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Cook Real Food: How to Make Simple Plant-Based Meals (Udemy.com)

Learn how to cook whole plant foods to make quick, easy, and healthy vegan meals for practical everyday eating.

Created by: Evita Ochel

Last updated January 2025

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What you will learn

  • How to set up a kitchen with the right tools and appliances for healthy eating.
  • Which foods to stock regularly for healthy and wholesome plant-based meals.
  • How to cook whole plant foods in a quick, easy, healthy, and minimally destructive way.
  • How to work with starchy and non-starchy vegetables, grains, legumes, mushrooms, fruits, nuts and seeds, and herbs and spices.
  • How to make simple, delicious, quick, and easy plant-based meals for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
  • How to use meal templates for practical everyday meal preparation.
  • How to make wholesome sauces to complement plant-based meals.
  • How to make delicious, quick, and easy snacks and treats using whole plant foods.

How it compares

Against the other 418 rated Udemy courses in Lifestyle on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.8 out of 5higher than 83% of them
  • Reviews2,250#32 of 419 by number of reviews
  • Length6.8 hourslonger than 87% of them
  • Last updatedJanuary 2025more recently than 57% of them

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Course Description

Knowing how to feed ourselves in a way that supports our health and fits with our modern constraints is one of the most valuable and essential skills to have today!

When you make the choice to eat and cook real food that is most optimal for the human body, as whole plant foods are, you are making the choice to take responsibility for your wellbeing and positively contribute to our entire Earth. When you make the choice to create homemade meals from whole plant foods you are making the choice to avoid the health dangers of processed and convenience foods and their many harmful ingredients and cooking methods. Cooking your own food also helps you save money, bring more balance into your life, and build stronger bonds with family members whom you share your meals with.

Cook Real Food takes you on a journey of self-empowerment to build your confidence, comfort, and creativity to work with whole plant foods in your kitchen.

You will learn how to:

  • Feed yourself in a way that is easy, doable, economical, and sustainable.

  • Feed yourself in a way that nourishes and heals your body from the inside out.

  • Feed yourself in a quick way, where the average meal takes 15 minutes.

  • Work with common, fresh, whole plant food ingredients that you can get from your local grocery store.

  • Cook various starchy and non-starchy vegetables, grains, legumes, and mushrooms.

  • Incorporate fruits, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices into meals in easy and healthy ways.

  • Create simple, yet delicious and satisfying, meals and treats.

  • Approach plant-based, vegan cooking in a positive way based on mindfulness and gratitude.

Cook Real Food is a practical course with a holistic foundation.

The course features 12 sections that provide over 60 lessons, along with practice activities in the form of worksheets and quizzes, and a course assignment to help you apply what you learned. All lessons include either summary sheets, worksheets, or recipes that you can download and print for quick reference and use. You will benefit from over 6 hours of content and a set of skills for life.

You will gain skills to know how to:

  • Obtain, select, and store whole plant foods.

  • Set up and stock your kitchen for healthy plant-based cooking and eating.

  • Cook foods in the least nutritionally-destructive manner.

  • Not rely on any animal foods, oils, or high-heat cooking methods.

  • Adapt your plant-based meals for special needs like gluten-free and nut-free diets.

  • Flavor your plant-based meals in satisfying ways.

  • Fix problem plant-based meals and avoid food waste.

Cook Real Food is not a fad-diet or a trendy recipe course but a way of living.

Your teacher, Evita Ochel, brings you over 10 years of research and personal experience in the field of plant-based nutrition and nearly 20 years in the field of optimal health, and will teach you how to use the power of your food with everyday wholesome, plant-based meals. Instead of focusing on recipes, which can be limiting in many ways, you will be guided with meal templates to create an infinite number of meal and flavor combinations, no matter what your personal limitations may be.

Be sure to look through the course curriculum to know what the specific lesson topics are, and watch the free video lectures to best know if this is the right course for your current needs.

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Instructor Details

Evita Ochel

Evita Ochel, BSc., BEd., is an educator, researcher, and writer with over 20 years of experience in the field of optimal human health who integrates the best of conventional science and holistic principles. She is also certified as a holistic nutritionist, CHN, with a specialty in plant-based nutrition, and certified as a yoga and meditation teacher, CYT.

Evita is the author of the book "Healing & Prevention Through Nutrition" and the founder of the Healthytarian Lifestyle, based on fresh thinking, smart eating, and mindful living. She has created several online publications that feature hundreds of her articles, videos, classes, and courses, and has provided counseling to thousands of people on numerous wellness-related topics.

By addressing the physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual areas of our health, Evita helps people understand how everything is interconnected and reflected in the various states that our body and mind express. She works to empower individuals to consciously create their life, their state of health, and the world they wish to see by being aware of and taking responsibility for their personal choices.

