How to Pair Vegetables in Meals

Knowing what vegetables pair well in meals can make it easier to include more veggies in your cooking and effectively use the vegetables you have. Striving to have a plant focused diet has given me new knowledge of how to pair different vegetables in my cooking. Learning to pair vegetables will help you include more of them in your cooking as well!

Advantages of Pairing Vegetables in Meals

The biggest advantage of knowing which vegetables pair well together is that you can include more vegetables in a single dish. This helps you get a variety of nutrients and flavors in your meals. I also find it helpful to add multiple vegetables to a single dish so that my children can pick out certain vegetables they don’t like, but still get vegetables in their diet.

Knowing how to pair vegetables is also helpful in meal planning. You can look in your fridge and know what vegetables pair well together, helping you effectively use the vegetables that you have. When you learn to match your vegetables together they can tell you what you are having for dinner rather than trying to figure it out yourself. For example, several times I have found myself with leftover peppers and zucchinis. Following this tactic, I might realize that I could make my veggie lovers lasagna to use them up.

Even if you are not meal planning with what’s already in your fridge, it can still be helpful to plan to pair vegetables so that you can overlap them in several different dishes. That way you only need to buy what is on sale or what you will use and can still make a variety of meals.

Pairing Vegetables by Cuisine

There are a variety of ways you can pair vegetables. For example, you can pair them by balancing flavors, or by using vegetables seasonally. I find one of the easiest and most useful ways to pair vegetables is to do it by cuisine.

Knowing which vegetables work well with each cuisine can make it easy to know what vegetables you can add to your meal plan in order to enhance its flavor and nutrients. Below I provide lists of vegetables I have found to fit well in meals from specific cuisines. These lists are not all inclusive. Rather, they focus around vegetables that are easily available and the discoveries I have made on what foods pair well.

Vegetables for Mexican Cuisine

• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Zucchini
• Avocado
• Corn
• Sweet Potato

Most of the vegetables in Mexican cuisine are obvious. Almost every Mexican food contains a lot of tomatoes and peppers. They are used in so many different Hispanic sauces and salsas. There are also a couple of potentially unexpected vegetable on this list, including zucchini and sweet potatoes. I discovered a few years ago that zucchini’s origins were in central America so it made me curious about adding them to my Mexican meals and I have found they pair very well. My fajita enchiladas are a good example of pairing these vegetables in a meal. Sweet potatoes have a similar origin story to zucchini, and also go well in Mexican dishes such as my sweet potato chili.

Vegetables for Italian Cuisine

• Broccoli
• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Zucchini
• Peppers
• Asparagus
• Eggplant
• Mushrooms

Italian food is another cuisine that is so versatile when it comes to adding veggies. So often meals like spaghetti, lasagna and pizza are cut short on vegetables, only using tomatoes in the sauce. Adding more vegetables to these meals can be easy and delicious like in my veggie lovers lasagna.

Vegetables for Asian Cuisine

• Peppers
• Onions
• Carrots
• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Green beans
• Mushrooms

Asian cuisine is probably one of the most inclusive when it comes to vegetables. I think there are half a dozen other vegetables I could add to this list, but whether you are making a stir fry or ramen, do not miss the opportunity to add a variety of vegetables. Even dishes like orange chicken that do not traditionally include vegetables can be enhanced in both flavor and nutrition by adding a variety of vegetables.

Vegetables for Indian Cuisine

• Peppers
• Onion
• Peas
• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Eggplant

To be honest I feel like I have a lot to learn when it comes to cooking Indian food. These are the vegetables I enjoy including when I make a homemade curry. Since India has a population with many vegetarians, vegetables and plants are plenteous in their cooking.

Vegetables for Mediterranean Cuisine

• Cucumbers
• Olives
• Peppers
• Tomatoes

If I have a lot to learn about Indian cuisine I have even more to learn about Mediterranean. So far these are the vegetables I have enjoyed using when stuffing my homemade pitas.

Vegetables for American Cuisine

• Peas
• Green Beans
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Mushrooms
• Cabbage

As an American I have a hard time knowing what counts as American food. Aside from a burger and fries what does a classic American meal look like? When it comes American food, vegetables are often left as an afterthought on the side of the plate. Open a can of green beans, or steam some broccoli and that’s your veggie. As I have mentioned before I prefer to incorporate my vegetables in my meals such as my veggie sloppy joes. I have also found several other ways to pair vegetables in my “American” inspired meals and look forward to sharing soon!

How to Meal Plan with Vegetables

After reading the lists above you will recognize that many vegetables are commonly used in multiple cuisines. I like to use this knowledge to meal plan my meals with ingredients that overlap. This way I can choose vegetables that I find on sale in order to make a variety of meals. You could buy broccoli and carrots and plan to make Italian, American, and Asian meals for your week. If you buy tomatoes and peppers you could include them in Mexican, Indian and Mediterranean meals.

It is helpful to become very familiar with the vegetables in each category. That way you can become great at planning a variety of meals around the vegetables you have.