Vegan Lunch: Dining out

Lunch has become easy for me lately since I’m mostly at home, but for many people finding a satisfying vegan lunch on the go is a struggle. My style of dining out as a vegan is probably more relaxed than others. I avoid ingredients I know are not vegan but I don’t always worry about whether foods have butter, non-vegan sugar, or if they are cooked on the same surfaces or in the same oil as meat. I usually assume most breads, bagels, pizza crusts, and pastas are vegan. Unless of course the description says “cheese, buttermilk, egg” etc.

If I’m feeling brave, I’ll ask more questions, but often the servers don’t know the answer and will just tell you what they think you want to hear. Sometimes just telling the server I’m vegan is enough for them to guide me through my choices. However they are sometimes confused by what it means so I prefer to go in knowing ahead of time what I can get. Anytime I eat at any restaurant that is not 100% vegan, I assume I may ingest some tiny amount of animal products and while it’s gross, I know it’s generally not poisonous to me in those doses. That being said, beyond vegetables, the 3 P’s: Pasta, Pizza, and Potatoes, become my staples in most vegan un-friendly restaurants. They are easy to order with our meat and cheese. I assume rice is almost always cooked in a non-veggie broth and/or butter unless it’s steamed. Half of the time, beans are not vegan or even vegetarian so I almost always ask before ordering beans. Mister goes out for lunch almost every day. He often relies on the following options:

Pei Wei: They have a lot of options and the menu says what can be veganized!

Chipotle and Qdoba: It’s very easy to veganize the veggie burrito, bowl, or salad. Just make sure you get the black beans at Chipotle because the pinto beans have pork. Mr. loves the tortilla soup at Qdoba.

Noodles & CO: Their options include the Japanese Pan Noodles, Bangkok Curry and Indonesian Peanut Saute’. I love their tofu!

Einstein Bros Bagels: I like the Veg Out sandwich, you can just replace the cream cheese with hummus.

Panera Bread: They have several salads, PB&J, Mediterranean Veggie sandwich without cheese, Black bean soup, and the vegetable soup without pesto.

Quiznos: A veggie sandwich without cheese or dressing but with guacamole…pretty good!

Subway:  The Veggie Delight sub or salad without cheese (I like to add my own Tofurky Deli slices and sometimes even Vegenaise to the sub to make it more yummy and filling).

Taco Bell: The bean burrito or bean tostada, fresco style are good in a pinch.

Wendy’s: A plain baked potato with salt and pepper, a Mandarin Chicken Salad without chicken, side salad. Not the most excited but good if you’re hungry and not near any of the other above places.

The veggie burgers are vegan at Red Robin and Denny’s but not at Burger King.

Besides the fry oil issue, the fries are vegan at Burger King, but all the other fast food places seem to use beef flavoring.

Vegan Eating Out isn’t the prettiest or fastest site out there but it has a lot of good information.

For those iPhone users out there,  I really like the VeganXpress app.