados to it. You can also use quinoa, peas, and lentils in flour form and make a variety of things, from desserts to breakfast foods, substituting wheat flour in your favorite recipe. I have bought pea, quinoa, and lentil chips many times. This way of consuming complete protein makes for a quick vegan snack. I usually make my guacamole to go with the fries.