Hi there, and welcome!
We’re Nico Pallotta and Louise Vestergaard; husband, wife, and business partners behind The Plant Based School.
Our mission is simple:
To help you eat more vegetables, beans, and whole foods with recipes you’ll genuinely look forward to eating.
We believe plant-based cooking should be simple, satisfying, affordable, and full of flavor.
- No complicated ingredients.
- No strict food rules.
- No judgment.
Just delicious recipes that make it easy to put more plants on your plate.
A Story That Started in My Grandmother’s Kitchen
My connection to food started long before this blog.
I grew up in Italy and spent countless hours in the kitchen with my nonna Lidia. She cooked for our family every day while caring for me, my cousin, and her own mother (my great-grandmother).
Some of my earliest memories are of standing beside her while she rolled pasta, stirred soups, and prepared simple meals from scratch.
In fact, according to my family, my first word was pasta 🍝
Looking back, I realize I learned to cook almost by osmosis. I watched, tasted, asked questions, and absorbed the rhythms of home cooking long before I understood what a recipe was.
The food wasn’t fancy.
It was simple, seasonal, and mostly plant-forward.
- Beans appeared on the table several times a week.
- Vegetables were part of almost every meal.
- Fruit was dessert more often than cake.
- Meat was eaten, but not every day.
- Nothing was labeled healthy or unhealthy.
It was simply how people ate.
My grandmother and two great-grandmothers all lived well into their nineties.
At the time, I didn’t think much about their habits.
Today, I realize they naturally practiced many of the principles now associated with healthy aging and Mediterranean living.
🥘 They cooked from scratch.
☀️ They spent time outdoors.
🚶🏻♀️They walked everywhere.
👵🏻 They stayed connected to family and friends.
🍦 And they enjoyed food without obsessing over it.
Many years later, after living and working around the world, I met my wife Louise and returned to Italy.
Before long, I found myself returning to many of those same principles.
Not because they’re trendy.
Because they work.
Why Plant Based?
For us, plant-based doesn’t mean perfect.
It doesn’t mean you have to become vegan. We are not.
And it doesn’t mean giving up foods you love.
We use the term plant-based to describe a way of eating that emphasizes:
- Vegetables
- Legumes
- Whole grains
- Fruit
- Nuts and seeds
- Healthy fats such as olive oil
In other words, a plate where plants play the leading role.
That’s why most of the recipes you’ll find here are vegetarian.
What You’ll Find Here
At The Plant Based School you’ll find:
- Easy vegetarian dinners
- Bean and lentil recipes
- Simple pasta dishes
- Healthy breakfasts
- Vegetable-packed meals
- Easy baking recipes
- Mediterranean-inspired cooking
Every recipe is designed to be:
- Easy to follow
- Made with everyday ingredients
- Affordable and practical
- Tested in our own kitchen
- Delicious enough to make again
Because if a recipe doesn’t taste amazing, nobody wants to eat more vegetables.
Why Trust Us?
Before becoming a full-time food creator, I studied professional cooking in Italy and continued my culinary education through courses focused on Italian and International cooking, bread baking, sourdough, and pizza making.
Everything you see on this site is developed, cooked, tested, photographed, filmed, and written by us.
Louise is the creative force behind the camera and brings years of experience in photography, filmmaking, storytelling, marketing, and content creation.
Together, we create every recipe from start to finish, testing it multiple times until we’re confident it will work in your kitchen as well as it does in ours.
Featured in
As Seen In
University of California: Plant-powered spring
University of Washington: Healthy fall recipes
Yahoo Lifestyle: Audrey Hepburn’s favorite meal
Instacart: Anniversairy dinner to impress
Tasting Table: Fried tofu
Our Philosophy
We believe eating more plants shouldn’t feel restrictive.
It should feel enjoyable.
Our goal isn’t perfection.
It’s helping you cook more meals at home, eat more vegetables, and build habits you can sustain for years, not weeks.
Small changes.
Simple recipes.
Real food.
That’s what The Plant Based School is all about.
We’re glad you’re here ❤️
How to stay in touch?
Or follow us on social!
Photo & Recipe sharing policy!
Thank you for your interest in our content! Please remember that our recipes, pictures, and videos are copyrighted material. We have worked very hard to produce it.
You may use 1 photo to share a recipe and/or our blog in general as long as you include a link to our blog.
Please do not share more than one image from a post without our permission; email us here at team[at]theplantbasedschool.com.
We do not allow republishing entire recipes (with pictures, ingredients, and instructions).