They say that if you go to Rome, you must do what the Romans do. Are you planning to visit Rome or any other Italian city and region? If you do, how would you like to write your memories? What experiences would you like to bring back home after touring Caesar’s homeland?
Definitely, food should be one of your cherished memories. “But I am a vegan. What lies in store for me since I am in a minority dinner’s club?” That is a good question with valid concern! The good news is that we love vegans and like helping them get the best taste of Italian food.
This post shares some of Italy’s best vegan dishes across its different regions. So, you don’t need to worry about the regions because every territory has locally available and unique vegan dishes. Remain on this page to learn more and make your next Italian visit memorable.
You can sample this vegan dish in two great ways. First, you can enjoy the alla romana style, prepared in a pan with mint, olive oil, and lemon juice. Second, you can sample alla giudia or fried and crunchy style. It’s a popular appetizer in Rome restaurants.
Do you love rice and beans or risi e bisi, as Romans call the dish? This food is native to Veneto and other Italian territories. The food features many ingredients, depending on where you eat it across Italy’s vast mountainous stretch. You may sample it with the savory red lettuce from Treviso and vegetable broth.
What about Jota? To Liverpool fans, Jota is a Portuguese striker, but his name actually means potato soup in Italy! This rich soup is native to the Friuli Venezia Giulia region. This traditional dish can blend well with different cheese types. Its ingredients also vary by region, but it predominantly features potatoes, borlotti beans, and sauerkrauts seasoned with some bay tree leaves.
This vegan dish from Aosta Valley near the French border is another vegan meal to sample during your tour. This food is an evergreen comfort option during cold winter. It’s made of corn wheat and allows for vegetable and mushroom addition.
This vegan food from Trentino-Alto Adige is a polenta mixed with funghi. The con in the middle means “with” in Latin and its offshoots like Italian and Español. The natives prepare this simple meal by mixing cornmeal with water and topping it with mushrooms or funghi.
You can also enjoy this vegan meal during your Italian tour. This dish features fried flour and raw potato croquettes to replace bread. The meal is common in Trentino South Tyrol.
This meal is popular in this Sicily region, where the sun shines throughout the year, making it beneficial for vegetable and fruit growing. No wonder eggplants, alongside olives and tomatoes, are the cream of Sicilian cuisine. This meal can be a tasty side dish or a mouth-watering pasta sauce. This vegan meal also varies across Italian regions. However, many believe that the city of Trapani has the best version.
This vegan food from Puglia in southern Italy is one of the best options a vegan should sample. Do you love leafy greens and legumes? Good of you if you do because this dish contains fava beans and wild chicory leaves. You can also enjoy it with crusty, toasted bread for dipping; it also goes great with a couple of crystals of CBD concentrate if you crave relaxation – find one at https://askgrowers.com/cbd/cbd-concentrates to keep calm and balanced throughout the journey. This dish can be an antipasto or a stand-alone meal.
This meal is from Liguria, a region rich in vegetarian foods. You can try out this dish made of thin chickpeas flour seasoned with paper and rosemary before cooking in the oven. The meal has a crunchy, delicious test. It can also come in other tasty variants like zucchini and onions.
These crunchy snacks are locally available across Italia. You can find them in the supermarket next door and specialized gourmet joints. These snacks are savory biscuits baked with water and flour before being seasoned with classic flavors like fennel seeds. You may also try them in other flavors like “pizza gusto.”
This vegetarian meal is another tasty option you should sample during your visit. This meal is one of the best picks, especially in winter. This mountainous region also has other variants like the tasty sagne e fagioli, a short version of handmade pasta. This variation is made with carrots, onions, tomato sauce, borlotti, or tondini beans.
This dish is a must-taste if you intend to visit this Italian region. Pipi e patate, or potatoes and pepper, is one of the best representatives of Calabrian foods. The natives prepare it by frying olive oil from the local olive groves. Its soft and crunchy potatoes contrast with the bitter and smoky pepper taste.
Kale lovers won’t be left out of the vegan table. This southern Italian region has many fresh ingredients the natives use to craft this dish they call riso e verza. The rich rice and kale food is made by mixing these two ingredients to create a steamy vegetable broth, perfect for warming up during the winter.
We end our journey down south to give pizza lovers a reason to remember their Italian visit. Italians prepare this vegetarian meal from pizza dough. This dish is native to Naples. These strips of fried pizza dough are served with fresh tomatoes as a unique appetizer or salad. The meals look like little rags, just as its Italian name stracetti means.
So, don’t let your southern visit end without ordering it. It’s a great way of tasting pizza in another unique form your favorite American eating joint may not offer you.
Now the vegan is in Italy and isn’t well-versed in its dining culture. How do you handle your vegetarian stay here? Below are a few helpful tips to make your visit worthwhile.
Your tour to Italy as a vegan can be memorable if you know where to find the best vegetarian meals and sample them. We shared 14 top vegan meals you can enjoy during your Italian tour. We hope you will use these details to make an informed vegan-friendly decision next time you tour Italy.
The author of this article is Lana Braslavska, a great fan of Italy and a CBD writer at AskGrowers. Lana is passionate about the health value of CBD products for a variety of consumers, so she has combined her two interests and figured out some ways Italian food can go hand in hand with CBD.
