A 7-day vegan meal plan, every meal a real recipe

Seven days of fully plant-based eating, assembled from the public-domain USDA MyPlate Kitchen library. Every calorie below is the recipe's own published figure — 52 dishes across the week, and not one of them repeats.

The week averages 1,692 calories a day, landing between 1,642 and 1,734. That is what this slice of the library honestly carries: seven days of real dishes with no animal ingredients at all, and no portion padded to reach a rounder headline number.

Two seconds at the shelf. Packaged staples are the one thing a recipe can't vouch for. Bread, tortillas, refried beans, and chocolate chips are plant-based from most brands and not from others — the ingredient list on the box settles it.

Your 7-day vegan week

How a recipe earned the vegan label

Nothing here was tagged by hand or by eye. Every recipe in the library was read twice — once for what goes into it, once for what its nutrition panel reports — and only the ones that cleared both checks are in the pool.

• No meat, poultry, or seafood anywhere in the ingredient list
• No dairy, eggs, honey, or gelatin
• Broth, stock, and bouillon only when explicitly the vegetable kind
• Zero milligrams of cholesterol on the recipe's own USDA panel — an independent second check
• Plant versions read in context, so almond and coconut milk pass where milk does not

The screen errs strict, which is why the plant-based pool is a fraction of the full library. A recipe wrongly left out costs a little variety; a recipe wrongly let in costs the whole page its credibility.

Where the protein comes from

Added up from the recipes themselves, the week runs 47 to 62 grams of protein a day and averages 53 g — out of beans, lentils, tofu, peanut butter, and whole grains rather than a powder.

• Lowest day: 47 g protein
• Daily average: 53 g protein
• Highest day: 62 g protein

That average clears the 0.8 g/kg RDA for an adult up to about 145 pounds. Heavier than that, or training hard? Treat these totals as a floor and add a serving of beans, tofu, or nuts to any day — the recipe library will show you the biggest hitters.

The one nutrient this week cannot give you

Vitamin B12 isn't in a plant-based diet, and this plan is no exception. It occurs naturally only in animal foods, so it has to come from fortified products — many plant milks, some breakfast cereals, nutritional yeast — or from a supplement. The National Institutes of Health puts the adult requirement at 2.4 micrograms a day.

Iron, calcium, zinc, and omega-3s are all reachable on plants but worth a look. One habit does most of the work for iron: eat the beans and greens alongside something citrus, because vitamin C sharply increases how much of that iron you actually absorb.

Make the week your own

Every day is a template, not a prescription. Swap any meal for another day's at a similar calorie count, or pull something different out of the recipe library — each dish carries its own USDA nutrition panel, so the arithmetic stays honest when you rearrange it. The vegan recipes collection is the curated shortlist: the best-rated dishes from the same screened pool this week draws on.

Want a different calorie level? The ready-made calorie plans run 1,200 to 2,500 with the whole library behind them, and the MyPlate calculator turns your age, height, weight, and activity into the number worth aiming at.

Vegan or vegetarian?

Both weeks come out of the same library and the same screen. The difference is what stays on the plate.

See the vegetarian week

Sources

Recipes are from the USDA's MyPlate Kitchen, a public-domain library preserved here after MyPlate.gov was shut down in January 2026. Every calorie and gram of protein on this page is that recipe's own published value. MyPlate.food is an independent tool, not affiliated with the USDA.

There is no federal vegan food pattern. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025 define a Healthy Vegetarian Pattern, which includes dairy and eggs, and no vegan equivalent. This week is our own assembly of plant-based recipes out of the federal library.

Vitamin B12 (2.4 mcg/day for adults) from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Protein RDA (0.8 g per kg of body weight) from the Institute of Medicine's Dietary Reference Intakes, 2005.

Vegan meal plan FAQ

Is this meal plan actually 100% vegan?

Every recipe cleared two independent checks: no meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, eggs, honey, or gelatin in the ingredient list, and zero milligrams of cholesterol on the recipe's own USDA nutrition panel. Broth counts only when it's explicitly vegetable broth, and anything ambiguous was dropped rather than let through. The one thing a recipe can't settle is the brand you buy — bread, tortillas, refried beans, and chocolate chips vary by manufacturer, so those are worth a label check.

How many calories a day is this vegan meal plan?

It averages about 1,692 calories a day, with individual days running 1,642 to 1,734. That sits below the 2,000-calorie reference level on purpose. Fully plant-based recipes are a small slice of the public-domain USDA library, and the breakfast dishes among them are a smaller slice still — so a week that never repeats a single recipe honestly tops out near 1,700. Aiming higher produced days that visibly sagged by the end of the week, which would have meant advertising a number the food doesn't deliver.

Is there enough protein in a vegan meal plan?

This one delivers 47 to 62 grams a day, averaging 53 g, added up from the recipes' own USDA values — beans, lentils, tofu, peanut butter, and whole grains. That clears the 0.8 g/kg RDA for an adult up to roughly 145 pounds. If you weigh more than that, or you're training hard, treat it as a floor and add a serving of beans, tofu, or nuts to any day.

Is this the USDA's vegan meal plan?

No, and there isn't one. The USDA has never published a vegan food pattern — the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025 define a Healthy Vegetarian Pattern that includes dairy and eggs, with no vegan equivalent. What is federal here is the food: every recipe comes from the USDA's public-domain MyPlate Kitchen library, with its own published nutrition. The week itself is our assembly, and MyPlate.food is an independent tool.

What about vitamin B12 on a vegan diet?

B12 occurs naturally only in animal foods, so no fully plant-based meal plan can supply it — including this one. Adults need 2.4 micrograms a day according to the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, and the usual sources are fortified plant milks, fortified breakfast cereals, nutritional yeast, or a supplement. It's the one gap worth closing deliberately rather than hoping the food covers it.

Do I need an account to use or print this plan?

No. The whole week is on the page, every meal links to its full recipe with ingredients and steps, and the print button lays all seven days out on plain paper. An account adds saving plans and recipes across devices.