What’s Vegan At Nando’s? All The Plant-Based Menu Options

From plantbasednews.org

Nando’s is famous for its chicken - but did you know it also caters for vegetarians and vegans as well? 

When you hear the name Nando’s, you probably wouldn’t associate it with a delicious array of vegan burgers, wraps, and sides. But it’s been catering to meat-free diners with increasingly popular plant-based options in recent years. 

Nando’s is a South African-based chain of restaurants that specialises in Peri Peri Portuguese-style chicken. It was founded in Johannesburg in the late 1980s, and there are now around 1,200 outlets in 30 countries. 

Perhaps surprisingly, Nando’s has been catering to vegans for quite some time. It has a dedicated plant-based section on its website, and regularly adds new animal-free options to its menu. 

Whether you’re in the UK or US, here’s everything you need to know about eating vegan at Nando’s 

Please note that you should always check with your server before ordering to ensure that the product is plant-based or vegan-friendly. The menu is subject to change, and some products may be cooked on the same grill as meat. There is also risk of cross-contamination at Nando’s, meaning plant-based products may be unsuitable for allergy sufferers.

Nando’s vegan starters

UK

In the UK, the chain offers three starters that are suitable for plant-based diners. The Houmous with PERi PERi Drizzle is served with warm pitta bread, and has been a staple on the menu for a long time. You can also choose the Sweet Potato Wedges with Garlic PERinaise. The hugely popular Spicy Mixed Olives are also vegan. 

USA

The vegan starters in the US are the Spicy Mixed Olives and the Hummus with PERi PERi Drizzle.

Adobe StockNando’s specializes in chicken, but it still offers a range of plant-based options

Nando’s vegan mains

UK

The UK offers three mains for plant-based eaters. The Spiced Chickpea Burger is its newest addition, and it’s also available in wrap and pitta form. 

You can also choose the Great Imitator Wrap, which features plant-based chicken made from pea protein. While this is cooked to a plant-based recipe, Nando’s states that it cannot guarantee its baste is made with shellac-free lemons. This means that some vegans may avoid this option.

If you want to keep your meal on the lighter side, the Rainbow Bowl features warmed spiced grains, long stem broccoli, hummus, rainbow slaw, and pickled golden carrot. 

Nando’s UK states that it “does its best” to cook veggie and meat items separately, but it cannot guarantee this. 

USA

The patty in the Veggie Burger at the US Nando’s doesn’t appear to contain animal ingredients, but you should always make sure to order it without egg-based PERinaise or other animal ingredients. 

Are Nando’s sauces suitable for vegans?

Regular visitors to Nando’s will know that its sauces are an integral part of any meal. Vegan diners will therefore be happy to know that the vast majority are vegan-friendly. 

Sauces not suitable for vegans include its egg-based PERinaise. The chain has added a plant-based version of this, however, named Vegan PERinaise. 

In the US, the ranch and Caesar dressings are also not vegan-friendly.

Nando’s PERi PERi sauces that are suitable for vegans include: 

• Lemon & Herb
• Mango and Lime
• Medium
• Garlic
• Hot
• Extra Hot
• Extra Extra Hot
• Vegan PERinaise
• Sweet Chilli Jam
• Ketchup

What Nando’s sides are suitable for vegans? Are the chips plant-based?

UK

Plant-based eaters may be relieved to know that the chips and PERi PERi chips are indeed vegan-friendly. There is sometimes confusion over fries at restaurants, given that many choose to cook them in the same oil as meat. Nando’s, however, uses a plant-based oil. 

Other vegan sides in the UK include Garlic Bread, Spicy Rice, Rainbow Slaw, Long Stem Broccoli, and Mixed Leaf Salad. 

USA

Vegan sides in the US include Charred Sweet Potato, Corn on the Cob (with no butter), Portuguese Rice, Portuguese Roll, Mixed Leaf Side Salad, and PERi Chips. 

