The Best Vegan Food for Barbecues

Originally published at Reader’s Digest.

There’s nothing quite like firing up the barbeque on a balmy summer day and inviting all your family and friends round to your garden. But while it might be easy to keep meat eaters happy at a barbeque, serving up good vegan barbecue food has always been thought of as more challenging. Not anymore. With the popularity of a vegan diet rising, vegan food for barbecues just gets better and better. Here’s the best vegan foods for your barbecue.

Vegan Burger

We’ll start with the obvious. Vegan burgers have come a long way since those awful mushed vegetable things we were once served as a ‘burger’. Now vegan burgers look, and taste, like regular meat burgers if you want them to, and if that’s not your thing you can get a variety of different types of patty. You can buy really good vegan burgers from the supermarket, or you can make your own. The plus point of making your own is you get to decide what goes into it. Have fun making a bean burger, a lentil burger, jackfruit, or a mushroom burger. Make the patty you like and serve with vegan cheese, vegan mayo and gherkins.

Tofu Kebabs

Tofu is a tricky one for many people. Even vegans struggle with its weird texture, but cover it in marinade and grill it on a barbecue and you have a completely different tofu experience. You can add whatever you like to your tofu skewers. You can marinade in barbecue sauce or sweet chilli, or hot and spicy. Add chunks of onion, pepper, courgette, and cherry tomatoes, and you have the perfect vegan barbecue kebabs. You’ll be a tofu convert.

Potato Salad

 Yes, a potato salad is mostly vegetables and salad, but what really makes a potato salad is the mayo. You can buy vegan mayo easily at the supermarket. Just add in garlic and chives, dill, and parsley, and you have the perfect sauce for your potato salad. You can use white potatoes or sweet potatoes if you prefer. Pre-boil the potatoes and let them cool, then chop up and add, cucumber, celery, bell pepper, radish, tomato, red onion, and whatever other salad and vegetable you like. Mixed together it makes the perfect barbecue accompaniment, and even your meat eater friends won’t know the difference between this and a non-vegan potato salad.

Grilled Peas In The Pod

Quick and easy, this vegan barbecue side will impress everyone at your barbecue, even the meat eaters. Take your peas in the pod and turn them in olive oil, then simply pop them on the barbecue. Turn them until all sides are charred, and squeeze some lemon over them in a dish. Your guests can pop the peas out of their pods and eat them like edamame beans or crunch them as they are.

Vegan Hotdog

 Aside from the burger, the other food you’re guaranteed to find at any barbecue is hotdogs. You can buy vegan sausages at the supermarket and make very simple hotdogs, or you can get more creative with your dog. Some vegan sausages are better than others, so go for a good brand, but you can put just about anything on your hotdog. Fried onions and mushrooms with ketchup and mustard are traditional and still keep it vegan, or try a Mexican dog with salsa and crushed tortilla chips, or a mac and cheese dog with a smothering of macaroni in vegan cheese.

Grilled Vegetable Platter

You can grill just about any vegetable on your barbecue, as long as it’s big enough to slice. Aubergine, sweet potato, bell peppers, beef tomatoes, and large courgettes, all make great veggies for barbecuing. You can marinade them how you like, but a drizzle of olive oil and some salt and pepper is good enough to make a plate full of tasty grilled vegetables. The colours and presentation of the fresh veg look great when served as a side on a large platter.

Barbecue Ribs

There are some meat dishes that are harder the others to replicate with a vegan alternative, and barbecue ribs has always been a tricky one. Seitan makes the best meat alternative for this, but like those vegan ribs to begin with, it’s a tricky one. You can make seitan yourself, but put yourself aside some time for this as it isn’t easy. You can buy seitan readymade, but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to pick it up in your local supermarket and you’ll probably have to order it from a specialist stockist. Once you have your seitan you simply brush with barbecue sauce and bake it, turn it, brush with the sauce again, and bake some more. Cooking time is about half an hour, so you can start it while the barbecue is being fired up.