Vegan Christmas dinner
How to make the 'task' of accommodating a vegan guest at your Christmas dinner as easy as possible! This page is a guide to adapting a traditional meat-potatoes-vegetables-lots of extras Christmas dinner to make it vegan-friendly. The advice on this page also applies to adapting other meat-potatoes-vegetables meals such as a Sunday roast.
There are various ways to accommodate vegans and omnivores at the same meal (see Vegans and Omnivores at the dinner table), but for Christmas dinner I recommend the approach of just cooking a vegan alternative to the piece of meat and making sure that at least most of the other dishes are vegan-friendly, rather than cooking a separate self-contained meal for your vegan guest(s). This is for two reasons: firstly, when you've already got x million separate dishes on the go it's easier just to make a meat alternative than a whole additional meal, and secondly, it's nicer socially if everyone can share most of the same food. There are plenty of shop-bought products available if you don't have time to do something home-made.
Christmas recipes and food shopping links
Have a look at the Christmas recipes provided by the Vegan Society, Viva! and Animal Aid (all vegan recipes) for starters, main dishes, side dishes, stuffing, gravy and desserts, or do an old-fashioned Google search for any of the ideas mentioned below.
Viva! has a useful page about vegan-friendly Christmas food products, including meat alternatives, stuffings, sauces, Christmas puddings, mince pies, non-dairy products, chocolates and wine.
Adapting the meal: The 'meat alternative'
The 'traditional' (or should that be stereotypical) vegan Christmas centrepiece is nut roast, but one of the great things about a vegan Christmas meal is that you're not restricted by any traditions, so you can do what you like! Recipes involving puff or filo pastry or roasted stuffed vegetables are often suitably festive, or you could go for a vegetable, nut or bean-based casserole or pie. JusRol ready-made pastry is suitable for vegans, apart from the Sweet Dessert and All Butter varieties.
A couple of my own ideas:
Stuffed butternut squash with walnuts, canellini beans and thyme
Portobello mushrooms in puff pastry with tomato and red onion sauce
Shop-bought products:
There are various brands of vegan bugers, sausages, nut cutlets, pies and the like which could be served as a Christmas meat alternative. Your best bet is to have a wander round your local wholefoods shop or Holland and Barrett as these tend to have the widest range of vegan products.
Redwood Foods make a 'Roast Turkey' and a 'Celebration Roast' including vegan turkey slices, sausages wrapped in bacon and gravy. Although many people enjoy fake meats, not all vegans and vegetarians enjoy eating products resembling meat, so it's a good idea to check with your guest(s) first if you can.
There's not a huge number of festive vegan meat-alternative products in supermarkets, but a few I know of are:
Asda do a suitably festive vegan butternut squash and pecan roast (in
the frozen section).
Some Sainsbury's frozen burgers and nut cutlets are labelled suitable
for vegans
Some supermarkets sell 'Goodlife' nut cutlets which are suitable for vegans
Some Linda McCartney products are suitable for vegans, including the sausages
and the Country pies.
Note: Tesco nut cutlets are no longer suitable for vegans - they used
to be labelled vegan but they now use milk in the recipe.
Making the rest of the meal vegan-friendly
The only thing you need to remember is 'no animal products', but here
are some specific examples.
Starter
Choose a vegan-friendly starter for everyone, for example a suitable soup or a fruit starter such as melon or grapefruit.
Main course
Roasted things (potatoes, parsnips, etc):
- don't roast them in the same dish as the meat, or anywhere where meat
juice can splash onto them
- don't coat them in any animal products, including lard, honey, butter,
goose fat or whatever the latest celebrity chef trend is this year. Vegetable
oil or olive oil work just fine. Vegan
roast potatoes recipe.
- Remember that honey is an animal products and therefore not suitable
for vegans, so watch out for those honey-roast parsnips. If you're making
your own, try using maple syrup instead of honey.
Vegetables and other potatoes:
- Don't put butter on them. Olive oil or vegan margarine are suitable
alternatives (but remember most margarine isn't vegan).
- Don't put milk in any dishes, such as creamed potatoes. Non-dairy milk
such as soya or rice milk can be used instead.
Stuffing, cranberry sauce, apple sauce, gravy etc:
- Many stuffing mixes are suitable for vegans (just check the label).
Home-made stuffing can be made vegan by using vegan margarine instead
of butter and not including any other animal ingredients.
- Many cranberry sauces and apple sauces are suitable for vegans, again,
just check the label.
- Some gravy granules are suitable for vegans, and not just the 'vegetarian'
granules. I use Bisto Onion gravy granules, their standard 'gravy granules'
(the ones in the red packaging) are also vegan, these are better for a
thicker brown gravy. The 'vegetarian' ones are thinner and more watery,
although they might be more suitable for a vegetable-based main dish.
Dessert
Some shop-bought Christmas puddings are suitable for vegans, including Tesco Classic, Tesco Value, Asda Classic, Asda nut-free, Sainsbury's Basics and Somerfield Rich Fruit Christmas puddings.
Serve with dairy-free cream or ice cream such as Alpro soya single cream, Swedish Glace ice cream or Tofutti ice cream (all commonly available in supermarkets).
Asda Classic and Sainsbury's Basics mince pies are suitable for vegans, but most shop-bought mince pies include milk products in the pastry, so check the ingredients. You're also likely to find vegan mince pies in wholefoods shops. Many brands of mincemeat are suitable for vegans, so it's easy to make your own mince pies using vegetable fat or vegan margarine in the pastry (or a pack of shortcrust JusRol!).
Chocolates and after-dinner mints
Vegan after-dinner mints include the Sainsbury's, Co-op and Tesco Value versions and Divine dark chocolate after dinner mints. Try Green and Black's Maya Gold squares for seasonal spiced chocolate.