12 vegetarian dinners for runners, and what's actually in them

By Sarah Lee · 2026-08-20

Here's what happened when I went looking for vegetarian dinner ideas. (I still eat meat occasionally, but I like to call myself a part-time vegetarian.)

Anyways, what I found was that every single list had a calorie number in the title. Every single one! That might not be a problem if it was substantial enough to fuel my training schedule. But I'm in a training block, so I don't want a smaller dinner. I want a bigger one. Ideally one with some iron in it.

So I made my own. Twelve dinners in all, from food blogs I actually trust, and each one links straight to the person who wrote it. I've added the thoughts I couldn't find anywhere else: where each one falls in a training week, and what else on the plate changes what the plate does.

The one thing you won't get here is a protein number everyone should hit. That's literally Idunia's job.

The twelve

1. Mujadara, lentils and rice with the (deeply!) caramelized onions.

Overhead view of a wide oat-colored stoneware bowl filled with brown rice and lentils, topped with a tangle of dark caramelized onions, scattered with sliced green onion and parsley, a brass spoon resting in the bowl on an unpolished travertine surface.

Lentils and rice under a heap of onions cooked down almost black. It's the dish every iron list on the internet recommends, and none of them mention that lentils and rice both carry phytates, which grab onto iron before your body can use it. The yogurt's calcium does the same thing, so I keep it in a side bowl instead of stirring it through. Not a reason to skip any of it, just what's going on in there.

Get the recipe: Mujadara at Cookie and Kate.

2. Pasta e fagioli, which is beans and pasta in a broth.

A rustic brown-glazed stoneware bowl of pasta e fagioli filled to the rim with small ditalini pasta, whole white cannellini beans and dark Tuscan kale in a tomato-flecked broth, chopped parsley on top, a hand holding a vintage silver spoon above it with broth dripping back into the bowl, torn crusty bread and crumbs on rumpled linen over a walnut table.

Beans, tiny pasta and kale in a tomato broth, and it goes down easy on the nights when I'm too nervous to eat properly. This is my night-before-a-long-run dinner. I don't touch it in the hour before a run though, it's a lot of fiber.

Get the recipe: Pasta e Fagioli at Cookie and Kate.

3. Coconut curry chickpeas.

Overhead view of a golden coconut chickpea curry in a wide oat-colored stoneware bowl, whole chickpeas piled thick in the sauce with dark torn kale stirred through, a mound of steamed white rice beside it, gold spoon on a white marble surface.

Two whole cans of chickpeas across four servings, which is the portion size I'm always hunting for and never find. Coconut milk, curry powder, a big pile of kale, done. No dairy anywhere, so nothing on the plate is getting in the way of that iron.

Get the recipe: Coconut Curry Chickpeas at Budget Bytes.

4. Peanut tofu noodle bowls.

A sage stoneware bowl of rice noodles twirled into a nest, topped with crisp golden-brown cubes of tofu, matchsticks of red pepper, cucumber and carrot fanned around, peanut sauce drizzled across, chopped peanuts and cilantro scattered, chopsticks on the rim.

Crispy tofu, rice noodles, and a peanut lime sauce I would happily eat with a spoon. Soy is one of the only plant foods that brings the full set of protein building blocks, so the tofu is doing real work here. Even better cold the next day.

Get the recipe: Peanut Tofu Noodle Bowls at Budget Bytes.

5. White beans with mushrooms and marinara.

A small cast iron skillet of creamy butter beans and sliced browned mushrooms in red marinara, molten mozzarella pulled across the surface and blistering, torn basil on top, two thick slices of garlic bread on linen beside it, oiled walnut board.

Fifteen minutes. Two cans and a jar. This is the one for the night you got in at eight thirty and everything else here feels like a project.

Get the recipe: White Beans with Mushrooms and Marinara at Budget Bytes.

6. Red lentil bolognese.

Overhead view of wide pappardelle ribbons coated in a thick red lentil bolognese, glossy and clinging, twirled into a generous mound filling a warm white stoneware bowl to the irregular rim, chopped basil and crushed walnuts on top, vintage fork resting in it.

Built to go over most of a pound of pasta, which is exactly what I want the night before a long run. The walnuts sneak in and make the whole thing rich.

Get the recipe: 10-Ingredient Vegan Red Lentil Bolognese at Rainbow Plant Life.

