Vegan & Vegetarian Food Alternatives

I’ve written many posts on going meatless and included many vegan recipes on this blog. Here are a couple of links to help you find them better.

Lita’s Meatless Mondays Posts

Lita’s Vegan Product Recommendations

There are so many simple ways to improve your diet and eat healthier and so many healthy substitutes available to replace a variety of the animal products in your diet. Here’s a partial list to try:

Milk Substitutes:

almond milk
coconut milk
hazelnut milk
rice milk
soy milk
hemp milk

Need to replace buttermilk in a recipe try using 1 cup soymilk plus 1 tablespoon of vinegar for each cup of buttermilk required.

Yogurt Substitutes:

Applesauce may be substituted for yogurt although substituting the entire amount may change the texture of the item you’re baking, so, you may also want to decrease the amount of sweetener used in the recipe.

To make your own “soy yogurt” try pureeing medium firm silken tofu and using it cup-for-cup for dairy yogurt.

There are also many store-bought soy yogurts include Cremso, Nancy’s Organic Cultured Soy Yogurt, Trader Joe’s Soy Yogurt, Silk Cultured Soy Yogurt, WholeSoy Creamy Cultured Soy Yogurt, and Wildwood Probiotic SOYogurt.

Sour Cream Alternatives:

I’ve used and loved vegan Sour Cream Alternative by Galaxy Nutritional Foods, Moonomor Soy Sour Cream, and Better Than Sour Cream Sour Supreme.

Egg Replacers:

As a binder in a recipe, substitute for each egg:

1/4 cup (2 ounces) soft tofu blended with the liquid ingredients of the recipe, or
1 small banana, mashed, or
1/4 cup applesauce, or
2 tablespoons cornstarch or arrowroot starch, or Ener-G Egg Replacer or another commercial mix found in health food stores. (Make sure to mix the Ener-G Egg Replacer with the recommended amount of water before adding to your recipe)

Cheese Replacers:

Soy cheeses are available in health food stores. (Be aware that many soy cheeses contain casein, which is a dairy product.) One shredded soy cheese I love is found at Trader Joe’s. For “meltable” cheese, I love Daiya and use it in many recipes like vegan mac&cheese.
Crumbled tofu can be substituted for cottage cheese or ricotta cheese in lasagna and similar dishes.
Nutritional yeast can also be used as a “parmesan”-like topping – in fact, I like it better.
Several brands of nondairy cream cheese are available in some supermarkets and kosher stores. My favorite brand is Tofutti.

Veggie Meats:

There are also many veggie meat items that can be used in your favorite recipes. One of my favorite crumbled veggie meat options is from Yves Veggie Cuisine. I use this meatless ground in almost all my recipes, from vegetarian lasagna, to shepard’s pie, burritos and stir-frys.

The brand Morning Star Farms and Turtle Island Foods (Tofurky brand) also makes many vegetarian meat options from veggie chicken nuggets and burgers to frozen veggie crumbles.

Without being too extreme, you can choose to eat healthier alternatives without making a lot of effort or sacrificing taste. By sharing these tips and options I hope to help raise your awareness to what tasty alternatives are available for your “meatless” recipes.

Here’s a link I’ve found to share for further information on vegan protein: