Another question...Where are the microwavable vegan meals?

I love the quickness of being able to pop a lean cuisine into microwave and eat it for lunch not to mention that they are pretty cheap, so where can I find a vegetarian replacement for that kind of quick easy meal?

It's unfortunate but I haven't been able to find a CHEAP veg version. Amy's makes a ton of microwave stuff, a lot of it Vegan, but it's not near as cheap as lean cuisine or michelina's. Where do you live? Around here it's Kroger or Scott's that carry the best selections of Amy's and Fantastic World Foods (the others I eat when I can). I think I've seen some of them at WalMart (grr) and maybe Meijer, but I don't know where else to send you! :) Just look in the freezer section near the Boca or in the health food section of your local grocer!

I have heard weight watchers has some, but I have never seen them.  I think because most people who are veg*n are pretty health conscious, they don't make too much of this kind of thing since frozen dinners are generally unhealthy.  Not sure?  I prefer to just use my own leftovers for lunch.

If you really want to to vegetarian on the cheap you need to eat whole foods and take the time to prepare them.  Once you get used to doing this it's not hard at all and you can make lots of things in advance, bring them to work, and microwave them too (soups, vegetables, rice, beans, etc.).  Those frozen meals tend to have twice the recommended daily intake of sodium for the WHOLE day in just one package...

They are usually in the aisle with the meat substitutes and also in the frozen meal aisles. Amy's makes some great easy dinners, they cost about $ dollars where I live. Also Boca is good (it is in a red box). They have good soy burgers and good meatless nuggets, I usually cut up the nuggets and put them in a salad. They are soooooo good.

Amy's Kitchen has some very good ones. I have been preactically living on them for a few months. The flavor is excellent, well prepared and satisfying... I find them in the natural foods section in the freezer.  Good luck~  Try them... they really are great.

I just ate some Morning Star Veggie Bites(artichoke & spinach). They were delicious!!! I wish I could eat the whole box but that would be too many calories! I could have some more for my mid afternoon snack! I'm wondering if I can get the same type of snack from another brand that is cheaper. Hmmm...I may google that.

lean cuisine has a few vegetarian friendly, otherwise i go for amy's. but it's rarely on sale.... i usually won't have these more than once a week.  i found the things i like and i'll just make them in advance so i can grab them and bring them to work.  i'll make a whole pot of something and then just put it in tupperwares and take it with  me! 

Work your way through the Lean Cuisines, Smart Ones, Michelina's Lean Gourmet, etc at your local grocery store. I ate plenty of these when I first went vegetarian. I DO AGREE that eating whole foods and preparing it yourself is much healthier, but for someone like you who has ZERO time in the day for that stuff AND is just starting out, there is nothing wrong with going for the easy alternatives (for now). Lean pockets has a broccoli & cheddar and a 4 cheese pizza flavor. Michelina's and the others have some sort of mexican rice and beans type of thing, and plenty of meatless pasta meals like lasagna florentine and cheese ravioli. (See the pattern with the cheese though? So be careful..) I KNOW it's a lot of carbs and processed nonsense, but they are decently low in calories and if it keeps you from saying "screw it" and ordering pizza or stopping at Taco Bell, I say go for it, but of course eat them in moderation. You will eventually get bored with them anyway, and as you go forward in your vegetarian journey, you will learn recipes and meal preparing tricks along the way and eventually you won't want to eat those frozen meals anymore anyway. In the beginning, I had no idea what I was doing, and it took a lot of research and support from veg friends to sort it all out. Anyway, now that I've been doing the veg thing for a while (a year next month woo hoo!), I typically only buy the Amy's brand, and Whole Foods Market (which is over an hour from my house, ugghh!) has some that I like as well. Most of the time, I do what everyone else is saying and make a large batch of something you like and put them in containers and freeze/refrigerate them.

You will figure it all out. It's not an easy transition to make, especially if you are trying to go veg AND lose weight. But you CAN do it! (If I can do it, anyone can! Haha)

Good luck!!! 

so the microwave vegans meals are easy for sure not cheap but loaded in sodium.  I've been eating them because it's very easy but they're so HIGH in sodium.  I'm just going to start cooking meals in advance and freezing them.  Each meal is probably 3-4 dollars and relatively small.  I finally figured it's not worth it.  Go for the fresh veggies.

I had a vegan meal one time that I think was MorningStar, it was spicy black beans with "chicken" and rice, or something like that.  Man that was good!  Morningstar has some good vegetarian things,  but they aren't cheep. 

I am not so sure Boca is vegetarian though.  I got some Boca Chicken Patties, and I swear it looked like bits of real chicken in it.  I will have to look at the ingredients.

To the above poster, Boca is vegetarian, they just aren't vegan. I think they only have 1 or 2 items (that I've seen) that are vegan. Morningstar Farms also only has a few items that are actually vegan, but the rest are all vegetarian. I would be UPSET if they actually contained bits of real chicken, considering all of their packaging says "100% vegetarian" on them somewhere. LOL.

Hope that helps

Yes, if they are vegetarian they do not contain any actual meat, but they could still contain eggs and dairy/milk.  Boca has some that actually say vegan, and these do not contain any animal products.

I also just read that Morningstar Farms is re-doing a lot of their foods to make more vegan options. Not sure when they'll hit the shelves, but just throwing that out there.

As to the OP, I know there are vegetarian (but not vegan) Smart Ones. My best friend eats some kind of quesadilla they make that is black beans, veggies, and cheese.

A lot of your vegetarian items ie. the burgers contain cheese.  Boca burgers do have cheese listed as an ingredient.

Have you thought about making your own microwaveable frozen meals?  Right now I have single servings of vegan chili, curried eggplant, wild rice and lentil pilaf, and a couple of "creamy" style soups like butternut squash.  All I have to do is pop the frozen food into a bowl and heat it up. 

I cook when I have time, make a large batch and divide it up for the freezer.  I freeze in zipper bags, flattened and freeze flat on a cookie sheet.  Once frozen, the individual packages go into a labeled freezer bag.  That way they don't take up a lot of room.