Vegetarian

A substantial soup, almost a main course, combining meaty black beans and sweet red peppers with the heat of red chilli in the accompanying salsa.

This comforting aromatic stew from Vicky Jones' excellent Beans, Peas & Everything In Between, is a perfect vegetarian dish, evocative of the wild fennel much used in Sicilian cooking.

This recipe, from Jenny Chandler's brilliant cookbook Super Pulses, uses black beans to create fudgy, indulgent chocolate brownies. Beans are used in place of flour to add more nutrition and also make this recipe suitable for gluten-free bakers.

The Tex-Mex answer to stuffed crêpes, quesadillas are wheat-flour tortillas stuffed with cheese and whatever else comes to hand. American recipes call for Monterey Jack cheese, or sometimes Cheddar, but Wensleydale works wonderfully. Meaty black beans make these quesadillas more substantial, great for a brunch with guacamole, salsa and sour cream trimmings.

A creamy herby salad of pilau mix, quinoa and lots of fresh herbs and veg, the perfect way to pack in your greens and grains.

Lentils are a great addition to any stew, combining here with the mushrooms to add a satisfying texture and peppery flavour, enriched by crème fraiche. Amy uses millet flour to give the dumplings a short, almost scone-like texture.

Blueberries are nutritional powerhouses, rich in antioxidant polyphenols, including flavonoids, which are associated with better heart, metabolic, gut and brain health. Not bad for a sweet treat. Danka Jandric uses our four grain muesli base to ramp up the plant diversity and fibre content and make these vegan muffins still more nutritious. All without compromising on flavour!

Look no further than this umami-rich, plant-packed vegetable ragu full of diverse fibre and other nutrients to nourish you and your gut. Inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi's ultimate tray-bake ragu, this recipe contains even more plants. Hodmedod’s Broth Mix is the perfect base, containing no fewer than 7 different pulses and grains, and adding beautiful texture. The recipe packs in 12 different plants, not counting the herbs or spices, which add another half dozen. Serve with a side salad and you'll be well over 20 plants in a single meal.

In this simple stew Isabella Palmer creates a delicious and sustaining meal from simple ingredients. Nutritious and nutty black barley grains are paired with sweet butternut squash and served with a bitter salad to balance the rich stew.

Isabella Palmer's buttery shortbread is made a little special with fragrant cardamom. Millet flour plays the role of more usual rice flour or cornflour for that melt-in-the-mouth texture - only with a nuttier flavour.