What are your favorite hearty vegetarian meals...

Oatmeal with hemp seeds

Tons of vegetables stir fried with corn starch noodles in a Thai style green curry sauce. Obviously you could use different noodles or a different sauce but I like chewy noodles and IMO green curry goes with veggies as well as ranch dressing does.

Come to think of it I guess that's actually vegan unless I use bacon fat.

Vegetable stir fry with rice and veggies... use some garlic, onions, and soy sauce for the hearty flavor, add a little egg in the rice for extra protein... delicious.

Pizza is cheap and easy. If you like spicy... try pineapple and jalapeno with a sauce that's about 70% sweet chili sauce and 30% spicy chili garlic paste instead of the marinara sauce. Buy some yeast and flower and you can make your own dough in 10 minutes.

Make some potato tacos, or try some vegetable spaghetti. Grilled cheese with tomato soup on sourdough. Some egg sandwhiches with lettuce and tomato and a tiny bit of fancy mustard to dip it in.

For dessert make some apple chips with cinnamon in the oven.

If you have a food processor make some fresh hummus with tahini, chick peas, oil, and some spices or garlic.

Stuffed mushrooms, or a portabello burger is always good.

Eggplant Parmesan. Black bean burgers or any other type of patty is never bad.

Have some BBQ corn on the side.

Just a few ideas.

OP here, thanks for all the suggestions and keep em coming. I'll try some of these things later this week.

My favorite veggie soup which is also dirt cheap:

Beetroot soup: 1 part beetroot, 1 part onion, 1 part carrot, 3 parts potatoes (approximately, doesn't really matter that much). Peel beetroot, cut into small pieces, rough-chop onions and cut carrots into whatever shape you want. Heat oil in a pan, fry onions until translucent (or even edges slightly browning), add beetroot and fry a while, add carrots and keep frying. After a while, add some whole black pepper, allspice and bay leaves (and carraway - optional), a spoon or two of tomato paste, fry for a minute, then add water according to how much soup you want and salt it. Bring back to boil and boil until beetroot's almost tender, then add peeled and diced potatoes and simmer until potatoes are tender, too. Add vinegar until the taste is slightly sour (guess 1 tablespoon vinegar is about enough for half a gallon of soup), adjust salt and pepper level and that's it. Serve with bread (dark rye bread works best), add a dollop of thick sour cream to your plate (if you're not going vegan) and sprinkle with fresh dills. The soup can be thickened with a spoon or two of flour, added in the frying phase just before tomato paste, if you like your soups thicker, but doesn't really need it...

Also turkish-style stuffed pepper are fine and can be made meatless.

fry chopped onion in enough olive oil until translucent
add some shredded carrots, minced garlic, cumin and coriander powder and a bit of chilli flakes
when it gets fragrant add uncooked rice (basmati is good for this) and fry for a while
add diced ripe tomatoes (canned tomatoes are OK), stir and let stew for a while
add enough water to reach just above the rice, add salt, cover and cook on low until water is mostly absorbed and rice almost cooked
add chopped parsley (lots of it) and bit of dried mint (fresh chopped mint works too, but dried's better) and stir in
scoop the rice mixture into hollowed-out bell peppers you poked through with a knife near the tip
put some olive oil in a pot, heat up, throw in few garlic cloves
when fragrant, add some more chopped tomatoes (canned are ok again), let it boil until tomatoes liqueify
add water (enough to cover the peppers up to middle or above when you put them in the pot), pepper and salt
place pepper into the tomato sauce in pot, tip first
simmer it on the stovetop or cover with lid and place in preheated oven until rice is fully cooked
if doing the oven method, remove the lid for last 10 - 15 minutes and sprinkle peppers w/ olive oil for extra flavour and baked edges
or put some grated cheese on top of peppers and let it melt

Serve with dollop of garlicky yoghurt or some grated feta on top and some of the sauce
Have fluffy white bread or pita at side to soak the sauce with
Simple salad of sliced cucumbers, tomatoes and onions (w/ salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil) goes well with it

Not that guy, but I sometimes make a mushroom pie. Think meat pot pie but with mushrooms instead of meat.

I also like lentil curry and vegetarian chili. I can share my own recipes but there are plenty of them online, I suggest looking at a few and designing your own based on those.

I'm no vegetarian but I eat 2-3 veg meals a week. The curry and chili are weekly staples and I make mushroom pie occasionally.

You eat meat three times a day almost daily?

no vegetarian
vegetarian for weak
meat make you stronk

Lentils

>pick through your dry lentils first to make sure there aren't any rocks in there
>dice an onion and sauté w/ butter in a pot
>salt it nicely, this helps the onions cook properly
>chop a few cloves of garlic
>when the onions are brown and soft, add the garlic, as well as some cracked pepper and nutmeg and cook for another minute or so
>add dry lentils and like 6? cups of veggie broth, enough to immerse the lentils with room, they will about double in size
>bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer
>cook until excess liquid is gone and lentils have the texture you want
>mix in a dash of cream
>serve w/ rice

if the lentils are getting too dry before they're done cooking, add a little water.
they're also good with diced carrots, but none of the groceries near me sell individual carrots, you have to buy like 5lbs+ of them

i am the opposite of a vegetarian i eat meat twice a day) but i try to cook more vegeterian dishes for my gf who listens too much to her hippie parents and tries to eat less meat. yesterday i made a vegetarian casserole and any feedback would be appreciated:

>roast garlic in olive oil
>potato fried in cast iron pan till nice and golden brown add s/p/paprika while cooking
>panfry spinach with said garlic and some onions, add s/p
>rub an oventray with herb-butter and layer in the spinach, and potato with added fresh and semi-dried tomato and feta
>broil it, when finished add light drizzle of good olive oil anf bit of freshly cracked pepper.

any suggestions?

>make sure there aren't any rocks in there
I see this advice all the time but I've never found rocks in my lentils. That said, I've not cooked with lentils until fairly recently, so probably only 15-20 times. Do people really find rocks that regularly?

After the first time youll learn to check every time, regularly or not

bit into a rock in a lentil samosa I bought fresh at the store once