diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 6193f9b504..351bdc6d74 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -99,7 +99,11 @@ foreach custom_subproj: get_option('custom_subprojects').split(',')
 endforeach
 
 foreach subproj: subprojects
-    subproject(subproj, version: gst_version)
+    default_options = []
+    if get_option('disable_introspection')
+        default_options += ['disable_introspection=true']
+    endif
+    subproject(subproj, version: gst_version, default_options: default_options)
 
     cmdres = run_command(python3, '-c', symlink.format(subproj, meson.current_source_dir()))
     if cmdres.returncode() == 0
diff --git a/meson_options.txt b/meson_options.txt
index fc73eb84fc..65ebe13a45 100644
--- a/meson_options.txt
+++ b/meson_options.txt
@@ -7,4 +7,7 @@ option('disable_gst_editing_services', type : 'boolean', value : false)
 option('disable_rtsp_server', type : 'boolean', value : false)
 option('disable_gst_omx', type : 'boolean', value : true)
 option('disable_gstreamer_vaapi', type : 'boolean', value : false)
+option('disable_introspection',
+        type : 'boolean', value : false,
+        description : 'Whether to disable the introspection generation')
 option('custom_subprojects', type : 'string', value : '', description : 'Comma-separated project names')