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If you’re a vegan, Indian cooking and eating is pitch perfect for your diet. The nation’s cuisine is packed full of recipes and meal ideas that use a plethora of ingredients to pack a flavourful punch – with not one animal in sight. Here are my top reasons why Indian food is best if you’re vegan:

1. Pulao

At its simplest this is aromatic rice sautéed with whole spices, but pulao can be the centerpiece of any meal tossed with vegetables, from peas, peppers and tomatoes to spinach. Serve pulao up with a lemony cucumber, tomato and fresh coriander salad, with plenty of pickle and roasted papad.

Read a recipe for popeye Pulao and spiced aromatic spinach rice here.

2. Dal

Stewed lentil curry, dal is lifted with a tadka or tempering – spices and other ingredients sizzled in hot oil. While ghee in dal is sublime, you can also use mustard oil and coconut oil for flavour, or vegetable/sunflower oil to cook your dal tadka.

Read a recipe for autumnal lentil squash and vegetable stew here.

3. Chana

Indian cuisine is replete with other pulses like chickpeas, black-eyed beans and kidney beans. These are often sautéed or turned into curry to great effect. A green chilli or two really lifts their buttery texture and add chopped fresh coriander in abundance to serve.

Read a recipe for kidney beacn and sweet potato kebabs here.

View a recipe for Chana Masala here.

4. Subzi

The generic name for cooked vegetables, there are a multitude of ways in which Indians cook subzi. Fresh curry leaves and mustard seeds are spluttered in hot coconut oil in the south before the addition of shredded vegetables and coconut. In Bengal and Gujarat, sizzled spices seeds lend much pizzazz to vegetables

5. Bhaji/Pakora

These golden crispy bites are coated in gram flour before being fried. Pakoras are the more lightweight, crispy version of the more commonly available bhaji. You can make them with a multitude of ingredients, but onion is the classic ingredient. Spike these with a bit of chilli powder, carom seeds, salt and turmeric.

Read a recipe for onion pakora here.

