Converting recipes is highly rewarding. It makes a great career expanding step, or simply a fun personal or school project. A deeper understanding of animal-free cooking broadens the horizons of caterers. Cooking for vegans, vegetarians and the dairy and egg intolerant is daunting no longer.

We have found that by focusing on making dishes vegan you cater for the vast majority of special diets, be they religious, vegetarian, or dairy-intolerant. We also will include gluten-free ideas and links, as this is common, sometimes in conjunction with dairy-intolerance, so a vegan gluten-free recipe then becomes a great answer.

There are thousands of fantastic vegan and special diet recipes on the Internet, and many recipe books; but you don't have to use them to make tasty animal-free food.

You can make dishes you've always made. Simply convert your old recipes. This page shows you how.

Where to buy the alternatives in the UK is indicated, and most are widely available. "hfs" stands for health food shop, and includes whole food shops and organic stores.

For caterers in ski resorts, refer to our ingredients page for what can be bought where.

In cooking you are unlikely to taste the difference. As stand alone items they may taste different, and whether they taste better or worse is down to conditioning and personal preference. I bet you can't tell dairy-free ice cream from the real thing!

Dairy, egg, honey and meat alternatives

• Dairy alternatives - using and buying
• egg and honey alternatives, and chocolate
• Meat, poultry and fish alternatives

surprisingly vegan

If you are new to vegan food, you'll be surprised what else in a standard store cupboard is vegan. Some major examples are given here.

staples

item	context	vegan version	look out for
pasta	Italian dishes	most dry pasta is egg free	avoid egg pasta
bread products	sandwiches, toast, etc	most are vegan	avoid the few containing whey, buttermilk, lactose, honey or milk
rice, polenta, quinoa, cous cous, Ebly, potatoes	background to many dishes	always vegan	put olive/avocado oil rather than butter in as necessary
filo pastry and some other pastries	from samosas to strudel	often vegan	check oil/fat used is vegetable based

other common items

Many other easily available items are vegan, beyond the massive range of fruit and vegetables out there. Here are some commonly found even in the most unadventurous larder:

• peanut butter
• yeast extract (e.g. Marmite)
• hummous
• nearly all tomato ketchup, BBQ sauces, mustard, pickles and chutneys
• herbs, spices and curry pastes - nearly always vegan
• salsa
• baked beans
• chips (fried in vegetable oil)
• cocoa

For examples of key and extra ingredients to think about, take a look at the list we give ski companies to help them out.

to be wary of

There are a few things it is better to steer clear of without the help of a vegan friend or the Animal Free Shopper guide. The major ones are:

• wines and beers - many are clarified with bones, egg and fish products. The big supermarkets and off licence chains have lists of which ones are vegan if you ask
• sweets and jellies - many contain gelatine, which is made from animal bones. Health food shops and big supermarkets sell vegan alternatives which tend to be high quality.
• cakes - usually contain eggs, though they don't need to

putting all this into practice

You can experiment by converting your favourite recipes. See how close you can make them to the real thing. They may taste a lot better too, and not be so hard on your stomach.

For examples of converted dishes which you would not think of as vegetarian let alone vegan, see Veggie Snow's skiing catering recipes, which include pancakes and cheezy sauces. We'll be featuring the best of these on Special Guests shortly.

links to more veganising food pages

For a more detailed eye opener on which vegan foods you might already have at your fingertips, and how to veganise recipes you already know, try reading this Vegetarian Resource Group document on ingredient substitution.

For supermarket shelf foods that happen to be vegan often unintentionally, see the small subset of these on the PETA listing. There's a bigger list of examples, 14,000 in fact, at the Animal Free Shopper website.

For more catering ideas and further details on dairy and egg replacement, refer to the Vegan Society.