Vegetarian Recipes
No meat, fish, or shellfish — including the hidden ones like shrimp paste and oyster sauce that are most often missed.
39 recipes
39 recipes sit under Vegetarian Recipes, and every one of them is scored against what is actually in your fridge before it is shown. The quickest is Fried Egg with Chili Soy at 6 minutes; the longest, Sweet Braised Tofu and Tempeh, takes 60. 17 of them finish in twenty minutes or less, which is usually what matters on a weeknight.
None of these need an oven, an air fryer, or a microwave — a stove and a pan is enough. 39 are vegetarian. 21 have no chili at all, so they work for children. 10 are properly spicy.
These recipes lean most often on Chicken egg, Palm sugar, Spring onion and Tofu — if you have one or two of those as well, more of this list becomes cookable tonight rather than after a shopping trip. Add what you have to your fridge and the recipes reorder themselves around it, with anything missing collected into a shopping list.
Sweet Crisp Tempeh
Sweet, dry, and keeps for three days. The cheapest rice companion there is.
⏱ 25 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Eggs in Chili Sauce
Boiled eggs flash-fried for a skin, then coated in properly cooked red chili paste.
⏱ 30 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Potato Fritters
Fry the potato, never boil it. That is the only reason these hold together in the pan.
⏱ 40 min🍽 4 servingsMedium
Stir-Fried Green Beans and Carrot
The fastest everyday vegetable: two ingredients, seven minutes, still crunchy if the heat is high.
⏱ 12 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Tempeh with Green Chili
The fresh heat of green chili, not the sharp kind. The tempeh stays tender, never fried dry.
⏱ 20 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Vegetable Fritters
The most dignified destination for leftover cabbage, carrot, and sprouts starting to wilt.
⏱ 25 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Bean Sprouts with Tofu
Three minutes in the wok. Sprouts cooked longer than that just turn to water.
⏱ 12 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Tamarind Vegetable Soup
Sour, refreshing, and packed with vegetables. The best way to clear seven leftovers at once.
⏱ 35 min🍽 5 servingsEasy
Vegetables in Coconut Milk
Gentle coconut richness. Never cover the pot after the coconut milk goes in — it will split.
⏱ 35 min🍽 5 servingsMedium
Scrambled Eggs with Vegetables
Nine minutes, one pan, and almost any leftover vegetable can go in.
⏱ 10 min🍽 2 servingsEasy
Garlic Broccoli
Blanch for 60 seconds so the green stays bright, then stir-fry fast. No more complex than that.
⏱ 12 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Cheesy Omelette for Kids
Low heat and patience. Eggs cooked slowly turn silky, not dry and pockmarked.
⏱ 10 min🍽 2 servingsEasy
Simple Tomato Spaghetti
Real tomatoes, garlic, and pasta water. Three things that make jarred sauce unnecessary.
⏱ 25 min🍽 2 servingsEasy
Crispy Fried Banana
A thin rice-flour batter, fried twice. The crunch holds until the afternoon.
⏱ 25 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Eggplant in Chili Paste
The eggplant is flash-fried in hot oil so it does not soak up oil like a sponge.
⏱ 25 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Sweet Braised Tofu and Tempeh
Slow-braised in palm sugar until it soaks through, then briefly fried.
⏱ 1 h🍽 5 servingsEasy
Creamy Corn Soup
Silky and thick without expensive cream — just milk and a little cornstarch.
⏱ 20 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Simple Mac and Cheese
One pot, no oven. The cheese goes in off the heat so the sauce never turns grainy.
⏱ 20 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Three-Ingredient Egg Fried Rice
Rice, egg, sweet soy. Eight minutes. For nights when the fridge is genuinely empty.
⏱ 8 min🍽 1 servingsEasy
Clear Spinach and Corn Soup
A clear broth naturally sweetened by corn. The spinach goes in last and comes straight off — ten seconds too long already ruins it.
⏱ 15 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Crispy Tofu with Chili Sauce
Press the tofu first to drive the water out. Wet tofu never crisps, no matter how much flour you use.
⏱ 25 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Eggs in Padang-Style Sauce
Hot, savoury, and deep orange. A simplified take on the sauce usually reserved for crab.
⏱ 30 min🍽 4 servingsMedium
Peanut Sauce
The peanuts are dry-toasted, not fried. Toasting gives a roasted aroma that hot oil cannot imitate.
⏱ 25 min🍽 6 servingsEasy
Simple Gado-Gado
Boil the vegetables separately, not together. Each has its own timing, and combining them gets all of them wrong.
⏱ 35 min🍽 4 servingsMedium
Stir-Fried Spinach and Corn
Six minutes total. The spinach goes in last and comes straight off — this is not a vegetable you can walk away from.
⏱ 10 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Spinach with Sesame Dressing
Blanch briefly, then squeeze hard. Any water left behind thins the dressing and ruins it.
⏱ 12 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Broccoli in Cheese Sauce
The approach that genuinely gets children to eat broccoli. The cheese goes in off the heat so the sauce never turns grainy.
⏱ 20 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Crispy Fried Mushrooms
Do not soak the mushrooms — they absorb water like a sponge, and wet mushrooms never crisp.
⏱ 25 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Mushrooms with Lemon Basil
Dry-fry the mushrooms first until their water evaporates. That is the difference between browned mushrooms and watery ones.
⏱ 15 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Banana in Palm Sugar Coconut Milk
The coconut milk goes in last and must never boil hard. Once it splits, there is no fixing it.
⏱ 30 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Steamed Banana Cake
No oven, and moister for it. Wrap the steamer lid in a cloth so condensation never drips onto the batter.
⏱ 45 min🍽 6 servingsMedium
Bread and Milk Pudding
The best way to finish bread going stale. Fresh bread actually makes a soggier pudding.
⏱ 45 min🍽 5 servingsEasy
Smashed Eggplant with Green Sambal
The eggplant is charred in a dry pan until the skin wrinkles, not fried. Deeper flavour, far less oil.
⏱ 25 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Cheese-Stuffed Tofu
Slit the tofu rather than halving it. An intact pocket keeps the cheese inside while it fries.
⏱ 25 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Garlic Water Spinach
The plainest and most-cooked version there is: a lot of garlic, high heat, nothing else.
⏱ 8 min🍽 3 servingsEasy
Corn Fritters
Blend part of the corn and leave the rest whole. That is what stops it turning into fried porridge.
⏱ 25 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Corn and Carrot Soup
Naturally sweet with no added sugar. The corn and carrot simmer long enough for the sweetness to move into the broth.
⏱ 25 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Half-Fried Battered Tempeh
Deliberately not fried crisp — mendoan is meant to stay floppy. Frying it crunchy makes it a different dish entirely.
⏱ 20 min🍽 4 servingsEasy
Fried Egg with Chili Soy
Five minutes, three ingredients. The chili soy is mixed raw in a bowl while the egg is still in the pan.
⏱ 6 min🍽 1 servingsEasy