What do vegans eat at Christmas

It’s a funny time of year to be a vegan; when you walk into any major supermarket, shopping mall or gourmet deli you are faced with a foodie nightmare that is legs of ham, turkey bodies, roast chicken and buttery mince pies and puddings.

According to Wikipedia, the “traditional” Christmas dinner features turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and vegetables such as carrots, turnip, parsnips, etc. Other types of poultry, roast beef, or ham is also used. For dessert Christmas pudding or fruitcake.

Traditional Christmas Menu

When searching the internet for Christmas meal ideas you can’t help but be inundated with suggestions such as:

• Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs
• Chicken liver pate
• Prawn cocktail cups
• Chestnut, bacon and parsnip soup
• Pancetta & roast shallot stuffed turkey
• Honey roast carrots
• Bacon, sausage and prune rolls
• Brandy & vanilla butter
• Royal cherry trifle

So where does this leave the compassionate vegan come Christmas day and beyond? The vegan has more choices than you can shake a stick at these days so your wish for devouring fulfilling vegan fare is easily granted this year. Where we are now with the availability of cruelty free foods and plant-based fare means no vegan goes hungry on the most festive day of the year.

The Vegan Christmas Menu

• Scrambled tofu served on a bagel
• Hummus with crudités and warm pitta
• Tempeh with a peanut dip
• Roasted stuffed cauliflower
• Baked squash
• Roast vegetable megamix
• Cous cous
• Vegan gravy
• Vegan meringues

Tis the season to make vegetables the main star using an array of herbs, spices, seeds and nuts to pimp up the flavour. Not to mention flavours such as maple syrup, mustard, savoury yeast flakes and infused oils.

The sizzling menu

Here in Australia it is predicted to be a hot one, the traditional warm meal is often replaced with cooling hydrating foods with salads and cold spreads taking centre stage on the outdoor table always covered in order to stop the flies feasting first!  A few festive summer salad ideas include:

• Potato salad
• Freekah & pomegranate salad
• Tomato & basil bruschetta
• Sweetcorn salsa
• Cauliflower with dukka and a turmeric yoghurt
• Beetroot and dill with almond feta

The frugal diner

We recently read a post on Instagram “Don’t forget to get enough food for 30-40 days over Christmas because the shops will be closed for 12 hours.” Our golden rule when preparing the festive feast is think about what you are cooking and reduce by half. You definitely don’t need as much food as you think, its scary when you look at the wastage come the end of the meal; make a choice to be frugal this festive season.

The countdown to Christmas

There are now only seven days until Christmas day. If you are anything like me, you are still to start your present shopping but food shopping with the exception of fresh organic produce is basically all sorted.  This year we called upon some of our favourite retailers to help bring our vegan Christmas meal together. A special thank you goes to:

• Suzyspoon Vegetarian Butcher for the Festive Roast & Gravy
• The Vegan Dairy for our selection of cheeses for the cheese board
• Offaly Good Food for the Organic Shitake Pate
• Smith & Deli for our croissants and fruit pudding
• Vegan Perfection for the Booja Booja Chocolate
• The Source Bulk Foods for the nuts, dried fruit and chocolate coated goji berries

Vegan Cookbooks

Looking for further foodie inspiration when it comes to what to create for your festive feast? We highly recommend the following cookbooks (they make great presents too):

Smith & Deli-cious
Oh She Glows
The Plantpower Way: Italia 
Vegan with a Vengeance 
Thug Kitchen

Also visit our Bookshelf to see our other cookbook recommendations.

Eat more Planted

Support local this festive season; purchase from your local farmers market, independent local grocers and/or a small businesses who sell foods that have integrity and most importantly a story. Choose foods grown by nature, eat more foods from plants not those manufactured in a plant and eat mindfully and consciously.

Change up your menu for this festive season, enjoy the abundance of flavours fresh organic produce provides and look to adopt more planted habits in 2019.

Thank you for your support in 2018; we are excited about new opportunities in the new year in which we can share with you all.