Restaurants are beginning to offer vegan options beyond a garden salad.
If you're a vegan, simple pleasures like dinner and a movie or a weekend brunch with friends can become complicated. Any time you go to a restaurant, you're forced to navigate menu choices and ingredient lists to locate a meal that does not contain meat, eggs, dairy or other animal products. This can be difficult outside of a niche vegan restaurant. But some chains do offer reliable vegan-friendly options.
Panera Bread
Panera Bread offers several vegan-friendly items on their menu. The Vegetarian Black Bean Soup is made with vegetable stock and is safe for vegans. The Classic Salad contains only mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers and vinaigrette, and the Fruit Cup is also a safe option. All regular sandwiches contain meat or cheese, but Panera does offer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on its kid's menu.
Breakfast is also a safe option for vegans, with a variety of bagels that do not contain any eggs or dairy, including Blueberry, Plain, Sesame, Whole Grain, and Everything. Vegans should steer clear of most specialty bagels, such as the Cinnamon Crunch bagel, the French Toast bagel, the Asiago bagel, the Jalapeno and Cheddar bagel, the Cherry Vanilla bagel, the Chocolate Chip bagel, and the Cinnamon Raisin Swirl bagel. All of these varieties contain milk, eggs or cheese.
Vegans should be wary, however, because many of Panera's soups contain milk, such as the vegetarian Garden Vegetable Soup with Pesto, the Baked Potato Soup, or the Vegetarian Creamy Tomato. The French Onion soup looks like a vegetarian option, and may be ordered without the cheese topping, but it's made with beef stock, so vegans should avoid it.
Panera Bread Company
6710 Clayton Rd.
Richmond Heights, MO 63117
314-633-7100
panerabread.com
Olive Garden
Although most of Olive Garden's menu is heavy on meat, cheese, and cream sauces, some vegan options are available. The Capellini Pomodoro is a vegan-friendly classic entree, containing only tomatoes, basil, garlic, capellini pasta, and olive oil. The Linguine Marinara is a similar dish, made with linguine in a marinara sauce of tomatoes, onions and herbs. Vegans may also order the Garden-Fresh salad or the Minestrone soup in place of a regular entree.
Olive Garden also offers one vegan-friendly appetizer: the bruschetta, served with ciabatta bread. They also offer a marinara dipping sauce appetizer for the complementary breadsticks served with every meal, but vegans should not eat the breadsticks themselves. Olive Garden breadsticks are topped with butter before serving. It may be possible to ask your server for breadsticks that do not have the butter topping.
Olive Garden
5900 Lake Ellenor Drive
Orlando FL 32809
407-245-4000
olivegarden.com
Noodles and Company
Because Noodles and Company offers a highly flexible menu, with all meat or protein available only as an add-on to its noodle dishes, vegans can find options here more easily than at many other chains.
The Asian menu offers the most options for vegans, such as the Japanese Pan Noodles, sauteed with vegetables and mushrooms in soy sauce; the Bangkok Curry, rice noodles with vegetables, lemongrass, galangal, and coconut milk; and the Indonesian Peanut Saute, rice noodles with vegetables in a spicy peanut sauce. Vegans may also add organic tofu to their noodle entrees.
The vegetarian Thai Curry Soup is also vegan-friendly. The Chinese Chop Salad may be appropriate for vegans, but ask your server or cashier if the crispy wontons contain eggs. It may also be possible to customize some dishes such as the House Marinara or the Pasta Fresca so they are prepared without a Parmesan cheese topping.
Noodles and Company
520 Zang St.
Broomfield, CO 80021
720-214-1900
noodles.com
Tags: Olive Garden, made with, Noodles Company, Panera Bread, with vegetables, also safe, also safe option