Vegetables certainly become a main food group when eating a plant-based diet, and for good reason. It is incredible what the power of good, fresh vegetables can do for your taste buds and your health, both mental and physical. In order to really reel in those tasty, healthy benefits from your vegetables, we recommend that you try to eat these five vegetables every day.

1. Cauliflower

Delicious and nutritious, cauliflower is an extremely versatile vegetable — mash it, turn it into a pizza crust, turn it into a soup — any way you choose to eat it, your body will thank you. Not only does cauliflower provide a slew of diverse cooking methods, but it is diverse in its range of health benefits. Cauliflower is loaded with vitamin C and contains good sources of many other essential nutrients such as vitamin K, folate, fiber, manganese, protein, and many B vitamins. Studies have shown that cauliflower can aid in detoxifying the body, as well as provide the body with necessary antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients. Cauliflower is also known to greatly aid the cardiovascular and digestive systems along with increasing brain health, and it even has cancer-prevention properties. Check out some cauliflower recipes to include this super vegetable in your diet and be sure to try this Cauliflower Manchurian or these Umami Bomb Cauliflower Bites.

2. Sunflower Sprouts/Microgreens

A tasty addition to sandwiches and salads, sunflower sprouts, or sunflower microgreens are jam-packed with health benefits to improve your body’s vitality. Sunflower sprouts are great sources of protein and full of many other important nutrients, such as vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, calcium, potassium, zinc, many B vitamins, magnesium, and iron. Sunflower sprouts are also filled with chlorophyll, which improves blood health, contains antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients, detoxifies the body, and prevents against cancer. Want a creative way to incorporate this super vegetable into your daily meals? Try our this Raw Super Sprout Pad Thai or this sprouted sunflower seed milk!

3. Beets

Another amazing vegetable we have grown to love, the bright, vibrant root vegetables we call beets make a great addition to your everyday meals. Beets contain nutrients such as folate, manganese, fiber, potassium, vitamin C, iron, and antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrients. They also serve a wide array of health benefits, from detoxification to cancer prevention to improvements in digestive health. The good news doesn’t stop there! Beets can be incorporated into a wide variety of meals. By wide variety, we mean cake and cupcakes, soup, juice, gazpacho, burgers, and more. With so many fun recipes and health benefits, beets can’t be beat! Try this Beet and Avocado Soup With Cashew Cream, this Penne With Creamy Beet Sauce, or check out the Food Monster App, a Food app available for both Android and iPhone where you can find thousands of plant-based recipes for every occasion.

4. Onion

You might use onion regularly as a way to add that special flavor to your dinner dishes, and if you do — don’t stop! Let us assure you that onions are much more than just tasty. Historically, onions were used for medicinal purposes beginning many thousands of years ago. With nutrients such as biotin, vitamin C, potassium, manganese, copper, and B vitamins, onions provide valuable nourishment to the body. Onions improve cardiovascular health, bone and connective tissue health, prevent against infections and cancer, and contain anti-inflammatory properties. Onions are often used in soups, salads, sandwiches and pizza, but the possibilities don’t stop there! Incorporate them into stir-frys and potato dishes for great flavor and health benefits. Try The World’s Healthiest Onion Rings or these Lentil and Mushroom Stuffed Onions.

5. Kale

Super foods don’t get much more super than this nutrient-dense leafy green vegetable. Kale is absolutely crawling with nutrients — one cup of raw kale contains over six times the necessary daily amount of vitamin K, over twice the necessary daily amount of vitamin A, and over 100 percent of the necessary daily amount of vitamin C. It is also a good source of protein, B vitamins, thiamin, folate, manganese, copper, calcium, iron and potassium. Kale is packed with antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients, contains cancer-preventing properties, improves cardiovascular function, and is a great detoxifier. Fortunately, kale is yet another super vegetable that is super diverse when it comes to using it in meals! To incorporate kale into your daily meals, try Kale and Roasted Corn Stir Fry,  Kale Hummus, Kale Waldorf Salad, Sweet Potato and Kale Patties, Potato, White Bean, and Kale Soup, or this Kale and Cranberry Stuffed Sweet Potato.

Keep these vegetables in your fridge, and experiment with your favorite ways to eat them! They make fabulous additions to the every-day diet and will ensure that you are well-nourished on your plant-based diet. So, get cooking — and eating!

Recommendation: Download the Food Monster App

If you enjoy articles like this and want more, we highly recommend downloading the Food Monster App. For those that don’t have it, it’s a brilliant Food app available for both Android and iPhone. It’s a great resource for anyone looking to cut out or reduce allergens like meat, dairy, soy, gluten, eggs, grains, and more find awesome recipes, cooking tips, articles, product recommendations and how-tos. The app shows you how having diet/health/food preferences can be full of delicious abundance rather than restrictions.

The Food Monster app has over 8000+ recipes and 500 are free. To access the rest, you have to pay a subscription fee but it’s totally worth it because not only do you get instant access to 8000+ recipes, you get 10 NEW recipes every day! You can also make meal plans, add bookmarks, read feature stories, and browse recipes across hundreds of categories like diet, cuisine, meal type, occasion, ingredient, popular, seasonal, and so much more!

Image source: Hrushi3030/Wikimedia