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Reviews

4.8

2,250 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Katrina H. Felices on 2/22/2026

Thank you, Evita for explaining it so well. I understood everything clearly. The templates are very helpful. This is the first course I took here in udemy and I think it’s worth it. I’m a Seventh-Day Adventist and we preach and practice healthy diet which basically is back to the original diet God has designed since Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. He has given many grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. This course helped me a lot not just for myself but for my family. So again thank you so much and God bless you.

By JEAN-PIERRE COZ on 12/31/2025

NOT TRADUCTION FRENCH

By Ahmed Rasheed on 11/29/2025

well, I am not a cook however I am working on operations side like negotiating with inflight caterers to make contracts, design all menu types and check their facility for food safety, food hygiene, personal hygiene and control budget and make cost efficient, from the first part of the lesson of plant-based vegetable cooking is something very new and healthy, like without any oil adding we can use one pan cooking style, example: thin water layer boiled and then cook vegetables with lid for 10 minutes I would like to add some creamy dressing sauce to my review as just after completion I felt too complete of myself and most importantly the teacher is a complete whole plant food and thank you so much for sharing part of your smile. I may share photos or videos of one pan cooking style from soaking chick piece for 12-24 hours to, heating thin layer till it boils, low down heat and cook chick pcs for 5 minutes with lid on.....hehe

By David Marinzapien Gonzalez on 5/15/2023

Amazing course! This was exactly the kind of diet all my life I was looking for. This course is practical, very well explained, concise, the meals are flexible and scalable. I already learned from experience how to prepare the STAR meal, the Whole meal salad and the Green smoothie and I'm happy to eat this on a regular basis. I finished the course very satisfied and knowing that this is just a beginning, there are many new recipes and ingredients to be discovered so that I become fully a Whole Food Plant Based "eater".

By Patty L on 4/28/2023

Fantastic course! It gives you lots of great information, cooking instructions and meal templates. The templates are a wonderful tool to help you think outside of the “recipe box” and figure out ways to use what you have on hand or food that is in season. The switching to WFPB eating is still a journey for us, but this course has helped me become more confident in starting this journey, in cooking the right things the right way and knowing there are still healthy treats to satisfy my chocolate cravings. Thank you so much Evita Ochel for taking time to create this course.

By Antoinette Vincent on 6/25/2021

It was very helpful in my Vegan journey of 1 year of learning how to eat a plant base diet. it cleared up many things that I was doing wrong in my food options and preparing my food . Thanks for taking the time to make others understand the difference in eating a Whole Foods Plant base diet . This course will help me to help others that wants the real way of being Vegan . Thanks again Antoinette Vincent .

By Prabhakaran Jeyamohan on 5/18/2021

I found the course through Evita's youtube video explaining the benefits of wfpd . Pros : 1. Her teaching style is amazing 2. Slow paced and explains the basics of cooking like the tools needed and mindset needed in the kitchen(much needed). Very useful for someone like me who is new or a rookie in the kitchen. 3. Good course for someone wanting to cook for themself or a family using batch cooking which she explains in a clear manner 4. Very strict standards when she recommends tools (blender , pans) and what foods to use, which I like it but at the same time makes the recipe flexible as she gives us a template and one can use so many permutations and combination to create new recipe 5. The recipes need very few ingredients like one of the recipe can be made with one legume, any two veggies , lemon and any nuts and seeds. That's it 6. She is personable Cons: I am not sure to find one. I am giving it a try. She has strict recommendations for choosing non-GMO as much as possible. I am still learning on this topic. I see so many information both supporting and not supporting this. I know there are countries which banned certain GMO products. I am nit picking at this point. Overall 5/5 for the course.

By Shivani Chugh on 11/22/2020

GOOD

By Artemio Aquino on 11/22/2020

With Evita's guidance, A student taking this course would learn how to cook whole plant foods and optimize their health accordingly. Thoroughly enjoyed and is continually learning from this amazing course. I'm going back from time to time to review the videos to hard wire or solidify what I just recently learned as I slowly but deliberately transitioning my diet to a more plant based and holistic one. Thanks again Evita for creating this course. :)

By Artemio Aquino on 11/18/2020

With Evita's guidance, A student taking this course would learn how to cook whole plant foods and optimize their health accordingly. Thoroughly enjoyed and is continually learning from this amazing course. I'm going back from time to time to review the videos to hard wire or solidify what I just recently learned as I slowly but deliberately transitioning my diet to a more plant based and holistic one. Thanks again Evita for creating this course. :)

By Evaa Janine Mikkael on 11/8/2020

I eat plant food and want to know more knowledge about it. Thanks. :)

By Cynthia Louise Shimek on 11/1/2020

This is a great match! I love learning new ways to make the most out of great food for optimal health!

Showing 12 of 191 reviews

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Overall Score : 96 / 100