Plant-Based on a Budget: Delicious Vegan Recipes for Under $30 a Week, in Less Than 30 Minutes a Meal

I am so late to the game — Toni is incredible. She was even listed as #38 among the most influential vegans in 2017! Her recipes have popped up in my feed for years, but I never really took the time to explore her work. Now I can’t get enough. The recipes actually work, they’re delicious, approachable, and adaptable to your own dietary needs. You can always reduce or omit oils or adjust ingredients however you like. What really stands out is her passion for making plant-based eating affordable, accessible, and enjoyable for anyone wanting to make it the center of a healthier lifestyle journey.

In Plant-Based on a Budget, Toni Okamoto offers a practical and inspiring guide for anyone looking to embrace a vegan lifestyle without financial stress. Drawing from her own experiences of living paycheck to paycheck, Toni reveals how she transitioned to a plant-based diet while navigating the challenges of low-income living. This comprehensive cookbook features 100 delicious and budget-friendly recipes, all designed to be ready in 30 minutes or less, making plant-based eating not only attainable but also convenient. The recipes range from 5-Ingredient Peanut Butter Bites and Banana Zucchini Pancakes to hearty dishes like Sick Day Soup and Jackfruit Carnita Tacos. Toni’s imaginative and customizable approach encourages readers to make substitutions based on available ingredients, which helps reduce food waste and maximize savings. With a foreword by Michael Greger, MD, Plant-Based on a Budget is an essential resource that demystifies vegan cooking, showing that anyone can enjoy healthy, flavorful meals without spending a fortune. This book empowers readers to take control of their diets and finances, proving that healthy eating can be both affordable and delicious.

This book is the best investment I’ve ever made! I’ve started a plant based vegan diet due to diabetes and heart disease. Along my journey I’ve purchased a few cookbooks that was confusing, had no pictures, just hard to understand. I came across the Arthur on Instagram and fell in love with her recipes. I immediately came here to Amazon and purchased this book. I received it in the mail 2 days later, got to cooking up some of the best meals I’ve ever tried and so simple! I’m on a budget as well so none of the recipes called for any extravagant ingredients to go out and buy or order. Everything is so affordable and cooking is made fun especially when you can have food that’s good and healthy. My doctors are astonished how my A1C went from 12 heart attack to under a 7, I’ve lost 60 pounds within 6 months and still loosing weight! Listen anyone who’s reading this please understand if you’re suffering from serious health issues I highly recommend talking to your doctor before starting a diet of course but eating healthy should be everyone’s number 1 concern. If you want to reverse diabetes, heart disease, possibly fibromyalgia start here. Toni Okamoto’s book is so beautifully written and illustrated. She explains everything where you can understand this lifestyle so easy. The recipes are so simple and so mouthwatering amazing. I highly recommend this book!

Just what it says it is--a real vegan, really inexpensive, simple, good-tasting recipe book. I'm sure the author actually made and enjoyed eating the recipes herself; it's that good. Useful even if you aren't vegan but want a mostly plant-based diet. Just add an egg or two, a few pieces of cooked chicken, use real instead of plant-based milk. No exotic time-consuming, unavailable or expensive procedures or ingredients are required This book is for real, really busy health-conscious folks with plenty of other things to do.

I decided to go plant based on 12-1-19 I have diabetes type 2. I spent over $200 to take 16 weeks of nutrition classes telling me CARBS are the problem in causing my diabetes to remain. What a bunch of bunk. Because of the misinformed information I had been given for years, my glucose remained high even though I followed their directions to a T. I started to study Plant based eating and what Dr Neil Bernard was teaching about how I could reverse my diabetes........and Carbs were not the problem. I was a newbie and had no idea how to begin. Then I discovered Toni’s cookbook. It was just what I needed. Very easy to read telling me what items I needed to purchase and how to prepare them. The recipes were easy and delicious. In the past I had been spending over $100 a week; with her wonderful guidance in this book I found myself spending $30 or less a week. Her book is a great way to start your new path on a plant-based diet. It is well written and it provides everything you need to know to start your new journey. I am so grateful for this information that she has provided in this wonderful book with great pictures. As of January 5th, I have lost 4 1/2 pounds and my waking glucose has been between 127 and 135 when prior to this it was 185 or 200. Thinking this was my last shot at trying to improve my health I had no idea that it would be this successful this fast. Toni’s book is a wonderful way to start on a plant-based diet. She has written a very helpful book and I would recommend it to everyone that is trying to change their life by losing weight and reducing glucose. I will never go back to eating meat, dairy products or eggs. I encourage everyone to get this book and use it faithfully; it will change your life too.

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.

I was looking for cookbooks specifically for vegetarian on a very tight budget, as I'm seriously struggling financially right now. Her book is one of the only TWO books I found that's a vegetarian on a budget book that's inexpensive. (Why sell a budget book for 20 dollars? We're not gonna buy it.. we're on a BUDGET) I saw numerous familiar recipes, and substitutes I've known about for a long time. Tried and true. But I got a VERY pleasant surprise when I saw this book is LOADED with foods ive been wanting to learn how to make! They are as follows: Homemade hummus Homemade cheese Homemade Chili Vegetable broth Butternut Squash soup Fried Tofu cubes Homemade milk Pumpkin Pie Banana Bread Homemade Pie crust Homemade ice cream that DOESNT use soy milk! I hate soy ice cream. (she includes chocolate, peanut butter, and fruit flavors. I'm going to try also making vanilla and mint chocolate chip!) And I can't wait to make this and share with my vegan friends. (I'm a vegetarian) The only thing I wish it had that it doesn't is a homemade bread recipe. She leaves room for your own notes on every recipe, which is MOST helpful for a quick reference of your own alterations. I'm gonna be needing this space. At the end, she has a small chapter on how to eat for around $30 a week. She tells you specifically what to buy, and specifically how to cook it. There's no guesswork. She seems truly sympathetic to us po folk. Maybe cause she used to be one of us. And as someone that practices herbalism, I fully approve of the sick day soup. I highly, highly recommend this book.

I wouldn’t have purchased if I had skimmed through the recipes in person. The section ‘one pot meals’ is 90% soup and she includes recipes for stuff like guacamole, salsa, and queso which seems redundant. But, she does have lots other recipes and a pretty lengthy optional additions section for each which I appreciate. And the deserts are bomb. Just wish there was more variety in the one-pot section.

Great book

Lo compré para un regalo y la verdad que trae muchas recetas variadas. Súper sencillo y con ingredientes que puedes encontrar en cualquier supermercado. Como punto negativo se echa de menos una variedad de especias en las comidas para potenciar el sabor de los platos.

Very easy recipes that are tasty, well balanced and easy to prepare. Lots of different recipes that give choices when you want something crunchy or comforting.

One of the drawbacks of some cookbooks is the difficulty in finding the ingredients, or they are "specialty" items that are not affordable. This book is great because it is accessible to anyone, regardless of income. Most of the ingredients can be purchased at any grocery store, and many would already exist in a typical kitchen. The instructions are straight forward and there are photos of the finished dishes. This book is a fantastic introduction to healthful, plant-based fare that doesn't involve restocking your kitchen with new and unfamiliar foodstuff.

WOW fantastic Plant-Base recipe book. Plenty of healthy ideas for meal planning.