15 Cheap Vegetarian Recipes That Don’t Sacrifice Flavor

Bean and cheese burritos, broccoli mac and cheese, easy quesadillas and more — because you’re not made of money.

Expensive ingredients do not a delicious meal make. In fact, some of the most satisfying vegetarian recipes from New York Times Cooking are also the most affordable, highlighting the versatility of vegetables, legumes and tofu — and the skillfulness of the cooks who, time and again, prove that less really can be more.

1. Creamy Cottage Cheese Basil Pasta

Blend your greens — that’s what Ali Slagle recommends for this quick, comforting pasta that gets a boost of protein and creaminess from cottage cheese. It’s the perfect dish for the spinach and basil wilting in the back of your fridge.

Recipe: Creamy Cottage Cheese Basil Pasta

2. Egg and Cheese Quesadilla

It doesn’t get more reliably wallet-friendly than eggs and melted cheese in a tortilla. Ali Slagle’s foolproof instructions: Flip the tortilla onto the cooked egg so that everything adheres. Make sure you sprinkle the cheese generously so that some of it turns into a fricolike crispy edge.

Recipe: Egg and Cheese Quesadilla

3. Old Bay Tofu Nuggets

Prep these oven-roasted nuggets from Ali Slagle ahead of time, or eat them fresh over rice. Extra-firm or firm tofu gets coated in hot sauce, then flour and Old Bay to evoke your favorite fried treats from the seaside.

Recipe: Old Bay Tofu Nuggets

4. Buttered Cabbage and Eggs

You barely need a recipe for this elegant, reader-favorite dish from Christian Reynoso. Thinly sliced cabbage gets cooked in butter, then eggs are lightly steamed atop — and that’s it. One reader described this dish as “the best way yet that I’ve found to cook cabbage!”

Recipe: Buttered Cabbage and Eggs

5. Vegetable Tofu Curry

This recipe from Genevieve Ko is suitable for whatever vegetables you have on hand — broccoli, green beans, peas, you name it — so no need to run out to the store just to make it. Beyond your preferred vegetables, you’ll need little else: Some tofu, a can of coconut milk, an onion and a tablespoon of curry powder do the trick.

Recipe: Vegetable Tofu Curry

6. Roasted White Bean and Tomato Pasta

At the intersection of sheet-pan meals and 30-minute pastas is this smart recipe from Alexa Weibel. White beans and cherry tomatoes are roasted on a sheet pan before they’re tossed with the pasta shape of your choice for a creamy sauce with a bit of texture and a lot of flavor.

Recipe: Roasted White Bean and Tomato Pasta

7. Fried Eggs and Potatoes

Sure, a carton of eggs is hardly “cheap” these days. But when a recipe requires only five ingredients (not including salt, pepper or oil), you get a return on your investment. Naz Deravian caters to breakfast-for-dinner lovers here, nestling eggs into pockets of perfectly cooked, tomatoey nuggets of potato.

Recipe: Fried Eggs and Potatoes

8. Spring Barley Soup

Asparagus and peas for spring? Groundbreaking. But a couple of fresh (or frozen!) vegetables go a long way in brightening a bowl of subtly seasoned barley. Ali Slagle spikes the broth with soy sauce, miso, ginger and rice vinegar, so it’s both comforting and invigorating.

Recipe: Spring Barley Soup

9. Sook Mei Faan (Cantonese Creamed Corn With Tofu and Rice)

If you’ve ever stocked up on frozen corn without much of a plan, look no further than this recipe from Hetty McKinnon. For a cream-free creamed corn, thawed kernels are blitzed in a blender to release their starches, then seasoned with ginger, garlic and scallions, and mixed with vegetable stock and a cornstarch slurry. The result is a sweet and savory topping for cool silken tofu.

Recipe: Sook Mei Faan (Cantonese Creamed Corn With Tofu and Rice)

10. Gochujang Potato Stew

When your pantry is stocked with flavor-packed staples like gochujang, brown sugar, soy sauce and garlic, you can easily toss together a hearty stew with just a couple of cheap vegetables and a can of beans. This aromatic one-pot meal from Eric Kim leans on baby potatoes, Tuscan kale and cannellini beans for plenty of heft, but serving it with some steamed white rice will ensure no one leaves the table hungry.

Recipe: Gochujang Potato Stew

11. One-Pot Broccoli Mac and Cheese

“Deceptively simple; incredibly delicious.” Take it from the comments: While this Ali Slagle recipe is rife for riffing, as written, it is the ideal combination of smart technique and affordable, staple ingredients. Add more spices if you like, toss in extra broccoli if you’ve got it — it’s sure to satisfy.

Recipe: One-Pot Broccoli Mac and Cheese

12. Bean and Cheese Burritos

Freezer-friendly? Protein- and fiber-packed? Cheap? These quick burritos filled with buttery refried beans are a little bit of everything. Mashing the pinto beans with some pico de gallo, as Kay Chun does here, balances the richness of the filling for burritos that taste like they took three times the time.

Recipe: Bean and Cheese Burritos

13. Parmesan Cabbage Soup

To minimize food waste and be economical, save those Parmesan rinds. When simmered in water or broth, as Melissa Clark does here, they add complex savoriness without needing to buy additional ingredients. Cabbage and rice lend plenty of body to this soup, which manages to be humble and luxurious all at once.

Recipe: Parmesan Cabbage Soup

14. Cauliflower Piccata

Want to make simple vegetables taste expensive? Toss them in a silky, tangy piccata sauce made of little more than butter, lemon, capers, and sautéed garlic and shallot. Hetty McKinnon pairs roasted, lightly caramelized cauliflower florets with canned chickpeas for a well-rounded meal.

Recipe: Cauliflower Piccata

15. Quick White Bean and Celery Ragout

“The goal is a budget-friendly, healthy and easy meal: success,” one commenter wrote beneath this recipe from Alexa Weibel. But if you need more of a push, know that it is also endlessly adaptable. Readers have used asparagus in place of the zucchini, leeks instead of the scallions and topped it with all manner of creamy cheeses and pestos. Follow your heart!

Recipe: Quick White Bean and Celery Ragout

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