What do vegans eat? Food and recipes from Italian cuisine

When it comes to vegan nutrition, many people immediately imagine a cuisine made of tofu, seitan, sad salads, and hard-to-find ingredients. Yet, to understand what vegans really eat, it's often enough to go back to the simplest Italian cuisine: the one we've known since childhood.

Pasta with tomato sauce, pasta and lentils, minestrone, legumes, baked vegetables, caponata, bruschetta, focaccia, polenta, risottos, and pizza marinara are common, accessible dishes that are naturally free of meat, fish, milk, and eggs, or very easy to make completely plant-based.

What do vegans eat in everyday life?

Vegans eat plant-based foods: pasta, bread, rice, cereals, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. They can also use plant-based milks and cheeses, creams, yogurts, and other products without animal ingredients.

But there's no need to fill the pantry with industrial substitutes. Simple vegan cooking can be built mainly with familiar foods:

• pasta with tomato sauce, arrabbiata sauce, garlic and oil, or with vegetables;
• pasta and lentils, pasta and chickpeas, pasta and beans;
• minestrone, soups, and vegetable purees;
• rice with peas, mushrooms, pumpkin, or seasonal vegetables;
• Sicilian caponata;
• panelle, farinata, and other dishes made with chickpea flour;
• polenta with mushrooms or lentil ragù;
• stuffed, grilled, fried, baked, or stewed vegetables;
• chickpea, bean, or lentil salads;
• pizza marinara, focaccia, and bruschetta.

Many of these dishes were present on Italian tables long before the terms "vegan" and "plant-based" became widespread. They are not modern imitations: they are part of our food culture.

Italian cuisine naturally lends itself to becoming vegan

Many Italian recipes can be adapted without losing their identity. Often, it's enough to eliminate an ingredient or replace it with a plant-based alternative.

Eggplant Parmigiana

Eggplant, tomato, basil, and olive oil are already plant-based. Cheese can be replaced with a vegan alternative, a cream made with nuts, or a mixture of breadcrumbs, nutritional yeast, and aromatic herbs.

Pizza

Pizza marinara is already vegan in its traditional version. Even a margherita can become vegan by using plant-based mozzarella, while vegetables, mushrooms, olives, capers, artichokes, and sun-dried tomatoes allow for many combinations.

Lasagna and Baked Pasta

Ragù can be prepared with lentils, mushrooms, or vegetables. Béchamel sauce is easily made with unsweetened plant-based milk, flour, olive oil, and nutmeg.

Arancini

Arancini can be filled with lentil ragù, peas, eggplant, mushrooms, pistachio, or plant-based cheeses. They don't lose their Sicilian character: only what is excluded from the recipe changes.

Desserts

Milk, butter, and eggs are not essential for making cakes and biscuits. Plant-based milks, oil, plant-based yogurt, fruit, starches, and other common ingredients can be used. Many traditional desserts can also be reinterpreted without animal products.

Caponata doesn't need to be "veganized"

Sicilian caponata is a perfect example: eggplant, tomato, celery, olives, capers, and the characteristic sweet and sour note already create a rich and complete dish in terms of taste.

It's not missing anything because it doesn't contain meat or cheese. It's a complete recipe just as it is. The same goes for pasta alla Norma, which can forgo or substitute salted ricotta, for spaghetti aglio e olio, for panelle, for many regional soups, and for countless peasant preparations.

Sicilian NQ: Sicilian cuisine reinterpreted in Manchester

An interesting example comes from Sicilian NQ, a restaurant and pastry shop in the Northern Quarter, in the center of Manchester.

The venue has brought the flavors of Sicily to England, offering numerous vegetarian and vegan interpretations of traditional dishes. Arancini, caponata, pasta, street food, and desserts show how a cuisine strongly linked to its identity can evolve without losing authenticity.

Sicilian cuisine is not erased: it is re-read by focusing on vegetables, aromas, citrus fruits, pistachios, almonds, tomatoes, olive oil, and all those ingredients that have always belonged to it.

