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What four vegetarian dinners under 45 minutes look like

Here is that week’s grocery list, grouped the way the download groups it:

• Produce. bell pepper: 1/2 cup; garlic: 4.36 cloves; green bell pepper: 1/2 of one; mushrooms: 1 cup; onion: 1 1/4 cups; onion: 1/2 medium; onion: 0.29 of one.
• Dairy, eggs & refrigerated. cheddar cheese: 3/8 cup.
• Canned & jarred. diced tomatoes: 0.29 × 14.5-oz can; garbanzo beans: 3/4 × 15-oz can; kidney beans: 0.29 × 14.5-oz can; low-sodium broth: 1 1/4 cups; pinto beans: 1/2 × 15.5-oz can; stewed tomatoes: 1/2 × 14.5-oz can; tomato sauce: 1.36 × 8-oz cans.
• Grains, pasta & bread. bulgur: 1/4 cup; dried lentils: 1/2 cup; quick brown rice: 1/4 cup.
• Frozen. corn: 1/2 cup; frozen sliced okra: 0.29 × 16-oz package; frozen spinach: 3/4 × 10-oz package.
• Oils, sauces & condiments. hot sauce: 1/4 tsp; vegetable oil: 1 Tbsp + 1 1/2 tsp.
• Spices & baking. black pepper: 1/8 tsp; chili powder: 1 Tbsp + 2 1/4 tsp; cumin: 1 7/8 tsp; Italian seasoning: 1/4 tsp; oregano: 1 tsp; salt: 3/4 tsp.

Buy ingredients you can use twice

You’ll buy fewer different ingredients when dinners share onion, garlic, tomatoes, broth and cumin. You won’t repeat a dinner until you’ve used every matching recipe, but several soups or chilis can still taste similar. We’d swap at least one dinner by hand in a seven-night plan. Press Shuffle to try a different first dinner and a new week around it.

A serving is Food Hero’s own measure for that recipe. So for a hearty dinner we would set servings to 4 rather than 2. Add the rice or the tortillas yourself.

Quantities scale in a straight line with servings: 2 servings of a 12-serving soup is 1/6 of every ingredient. The shopping amounts are honest, and the fractions of a can are awkward. For a short week it is better to cook the published batch once and eat it twice, then freeze the rest. The plan for two with leftovers works that out for you.

Choose dinners you want to cook

Open a recipe’s Food Hero link for the cooking method, nutrition label and, often, a video. Allow for both prep and cooking in the listed time. You have plenty of soups, chilis, skillets and stews to choose from; check the week for variety before shopping.

The recipes and serving sizes come from Food Hero, a tested collection run by Oregon State University Extension. Follow the linked recipe for the method. The FDA and USDA say leftovers keep three to four days in a fridge at 40°F (4°C) or below. The plans on this site stay inside that limit.