indian food or not indian food

[cord of care]

Hello everyone.
So I was vegan until 4 years ago I ditched it and went vegetarian, until a few weeks ago when I decided to return to my old ways of veganism. Only dilemma that makes me sweat is since my last vegan lifestyle, I really REALLY got hooked on Indian food. It all seems very creamy and dairy-based ... am I disillusioned or are there acceptable vegan Indian dishes that I could order at most Indian restaurants? Any advice concerning this and any other non-American food genre would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

[Spud Addict]

Dishes such as Bombay Aloo, Sag Aloo, Vegetable Curries, Baltis should be ok, you would need to check with the individual place though whether or not they use butter ghee rather than vegetable ghee.
If they use butter, most places will gladly omit this and use vegetable oil instead.
This is the case in the uk anyhow. Can anyone shed any light on if practises in the US are different?

[Roxy]

As long as they are using vegetable oil and not ghee, dishes such as channa masala, dahl and aloo gobi are usually fine. Vegetable biranyi is also usually fine too. I go to an Indian restaurant that also makes vegan nan bread.

It's always best to check with the individual restaurant, but you'll find there are plenty of vegan options when it comes to Indian food.

[veggedoutnluvinit]

also, some of them use coconut milk to make it creamy instead of dairy-based stuff. I <3 Indian foooood!

[Roxy]

I love coconut curries! I associated those more with Thai and Malaysian style curries though, rather than Indian curries.

[veggedoutnluvinit]

Ah, you're right. Duh!

[Roxy]

No lol - I'm sure there are Indian curries that use coconut....infact I just googled it and apparantley there are. I personally just associate coconut with more Asian style curries.

[cedarblue]

we make curry once a week at just use veg oil, coconut milk, soy yoghurt if a creaminess is needed.

[Korn]

I love Indian food as well, and by using coconut milk, some tahini sauce (!), tomatoes/tomato sauce, cashew nut 'milk' or/and the other stuff mentioned in this thread, you'll get great tasting Indian style meals. Southern Indian food is very coconut / tomato oriented anyway, it's in the North that they have this obsession with cow's udders. :-)

When I visit Indian restaurants, I normally don't even look at the menu, I just ask what vegetarian meals they can offer without dairy products in (and - of course - make sure I mention the word vegan as well), and they normally come up with 3-4 suggestions.


This may look tempting (?), but humans just don't need this nutrient source - not even in Indian food:
http://www.news.wisc.edu/wisweek/12-Feb-2003/images/OBrien_cow_udder03_1285.jpg

[harpy]

As Roxy says, lot of Indian dishes are vegan apart from sometimes being made with ghee (butter) but these can equally be made with vegetable oil. Phoning the restaurant before you go if poss is quite a good idea because if necessary you can ask them to prepare you something specially using vegetable oil.

As regards other non-American genres, I'm not too sure what's available where you are, but Mediterranean-type cuisines are often fairly vegan friendly because people in those countries tend to eat a lot of vegetables and to cook with olive oil. So for example Italian, Greek or Lebanese restaurants can be useful standbys, except when they've adapted to the local market by adding a lot of extra meat etc to their menus :rolleyes:

Chinese restaurants can also be helpful - they don't tend to use dairy products but do use a lot of vegetables and and beancurd/tofu: you need to watch out for egg though.