Add-ons suitable for vegans include the hummus, grilled pineapple, veggie burger patty, 

Are there any vegan desserts at Nando’s?

Currently, in the UK, the only dessert available is the Mango Gelado. There are no vegan desserts at Nando’s in the US.

What soft drinks are vegan-friendly at Nando’s?

UK

Fans of Nando’s will know that the bottomless soft drinks are an integral part of the dining experience. Vegans can enjoy all the unlimited drink options, including: 

• Coco Cola
• Coke Zero
• Diet Coke
• Fanta Zero
• Sprite Zero

Other non-bottomless plant-based drinks include the RUBRO iced teas (peach, berry, and lemon). Vegans can also drink the Karma Drinks Gingerella. 

USA

All of the soft drinks served at Nando’s in the US appear to be vegan-friendly. 

Drinks suitable for plant-based eaters include: 

• Blood Orange Mango Lemonade
• Cold Brew
• Lavender Lemonade
• Oat Milk Latte
• Pineapple Lemonade
• Strawberry Lemonade

What alcoholic drinks are vegan at Nando’s?

UK

In the UK, at the time of writing, all the beers and ciders are vegan-friendly. These include Sagres, Sxollie, Freedom Pils, Five Points XPA, and Black’s Kinsale Pale Ale. 

The vegan wines include Creative Block 2 (South Africa), Creative Block 5 (South Africa), Cara Viva Medium Dry (Portugal), and Cara Viva Summer Fruit (Portugal). 

USA

According to its menu, all the alcoholic drinks served at Nando’s are vegan-friendly. You should always check before you buy, however, as this may be subject to change. 

Drinks include Original Sangria, Corona Extra, Super Bock, and Spiked Strawberry Lemonade. 

https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/nandos-vegan-menu/

Nando’s Vegan Meal Kits Are Just What We Need Right Now

From delish.com

By Anna Lewis

The perfect way to spice up Veganuary, am I right?!?!

If you’re taking part in Veganuary this year, or you always follow a plant-based diet, you’re going to love this new launch from Nando’s.

The guys at Nando’s, who are best known for their chicken work, have today announced it’s launching a limited-edition plant-based meal kit in an attempt to spice up this dreary January.

The Vegan Flavour Box – which has been created in partnership with MOB Kitchen, the leading online cookery platform – will provide all of the ingredients, recipe and flair needed to create a delicious PERi-PERi Falafel Pitta at home. The kit includes utensils as well as an authentic Nando’s apron to unleash your inner chef, all for just £5. What an absolute bargain!

And that’s not even the best part – all money from the sale of the Vegan Flavour Box will go to City Harvest: a food-distribution charity which rescues more than 75 tonnes of surplus food from the retail and hospitality industry each week, re-delivering to community programmes for people in need.

The vegan meal kits are only available while stocks last, so you better get a wriggle on.

https://www.delish.com/uk/food-news/a35243473/nandos-vegan-meal-kits/

Cheeky vegan: I tried the new Nando's plant-based alternative

From telegraph.co.uk

Nando's has become the latest food chain to produce a plant-based facsimile of one of its meaty menu favourites. But how does it taste?

Veganism has now marched into KFC, Domino’s, Pizza Express and even Burger King, with each of these high-street chains making plant-based facsimiles of their top-selling meaty dishes. Yet the “cheeky Nando’s” – assuming you disqualify from this category, as most of us do, the bean burgers – has remained a cultural shibboleth impassable to vegans.

Teenagers wooing each other over wings; competitive young men self-immolating on the flames of peri-peri sauce; politicians forming parties with the lifespan of a warm chip; such are the sights of a trip to Nando’s, and such are the activities hitherto denied to vegans.

But this week’s unveiling of the “Great Imitator” should change that. Nando’s has crafted a grilled chicken substitute that, in theory, looks like chicken and tastes like chicken without having squawked or suffered like a chicken. It’s made of pea protein (powdered peas, basically), rather than soy or wheat gluten, and you can have it in a wrap, burger, or pitta.

