From vegoutmag.com
Which vegan dishes did the world crave most in 2025? Google’s top searches reveal surprising comfort-food winners, country by country
Open Google in 2025 and type “vegan ….”
Before you reach the third dot, the autocomplete carousel fills with cakes, pizzas, and other oozy, carb-forward favourites. The pattern is global, and it’s measurable.
Based on my recent analysis, the broad topic “veganism” has slipped back to 2015-16 levels, but specific comfort-food searches are rising fast—evidence that plant-based eating has moved from novelty to nightly routine.
The appetite translated into record participation in Veganuary: about 25.8 million people worldwide signed the pledge this January — nearly a ten-fold leap from five years ago.
Across the same time frame, Google Trends’ top “recipe” queries show eight indulgent dishes out-clicking all others: cake, cheese, pizza, burgers, pasta/lasagne, cookies, casseroles, and meatballs.
Below, we follow the crumbs country by country to see which of these dishes dominated local keyboards—and why.
United States: lasagne, casseroles, and the great cookie quest
America’s most-searched vegan recipe of the year (so far) is lasagne.
TikTok’s “lasagne soup” craze—complete with tofu-ricotta hacks — helped the term crack Google’s overall top-ten recipe list by late 2024 and it hasn’t fallen out since.
Holiday nostalgia fuels the runner-up: vegan casseroles. Google Trends lights up every November with spikes for dairy-free green-bean bakes and shepherd’s-pie casseroles, then flashes again during January’s Veganuary challenge.
Dessert isn’t far behind. “Vegan chocolate-chip cookie” averages 342,000 global searches per month, and the bulk of that traffic is U.S.-based, according to keyword-tracking data cited by VegNews in its 2024 roundup.
Why the carb-fest?
Taste still trumps ideology.
The Good Food Institute’s 2024 retail snapshot shows 59% of U.S. households purchased at least one plant-based product last year, and repeat purchases hinge overwhelmingly on flavour.
Think of lasagne as proof of concept: if cashew béchamel can silence your uncle’s dairy devotion, plant-based dinner is no longer a compromise.
United Kingdom: the year of vegan cheese (and cake, of course)
No country googles “vegan cheese” like the UK.
March 2025 marked the highest five-year search peak for that term after supermarkets rolled out their own melt-ready blocks and shreds, while London’s pioneering vegan cheesemonger La Fauxmagerie continues to draw queues down Cheshire Street.
Meanwhile, Britain’s baking gene keeps “vegan cake” in pole position worldwide. Searches skyrocket twice a year—during December’s holiday trifle season and again for Veganuary—reinforcing that plant-based eaters want buttery sponge, not just energy balls.
An emerging twist: pub classics.
Google detects a steady climb in queries for banana-blossom “fish” and chips and jackfruit steak-and-ale pie. Plant-based options at chains like Greene King signal mainstream acceptance, nudging curiosity from the pint glass to the search bar.
Germany: pizza power and the fast-food effect
Germany finished 2023 as Google’s most vegan-curious country, and 2025 shows the payoff:
Vegan pizza is the runaway favourite, with Berlin’s cashew-ricotta and seitan-salami slices inspiring copy-cat googling nationwide. Tastewise data lists pizza as a “vegan snack favourite,” featured on more than a quarter of German menus.
Plant-based burgers and döner kebabs hold a firm second. Plant Based News reports that 1 in 5 Whoppers sold at Burger King Germany now carries a meat-free patty—a headline that sent recipe searches surging after each menu drop.
When corporate giants normalize meat-free comfort food, home cooks follow suit, googling “vegane Currywurst” one night and “vegan Käsekuchen” the next.
Brazil: São Paulo slices beyond sausage
Brazil’s culinary capital, São Paulo, is mad for pie—so it’s no shock that vegan pizza tops national search charts.
Trend analysts at Tastewise flag the city as a hotspot for plant-based pizza mentions, and Brazil’s SP8 Pizza Awards added a vegan category for 2025 after public voting shot a jackfruit “calabresa” into its finalists.
At the same time, Google is logging brisk growth for “feijoada vegana” and “moqueca de banana-da-terra”, suggesting locals want plant-forward versions of their own comfort stews, not just imported ideas.
Scandinavia: meatballs, hold the meat
Sweden’s signature dish leads Nordic searches thanks to the IKEA plant ball, launched globally in 2020 with a carbon footprint “just four percent of the beef original.”
Every Christmas, the term “veganska köttbullar recept” spikes as Swedes prep holiday tables. Interest then spills into fika territory—oat-milk cinnamon buns and dairy-free smörgåstårta now rank among the region’s fastest-climbing recipe queries.
Cultural translation is the secret sauce: when a household name swaps peas for pork, grandma’s secret gravy can follow suit without a fight.
India (and South Asia): ditching dairy, discovering new spice
Statista data collated by The Vegan Society shows 9% of Indians now identify as fully vegan, on top of the country’s vast vegetarian base.
That latent demand is erupting online as:
“Vegan ghee” and “tofu paneer” searches soar in metro areas where lactose intolerance messaging is trending.
Bollywood buzz around Bhutan’s ema datshi—a molten chili-cheese stew—pushed the dish into India’s Google top-ten recipes list for 2024, and food bloggers quickly published cashew-cheese versions that continue to climb in 2025.
Put simply: India is moving from meat-free to milk-free, and Google is the tutor.
A quick scan of emerging hotspots
Philippines: Searches for jackfruit adobo are up 31 percent year-over-year as local chefs champion fruit-forward comfort food.
South Korea: Gen Z foodies propelled vegan kimchi-jeon (egg-free kimchi pancakes) to trend during K-drama season finales.
West Africa & diaspora: Peanut-based maafe recipes—rich, one-pot stews—now rank among the top vegan comfort searches in the UK and U.S.
Expect these dishes to crack Google’s global leaderboards by year-end.
Why are gooey classics winning the vegan race?
Pleasure parity beats virtue signalling. Once meltable cheese and springy dough pass the taste test, few diners care that the mozzarella started as oats.
Ingredient access keeps improving. Shelf-stable ricotta, aquafaba in a carton, and pea-protein patties make it easier to replicate childhood favorites.
A final datapoint drives it home: social-listening firm Tastewise notes that 25 percent of restaurants now offer pizza, and vegan versions are the fastest-growing slice.
When every neighbourhood menu—and search tab—lets you order or cook the dish you already love, plant-based doesn’t feel like a leap. It feels like dinner.
How to ride the trend (for readers and recipe developers alike)
Localize your swaps. Use coconut milk in South Asian sweets, oat cream in Nordic bakes, and cashew cheese in Brazilian pies. Google rewards region-specific keywords.
Publish ahead of the curve. Holiday casseroles peak in mid-November; Veganuary toolkits trend from late November to New Year’s Eve. Time your content drop accordingly.
The road ahead
If 2025’s first half is any guide, Google’s next wave of vegan recipe winners will be region-specific comfort foods—Filipino jackfruit adobo, Tanzanian coconut beans, or vegan Yorkshire pudding perfected for a Sunday roast.
The message is clear: people don’t want an entirely new diet. They want the foods they already love, minus the animal ingredients.
Search engines—our collective craving barometers—show that plant-based comfort has officially gone mainstream.
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