Sicilian NQ has also supported the Santuario Sotto la Panca with a dedicated initiative and a vegan Sicilian menu. It is a concrete example of how catering, tradition, and respect for animals can come together.

The dishes we already ate as children

To approach vegan cuisine, it's not necessary to start with unfamiliar foods. One can begin with the simplest and most familiar dishes:

• pasta with tomato sauce;
• pasta and lentils;
• rice and peas;
• minestrone;
• vegetable puree;
• baked potatoes;
• bread, tomato, and oil;
• vegetable or legume patties;
• red pizza;
• fresh fruit.

It is often thought that a meal must necessarily contain an animal product to be "real" or complete. Yet many of the most comforting dishes of our childhood were already vegetable or almost so.

Children are often offered simple preparations like pasta with tomato sauce, pureed legumes, minestrone, and vegetable creams. This shows how normal and familiar vegetable flavors can be when not presented as a sacrifice or a medicine.

You don't need to love tofu and seitan to be vegan

Tofu, tempeh, and seitan can be useful and versatile, but they do not define vegan nutrition and do not have to appear in every meal. You can eat vegan using them rarely or not at all.

Traditional protein sources include chickpeas, lentils, beans, peas, fava beans, lupini beans, nuts, and seeds. Pasta and chickpeas, rice and lentils, bread and hummus, or a legume soup are simple examples of meals based on common ingredients.

The British National Health Service confirms that a varied and well-planned vegan diet can provide the necessary nutrients, with particular attention to vitamin B12 and, according to individual needs, vitamin D, iodine, calcium, iron, and selenium.

From butter and lard to olive oil

Making a recipe plant-based also means avoiding butter, lard, cream, and other animal fats. In Italian cuisine, the most natural alternative is often extra virgin olive oil.

For some preparations, avocado oil, seed oils, or nut creams can also be used. Coconut oil can have a particular function in some desserts, but it should not be automatically considered healthier: although it is plant-based, it contains many saturated fats.

The World Health Organization recommends preferring unsaturated fats, present for example in olive oil, avocado, nuts, and various vegetable oils, to saturated fats present in butter, lard, cheeses, and also in coconut and palm oils.

Small adjustments to transform an Italian recipe

• Butter: replace it with olive oil or a plant-based fat suitable for the preparation.
• Milk: use unsweetened plant-based milk in savory recipes.
• Cheese: try plant-based alternatives, cashew creams, nutritional yeast, or seasoned breadcrumbs.
• Minced meat: prepare ragù and fillings with lentils, mushrooms, or vegetables.
• Eggs: choose the substitute based on the function they perform in the recipe, using starches, legume flours, flax seeds, or specific products.
• Animal broth: use a vegetable broth rich in vegetables and aromatic herbs.

No need to change everything at once. You can start with a beloved recipe, make it plant-based, and go from there.

Veganism is not just about what's on the plate

Choosing a parmigiana without animal cheese or a lentil ragù is not just a culinary variation. It means preventing milk, eggs, and meat from being considered indispensable ingredients when alternatives exist that can offer taste, nourishment, and pleasure.

Veganism arises from the recognition that animals are not raw materials. To learn more about this aspect, read Veganism: not a diet, but a different way of looking at animals.

If you want to understand the difference between various dietary and ethical choices, also read Vegan or vegetarian? Differences in diet, ethics, and lifestyle.

A cuisine of the future that we already know

Italian cuisine has everything it needs to become completely vegan: variety, simplicity, legumes, cereals, vegetables, aromas, and an extraordinary ability to transform simple ingredients into memorable dishes.

We don't have to abandon pasta with tomato sauce, pizza, parmigiana, arancini, or caponata. We only need to ask ourselves which ingredients are truly necessary and which belong to habits that we can overcome.

The most beautiful part is discovering that many flavors of our childhood were already on the animals' side. The next step is to consciously choose to leave them off the plate.

This article offers general information and does not replace the advice of a doctor, pediatrician, or qualified dietitian. During childhood, pregnancy, breastfeeding, or in the presence of specific clinical needs, it is important to rely on a competent professional in plant-based nutrition.