The wrap, along with the burger and the pitta, comprises the new, meat-free offering. Credit: Handout

I tried all of them. In each case, the chicken element came in the form of four strips, browned and crispy on the outside and tender within. Extracting a single strip from the wrap, which was the first dish I tried, seemed an unfair test – would anyone do that to sauce-free chicken? – but the ersatz chicken passed it, by and large. In line with the chicken substitutes available in both restaurants and supermarket, it had the right ratio of crunchiness to soft chewiness, seemed to have some minimal seasoning, and had that final, fundamental, elusive quality of traditional chicken: dullness.

Like any real chicken, it begged for sauce, and, this being Nando’s, that’s what it got. I tore open a packet of peri-peri sauce, squirted a small lagoon of it onto my plate, and dipped the head of my wrap on its surface. For the first time in many years, I had the feeling of having consumed too much peri-peri.

With each of the three dishes, the “chicken” was buried in salad and white bread of varying voluminousness. The burger, encased in a ciabatta-style bap, was dripping with an chilli jam and mildly spicy mayonnaise. The wrap, a squat cylinder enclosing your regulation four strips and a long wad of lettuce, oozed with the same, as did the wrap.

The challenge of chicken with skin, the kind tasty enough to eat without being swaddled in carbs, is evidently still to be surmounted. But if you treat it as an ingredient, as Nando’s have, and give your customers control over their level of spice, as they do, then this chicken substitute is a good filling, and one that does pretty much the same sauce-sopping, substance-bestowing job of the original. My meat-eating housemates, with whom I’d shared a takeaway, agreed.

The strips are cooked on the same grill as actual chicken, which means that some won’t class them as vegan. They have the endorsement of Peta, though, and it’s gladdening to think of the amount of animal suffering that might be averted by this menu alteration. Nando’s, like many chains, buys its chicken from Red Tractor certified farms, whose rules allow 38kg of live chickens per square metre – i.e. 20 chickens on a floor space a little bigger than that of an armchair. Is this what’s meant by “cheeky”?

You don’t need to be a vegan to approve of Nando’s finding an alternative.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/cheeky-vegan-tried-new-nandos-plant-based-alternative/

McDonald's and Nando's 'planning to launch vegan burgers in the UK'

From dailystar.co.uk

McDonald's and Nando’s are both reportedly finalising plans for a new vegan burger in the UK.

Photos, reported to be from the two chains were shared by Vegan Food, reports WalesOnline.

The Nando’s image looks to be a staff instructional sheet – which they use to assemble the burger according to head office’s guidance.

The other looked like marketing materials for McDonald's.

According to Vegan Food, McDonald’s may be partnering with brand Beyond Meat.

The fast-food outlet previously paired up with the fake-meat company to launch the vegan PLT in Canada.

So, it would make sense for them to work together once again.

The McDonald's burger appears to be made up of a Beyond Fear vegan patty, a slice of vegan cheese, plant-based mayonnaise, lettuce, pickles, tomato, onions, ketchup and mustard in a sesame seed bun.

The burger will be certified vegan – meaning no animal products or by-products will be involved in the dish.

So, finally, McDonalds fans can get their vegan fix.

The supposed marketing material states: "At McDonald's we believe that everyone should enjoy a delicious burger without compromising on taste."

Meanwhile, the Nando’s snap shows a vegan Peri-Peri patty in a Portuguese roll with vegan Perinnaise, sandal and a slice of beef tomato.

Yum!

Neither company has yet officially confirmed the release of the new vegan burgers – so there may be a little wait yet.

But, it makes sense for the chains to be reaching out to the plant-based population.

In Britain alone, the vegan community has grown from just 150,000 in 2014 to a suspected 1.1million.

According to Finder.com it is suspected that this number will grow to a whopping 2.2million by the end of the year.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/real-life/mcdonalds-nandos-planning-launch-vegan-22792892