What you will learn in this article?
- Summary: Is pasta vegan?
- Kinds of pasta and their relationship with veganism.
- How to make vegan pasta at home?
- Vegan-friendly Pasta options/brands.
- 6 amazing vegan pasta recipes to make!
- FAQs
Summary: Is pasta vegan?
Most of the dried/boxed pasta is vegan but in the case of fresh pasta, eggs are used. An egg is the main ingredient for making pasta, but if any other substitute is used then the pasta can be vegan.
So, before buying any dried/boxed pasta, do check the ingredients and in case you go to any restaurant do ask for vegan pasta or simply ask do eggs are used to make their fresh pasta?
Introduction to Pasta and Veganism
It’s very likely that you would have come across Italian recipes.
Amongst Italian dishes, pasta is one of the favorites and common dishes globally.
It’s a favorite for anyone, and Italian lovers would have them on any day. You can make a myriad of recipes with pasta that is delicious, and you can have them anytime.
There are over 50 different types of pasta, and the number would increase if you’ll consider the various variants of a particular type.
Related: Is Nutella Vegan-friendly? Should Vegans savor it?
Besides, the most popular types of pasta are spaghetti, penne, macaroni, and fusilli.
Spaghetti is very common in the US, while most individuals in Italy prefer penne.
Despite being widespread globally, the vegan community questions pasta’s ingredients.
To prove it we got this snippet from Google Trends that shows an increase but now a constant query about “is pasta vegan”.
Since the vegan community is growing globally, it’s becoming increasingly important to address their questions and make products following their beliefs.
Below, we’ll analyze the question about the relationship between pasta and veganism.
What are the two types of pasta?
Broadly, there are two categories of pasta: fresh and dried.
We’ll talk about both categories and see how they are made.
Fresh Pasta
Fresh pasta primarily requires egg, flour, water, and salt. Eggs are an important ingredient for fresh pasta, while some manufacturers may use oil instead of eggs.
To make fresh pasta, manufacturers mix the flour and salt at first. After that, they create a specific space in the bowl for the eggs.
In this way, the mixing continues until a type of dough forms.
Once the dough forms, the process of kneading begins, and once it’s complete, you can cut the dough in any shape you want.
Be it fettuccine, spaghetti, lasagna, or macaroni; you can create any shape you want with the dough.
Dried Pasta
The second category belongs to dried pasta or pasta secca, which are packaged food.
However, you can also make dried pasta by drying the fresh pasta you made.
Mostly, dried pasta is boxed, and they usually contain two ingredients: flour and semolina.
Flour is wheat from a crop, while semolina is a hard grain and obtained from durum wheat.
Its manufacturing is a long process, but it also starts with mixing semolina with water.
After its mixing, pasta molds press the dough to obtain the desired shapes.
Once the shape is available, they are sent to industrial dryers, which dries the dough using high temperatures. Subsequently, they are packaged into boxes and sent to markets globally.
Is pasta vegan-friendly?
Previously, we saw that there are two broad categories of pasta: fresh and dried.
From the ingredients, we can see that packaged or box pasta is 100% vegan-friendly. Moreover, PETA also confirms that most packaged pasta, including spaghetti, rotini, macaroni, are vegan-friendly.
Since it only contains plant-based ingredients, there’s no harm in assuring that dried pasta is truly vegan-friendly.
However, fresh pasta might not be vegan-friendly. Since fresh pasta involves the use of eggs, they are out of the vegan list.
(Don’t you worry, I will provide you the way to make vegan pasta and various different vegan pasta recipes. Just scroll down a little bit.)
Eggs are dairy products and completely animal-derived; therefore, vegans don’t accept fresh pasta.
Veganism is a lifestyle with certain beliefs that aims to reduce or eliminate cruelty or violation to animals.
Therefore, vegan individuals adapt to a lifestyle that involves using products that guarantee no harm to animals.
Since eggs are involved in the manufacturing process of fresh pasta, the vegan community strictly avoids them.
However, some manufacturers often use oil in lieu of eggs. In this case, fresh pasta would be perfectly fine for the vegan community.
It’s also important to notice that some dried pasta would come from drying fresh pasta.
As a result, these certain dried pasta would contain eggs as their ingredient.
Hence, they wouldn’t be vegan-friendly. So, it’s really important to check the ingredient list before purchasing any type of Dried Pasta.
It would be best to keep an eye out for eggs because they are the most important ingredient for manufacturing fresh pasta.
Most commonly, manufacturers don’t use eggs to produce commercial dry pasta, which you mostly find in supermarkets.
Make your vegan pasta at home?
Here is a short video to make it easy for you to understand how vegan pasta can be made at home with ease and with no machines.
What are the vegan-friendly pasta options?
If you belong to the vegan community and are a pasta lover, you don’t have to worry. Some of the popular pasta brands have started making pasta that conforms to the vegan’s beliefs. We’ll list some of them below and describe why they are vegan-friendly.
- Barilla: It’s one of the most famous pasta brands which dominates the pasta market. As per the reports, Barilla has a 30% market share in the US and around 10% share worldwide. Most of their packaged pasta is vegan-friendly, including whole-grain penne and veggie rotini. However, tortellini and protein plus pasta are some exceptions that are not vegan-friendly as they contain eggs.
- Ronzoni: It’s also one of the most popular brands, and it actually labels on its ingredient list whether the product is vegan-friendly or not. Some of their non-vegan options include small eggs bows and egg fettuccine.
- De Cecco: It’s one of the most affordable pasta brands, and it has ample quantity. Besides, they also have a high market concentration and are found in many regions. The majority of their brands are vegan-friendly, and only two brands: egg Fettucine no 103 and egg pappardelle no 101, are the only non-vegan options.
- Banza Pasta: It’s another brand that makes pasta typically from chickpeas. Their noodles are gluten-free and vegan-friendly, which makes them a suitable option for the vegan community. Moreover, they have vegan labels on their products which can assure vegans that the product is authentic.
- Explore Cuisine: Explore cuisine is another brand that makes pasta from organic ingredients. They make their pasta using beans, chickpeas, and Edamame which makes its product organic and vegan-friendly.
6 amazing vegan pasta recipes to make!
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