I'm a white American, my diet is mostly classic american derived from french and Italian cuisine. My first vegetarian cookbooks were focused on slow cooking beans into soups, stews and chilis. I like effort, I have the time and I like to learn and have fun. I guess the biggest problem in my diet is I dont like cold foods, so interested in making salads warm, or room temperature with a warm sauce or dressing? I think I like savory flavors the most, and I'm a fan of bitter, too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Well I fucking hate salads (although I suppose you could argue everything I eat is one :P) so you wont get much out of me on that front.

So you're probably used to food that's pretty meat and dairy heavy, at least in a global sense. In terms of plant based variations there are a couple of key ingredients to keep in mind:

Cashews when soaked and blended, mixed with other things such as Dijon mustard, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, salt, and MSG can be used as a foundation for many sorts of creams serving a similar role in food to diary based ones. Namely a rich fatty saucy thing, sometimes with sour or intensely savoury elements. You can even make true fermented cheeses using blended cashews + some extra fat. I've made a couple of killer blues! (it's a giant pain though and takes weeks so YMMV)
Nutritional yeast: sometimes called nooch it's yeast flakes usually from brewing yeast I think and enriched with a few things. It's quite protein heavy at ~50% by mass and thus tends to have a thickening effect on foods. It has a very savoury and vaguely cheesy flavour that can be further accentuated with salt or spices. A common quick little hack is nooch, cashews, and salt (+ MSG if you are a fiend like me) coarsely ground as a topping on dishes similar to parmesan cheese. Slowly heating soy milk and nooch with maybe a dash of garlic and tumeric (mostly for colour) can form the foundation of cheesy sauces in pasta dishes or similar too.
MSG: Don't be scared of it, it naturally occurs in lots of foods such as tomatoes and you likely have a lot in your diet as it's responsible for a lot of the umami in things like parmesan and meat or fish sauce etc. Often when cooking plant based people feel like things aren't quite hitting the spot unless they add a lot of salt. MSG is here to save the day! it's also been found to reduce total dietary sodium by making people salt food less than with table salt. Always add it slowly though, too much MSG makes things taste wrong in a way that's difficult to pin down. You can buy huge cheap packets in asain grocers or online.
TVP: This is a byproduct of soybean oil production, it's the protein from soy beans isolated with a bit of fibre. Generally when using it you might toast it first, then you soak it a bit and then fry it. Or you cook it directly into something saucy like a tomatoey pasta sauce. It is almost a drop in replacement for beef mince in many recipes and a great way to make something filling and hearty, just remember it doesn't have much flavour of it's own so should probably be used alongside additions like soy sauce (for umami) "beef" stock or similar. It should be very very cheap, if you are buying it from a white person grocery or a health food store you will get ripped off. I buy it online for the equivalent of about 2-4 of your dollars a kilogram and that's with the fuck you Australia tax.
Soy milk: It's protein rich and thus when cooked into food works pretty similar to dairy milk in terms of roux/white sauce etc. A lot of people don't like the taste so maybe use oat or whatever in your coffee but you can't cook shit with almond milk or oat milk etc.
Lentils: There's lots, a few quick tips. Red cook fast and can melt away into sauces or as fillings for pastries etc, green cook slow and add chew, chickpeas (and chickpea flour) are great for a vaguely nutty rich bite, black urad pair wonderfully with tomatoes for an earthy note.

Ok arcane secrets aside another principle is: make sure you include something rich each meal. If you do the arty-farty health food cafe "cauliflower steak" (retching noises) you will just be hungry and unsatisfied. You need to make sure you're eating the same calories and hearty food. In general aside from light meals you should aim to include something from {tofu, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds, TVP, oats} or similarly protein and fat heavy foods each meal. Nuts and seeds are very very very energy dense so be careful there, beans and lentils are approx equivalent to cow meat in terms of protein and calories (less fat though) and so can be used in similar quantities. You'll probably want to add a bit of oil to your cooking in various ways too when not using nuhttps://ohsheglows.com/ts and seeds to bump the fat up. Eat varied and you'll trivially hit your mix of amino acids, it's honestly not worth stressing about unless you have a vary narrowly focused diet.

Some blogs for your American palate:

https://lovingitvegan.com/ I love this lady, her food is practical and interesting, lots of american and a bit of tex-mex style stuff. Great starting point for more western recipes. Try her burritos or some of her pasta dishes!
https://thestingyvegan.com/ American style food mostly with emphasis on easy and cheap. I like the https://thestingyvegan.com/vegan-jambalaya/ as a go to meal prep for the week
https://ohsheglows.com/ very high effort arty farty food. Can be fun to experiment with or if you need to impress the inlaws. I usually find it too much effort
https://minimalistbaker.com/ traitor and renegade pitchfork waving but she has some more practical options for entertaining style stuff. Her 5 minute queso is delicious!

Further afield from what you're used to:

https://www.veganricha.com/ practical indian style recipes. Her cookbooks are the best laid out I've every seen btw if you like physical books. Typically you would assemble a traditional spread by cooking like a dhal, a dry curry, and a wet curry and serving them together for a few days. I love her stuff, can recommend unreservedly if you enjoy indian food and have wanted to branch into cooking it.
I would be remiss to not recommend you check out https://biancazapatka.com/en/vegan-pierogi-with-mushroom-filling/ and generally her blog is great for euro food. Polish is very hard to veganise (diet is dairy and preserved meat, dairy and preserved meat, dairy and preserved meat with some veggies cooked in dairy :P) but she does a great job with a few recipes
https://www.lazycatkitchen.com/category/recipes/ another more euro food blog this with more mediterranean and western styles.

I hope that's useful! Plant based eating is a lot more approachable than you often think, it can just require a bit of time to learn some tricks.

My one final parting message is that beans blended to a paste with herbs and spices make very satisfying dips, and you can make sort of sandwich or wrap fillings that way for practical options during the week.