Quorn and tofu

There are lots of main meals that don't even require meat, so they don't present a problem at all. They can be cheese or egg based, or experiment with different vegetables & nuts - your imagination is the limit, once you've knocked the meat-&-2-veg or dish-of-chilli-slop formats off their perch!

If you want your dinner to look like a meat meal, there's no shame in that - you can replicate a lot of dishes that traditionally use meat by substituting vegan or vegetarian mince, pieces, sausages, etc. There are a lot of other foods too that mimic flesh - I even found a vegan salmon steak in Tesco's a while ago. I didn't particularly like its synthetic "dead seaweed" flavour but these things are out there to be tried and it can be fun to forage around in the dark recesses of the vegetarian cabinets.

Probably the simplest way to eat less meat is to just make your usual dish but use something else at the centre of it (vegetarian/vegan sausages for toad-in-the-hole, vegan mince for shepherd's pie, stew made with interesting vegetables and some cashews). Nuts may seem expensive but when you aren't paying for meat it's amazing how your grocery bill goes down, so you can afford to get creative!

Tofu isn't something I'm tremendously fond of (it's relatively flavourless and I don't care for the texture). I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, though, because many people do like it, so do give it a go or two. I'm sure there'll be some replies on here from GNers who do like it. I do like seitan (basically, another kind of tofu). The stuff I buy comes in a jar or tin, marinated in a gingery sauce (DH adores it with mash & steamed veg).

Finally, don't worry about "replacing the protein". The average Western diet contains far more protein than we actually need - the current sales trend for pushing protein at us in all kinds of food is just that - a sales trend. There is protein in almost everything edible that's available to us, including a significant amount in some vegetables. Besides, you're not going totally veggie, so the odd meal without meat isn't going to leave you in the least bit malnourished! (I and DH are still alive after 40+ years and I have a couple of friends who've been vegan from birth - fine, strapping examples of humanity they are, too!
Humans may be omnivores but we really don't need to eat flesh in order to survive - it's just that most of us prefer to.
Hope this helps!

We are not Quorn fans.
And going meatless doesn't have to be tofu.

I do like tofu - and had we had it in a curry last night - but we eat more beans than tofu.

And we are vegetarian so often have cheese or eggs (or beans) for protein instead of the meat.

I don't like quorn or tofu so I use mushrooms for lasagne and pasta sauce. I tend to avoid meat substitutes.

I used to hate tofu but when I went vegan for a year, for health reasons, I found the best way was to buy the very solid blocks. Aldi sell an organic one, well they used to....squeeze all the liquid from it in a muslin or similar, freeze it, then cube it quite small, marinade in ginger, garlic, rice vinegar, a little chilli according to palate, sesame oil, lime or lemon juice, soy and honey or coconut aminos. Air fry until golden and crispy and it's delicious. Even my tofu hating daughter loves it! You can add other things to the marinade like fish sauce or whatever you like.

I used to make mince dishes with frozen quorn mince as long as its well seasoned ìts fine. Shephards pie, lasagne,bolognaise and chilli.

I don’t like the texture of tofu pieces but can eat it as mince. It’s a bit of a faddle as you have to cook the tofu first before using it in a dish. If you google tofu mince recipes will come up.