6 delicious dinners for Meatless Mondays

Mondays suck. But today we’re changing that. (No, we’re not giving you millions of dollars so you can retire early — sorry.) These seven yummy recipes are guaranteed to turn your Monday around — even if it doesn’t happen until dinnertime.

The best part: They all qualify for Meatless Monday! The Meatless Monday campaign encourages people to reduce their meat consumption by almost 15% in order to improve their personal health and the health of the planet simply by nixing the meat from Monday meals. Even if you consider bacon your favorite food and usually eat meat for every meal, we promise you won’t miss it with these recipes.

Spinach- and artichoke-stuffed portabellas

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Portabella mushrooms are the pasta shells of vegetables — they were practically made for stuffing with delicious ingredients. This recipe from PreventionRd.com uses spinach, artichoke hearts, some cream cheese and Panko breadcrumbs. Bonus: There’s an adorable picture of a bulldog on the recipe page. Relevant? No. Worth us mentioning? Yes.

Baked courgette & wild mushroom risotto

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In case you’re not a Brit: Courgette just means zucchini, but from now on you can impress dinner guests with your worldly food knowledge. This Gordon Ramsey recipe for risotto — or, as he pronounces it, “ris-AH-toe” — uses white wine and vegetable stock to cook the risotto and adds flavor to the courgettes with lemon juice. We recommend using a combination of various mushrooms such as morel, shitake and porcini.

Roasted tomatoes with shrimp and feta

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One of our favorite seafood dishes, this tomato, shrimp and feta recipe from Real Simple is easy and full of flavor. We do have one adjustment we highly suggest you make, however: Add artichokes and onions. You’ll thank us for it.

Easy cheesy zucchini bake

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Most people don’t want to put a lot of work into a Monday night dinner. Thankfully, super-simple casserole recipes like this one from Kalyn’s Kitchen exist. The dish combines zucchini, yellow squash, basil, green onion, low-fat white cheese (like mozzarella) and Parmesan. Throw the mixture into the oven for 35 to 45 minutes and you’re done.

French tomato tart

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If the only “French” food you’ve ever made is fries — “frites!” — don’t be intimidated. This country-style tart is actually fairly easy despite the fact that it involves making homemade dough. The recipe from David Lebovitz uses tomatoes (obviously), goat cheese and lots of fresh herbs, and interestingly calls for a thin layer of mustard on the tart to add a nice kick to the tomato slices. “Oui, s’il vous plait!”

Chilled cucumber avocado soup

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A solid chilled soup recipe for hot summer days is a must — especially when it involves avocado. This recipe from Pickles & Honey combines cucumbers, avocados, lime juice, water, sea salt and black pepper — that’s it. Dump it all into a blender, process until smooth and let it chill for an hour. This may be the easiest recipe ever among food that tastes this good.