7. Red lentil curry.

A terracotta stoneware bowl of thick deep orange-gold red lentil curry finished with a swirl of coconut milk and a heap of chopped cilantro, a silver spoon resting in it, a bowl of basmati rice and torn charred naan behind it on a dark wood table with a mustard linen napkin.

Red lentils, coconut milk and almond butter, and it tastes nothing like the chickpea curry up there even though they're both curries. No dairy in this one either. I have it with rice and something to scoop with.

Get the recipe: Red Lentil Curry at Rainbow Plant Life.

8. One-pot red lentil chili.

Overhead view of a thick red lentil and bean chili in a large enameled dutch oven filling the frame, kidney beans and black beans visible through the sauce with corn scattered through, cilantro and sliced avocado on top, wooden spoon resting in the pot.

Three different legumes in one pot, six servings, and it freezes beautifully. This is my Sunday batch cook.

Get the recipe: 1-Pot Red Lentil Chili at Minimalist Baker.

9. Chickpea shakshuka.

Overhead view of a small cast iron skillet of chickpea shakshuka, thick spiced red tomato sauce with whole chickpeas nestled through it and no eggs, scattered with parsley and halved green olives, lemon wedges and torn flatbread on linen beside the pan.

Tomatoes, chickpeas, warm spices, and a pile of bread for scooping. It's a breakfast dish and I eat it for dinner constantly. Heads up though, this version has no eggs in it at all, and those six servings are SMALL.

Get the recipe: 1-Pot Chickpea Shakshuka at Minimalist Baker.

10. Sweet potato and black bean enchiladas.

Sweet potato and black bean enchiladas in a rectangular ceramic baking dish, rolled tortillas under bubbling green salsa verde and browned melted cheese, one enchilada lifted on a spatula showing orange sweet potato filling, cilantro and lime wedges on top.

Sweet potato and black beans under a serious amount of melted cheese, which is exactly what I want in race week. The leftovers are honestly better on day two.

Get the recipe: Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas at A Couple Cooks.

11. Lentil pasta with mushrooms.

A close view of wide pappardelle ribbons in a dark lentil and mushroom ragu, chopped cremini mushrooms and whole green lentils visible through the sauce, a loose pile of grated parmesan melting on top with torn parsley, in a warm grey stoneware bowl on white marble.

The mushrooms get chopped tiny and go weirdly meaty, and the lentils are already cooked when they go in, so this comes together faster than it looks.

Get the recipe: Lentil Pasta at Love and Lemons.

12. Vegetarian stuffed peppers.

Four halved red bell peppers stuffed with brown rice, black beans and corn under browned melted cheese and chopped cilantro, arranged on a round stoneware plate with a spatula under one of them, lime wedges and a small bowl of red salsa beside it on linen and travertine.

Rice, black beans and corn baked into a pepper with cheese on top. And lined up on a board they look like you really tried, which I enjoy more than I probably should.

Get the recipe: Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers at Love and Lemons.

How I picked these

Three rules, and they knocked out a LOT of candidates. Real recipes from people who actually cook, every one linked. Dinner sized, because a surprising number of "vegetarian dinner" results are a salad wearing a coat. And a real carbohydrate somewhere in it: rice, pasta, bread, potatoes. That's the bit that keeps quietly going missing from vegetarian dinners aimed at women, and it matters most when your mileage goes up.

One more screen you wouldn't think of: cheese. Not because cheese is bad! Because calcium gets in the way of iron uptake, and half the prettiest vegetarian bowls on the internet finish with a big handful of feta. Where that happens, I've said so.

Okay, the absorption stuff

Iron comes in two forms. The meat kind is easy for your body to grab. The plant kind is fussier. Phytates, natural chemicals in beans, lentils, oats and seeds, act like sticky sponges that trap some of it, and calcium gets in the way too. But the thing that matters most is neither of those. It's whether you're running low already. So none of this is a reason to skip a food. It's a reason to know what's on your plate.

The day you're most likely to under-eat is the day you trained hardest

When researchers tracked what female endurance athletes actually ate against how they actually trained, the gap didn't show up on rest days. It showed up on the hardest ones. The bigger the session, the bigger the miss.

That's genuinely why I made this list. Not because a vegetarian dinner is virtuous. Because on the day you're most likely to under-eat, you want the dinner already decided.

The one question I won't answer

How much? Carbohydrate needs scale up with training, and how much for you specifically, on which day, is exactly what Idunia was built for.