11 everyday foods that are accidentally vegan 12 show all 11 everyday foods that are accidentally vegan 1/12 Click through the gallery to see the vegan foods you are probably eating already ... Unsplash 2/12 Skittles Until fairly recently, skittles were vegan in the US but not in the UK - this was because they contained E120 cochineal, which is produced from scale insects. As of 2015, the company decided to remarket their sweets as vegan-friendly to appeal to a wider audience of sweet lovers. 3/12 Pringles The Original and Paprika flavours of the crisps are vegan, as well as the BBQ and Smokey Bacon varieties. 4/12 McCoy’s crisps Salt & Malt Vinegar, Ultimate Sea Salt & Black Pepper, Ultimate Sizzling BBQ Chicken, Ultimate Chargrilled Steak & Peri Peri: there are plenty of cruelty-free McCoy’s crisp flavours for vegans to choose from. 5/12 Lindt Excellence Cocoa lovers will be happy to hear that Lindt’s 70% Cocoa Excellence Bar is both delicious and 100% vegan. 6/12 Ritz crackers This cracker may pride itself on buttery flavour, but Ritz’s famous crackers contain no dairy or animal products. 7/12 McVitie’s biscuits Ginger Nuts, Fruit Shortcake, Fig Rolls, Hobnobs, Chocolate Chip Hobnobs… the list of vegan biscuits goes on. Somebody put the kettle on! 8/12 Fox’s Party Rings Fox’s recently reformulated their Party Rings recipe to eliminate the animal products and animal-derived colourants, making them suitable for a vegan diet. 9/12 Peanut butter Quality peanut butter is made wholly from crushed peanuts, and shouldn’t have dairy products added into the mix. Check the ingredients list on the packaging if you’re unsure. 10/12 Pot Noodle Vegan students, rejoice! Beef & Tomato, Bombay Bad Boy, Sweet & Sour, Brazilian BBQ Steak, Chilli Beef, Chinese Chow Mein, Piri Piri Chicken and Sticky Rib Pot Noodle flavours are all complementary to a vegan diet. 11/12 Oreo cookies Who’d have guessed that Oreos are accidentally vegan? Dip them in a glass of almond milk and you won’t even notice the difference. 12/12 Propercorn Vegan’s don’t have to give up eating popcorn in the cinema either. The Smooth Peanut & Almond, Lightly Sea Salted, Fiery Worcester Sauce & Sun-Dried Tomato, Sweet & Salty flavours of Propercorn are all guilt-free. 1/12 Click through the gallery to see the vegan foods you are probably eating already ... Unsplash 2/12 Skittles Until fairly recently, skittles were vegan in the US but not in the UK - this was because they contained E120 cochineal, which is produced from scale insects. As of 2015, the company decided to remarket their sweets as vegan-friendly to appeal to a wider audience of sweet lovers. 3/12 Pringles The Original and Paprika flavours of the crisps are vegan, as well as the BBQ and Smokey Bacon varieties. 4/12 McCoy’s crisps Salt & Malt Vinegar, Ultimate Sea Salt & Black Pepper, Ultimate Sizzling BBQ Chicken, Ultimate Chargrilled Steak & Peri Peri: there are plenty of cruelty-free McCoy’s crisp flavours for vegans to choose from. 5/12 Lindt Excellence Cocoa lovers will be happy to hear that Lindt’s 70% Cocoa Excellence Bar is both delicious and 100% vegan. 6/12 Ritz crackers This cracker may pride itself on buttery flavour, but Ritz’s famous crackers contain no dairy or animal products. 7/12 McVitie’s biscuits Ginger Nuts, Fruit Shortcake, Fig Rolls, Hobnobs, Chocolate Chip Hobnobs… the list of vegan biscuits goes on. Somebody put the kettle on! 8/12 Fox’s Party Rings Fox’s recently reformulated their Party Rings recipe to eliminate the animal products and animal-derived colourants, making them suitable for a vegan diet. 9/12 Peanut butter Quality peanut butter is made wholly from crushed peanuts, and shouldn’t have dairy products added into the mix. Check the ingredients list on the packaging if you’re unsure. 10/12 Pot Noodle Vegan students, rejoice! Beef & Tomato, Bombay Bad Boy, Sweet & Sour, Brazilian BBQ Steak, Chilli Beef, Chinese Chow Mein, Piri Piri Chicken and Sticky Rib Pot Noodle flavours are all complementary to a vegan diet. 11/12 Oreo cookies Who’d have guessed that Oreos are accidentally vegan? Dip them in a glass of almond milk and you won’t even notice the difference. 12/12 Propercorn Vegan’s don’t have to give up eating popcorn in the cinema either. The Smooth Peanut & Almond, Lightly Sea Salted, Fiery Worcester Sauce & Sun-Dried Tomato, Sweet & Salty flavours of Propercorn are all guilt-free.

6. Idli, Dosa and Uttapam

Three savoury specialities from the Southern parts of India, these fermented rice and lentil delights are a taste sensation to savour. Idli is a steamed bun, Uttapam a thick pancake and dosa, a moreish crispy pancake. Dunked into spicy coconut chutney and sambhar dal, these pack a vegan punch.

Read a recipe for Uttapam pancakes here.

7. Cream

No, I don’t mean the dairy stuff. Most fashionable in the West now, coconut milk and nuts, like almond, peanuts and cashew, have been used in India indigenously for centuries as the base for creamy smooth curries and in place of dairy products like yoghurt and cream.

View a recipe for creamy hyderabadi aubergine here.

8. Curry

There’s more to Indian curries that creamy kormas. We make curries with tomatoes on their own or in a carefully orchestrated combination of onions, garlic and ginger. There’s also spinach and fresh herbs, like coriander, dill and mint, which when blended with the right amount of green chilli, create the basis of a sublime curry base that lifts the blandest of ingredients.

9. Pudla/Chilla

Referred to as omelettes by some, these gram flour pancakes are a fantastic breakfast, brunch or snack. Spiked with a dash of chilli and turmeric, and fresh ginger, coriander depending on the recipe, they make a fantastic vegan savoury alternative to crepes and milky pancakes.

View a recipe for Pudla here.

10. Shorba/Rasam

These are categorised together for no good reason apart from their soupy texture. Shorba is soup in India with its roots in the Mughal Empire and the North of India. Rasam is a spicy tangy soup that has legendary medicinal benefits. Both are completely vegan friendly and mood lifters in a mug.

View a recipe for vegan Indian soup here.

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