How to Be Vegan in Mexico
Above: Spaghetti with Oven-Roasted Tomatoes, Broccoli, Blank Beans and Almonds - from The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico cookbook
Alay Patel wasn’t the vegan I expected to find when searching for an expert on maintaining a vegan diet in Mexico. He’s not only British, unusual enough in Mexico, he’s Indian, his parents having emigrated to England when he was a child.
India is known as likely the easiest country in which to practice veganism. As a child in India, he was surrounded by vegetarians, a common lifestyle there. His parents and grandparents were all vegetarian. “The men in my family only started eating meat when it was all the public schools in England served.”
Able to retire while still in his 50’s, Patel moved to Mexico 2019, the day before the UK shut down because of the pandemic. He first found himself in Tepic, and 8 months later moved to Texcoco, about an hour from Mexico City, then most recently Mérida in the Yucatán. You could say he’s been vegan all over Mexico as the popularity of vegan and vegetarianism continued to grow in recent years.
Most vegan friendly cities
Mérida, key expat destination in Mexico’s Yucatán, has about 10,000 expats and is 5 hours away from Quintana Roo, and about 40 minutes from Progresso and its beaches. It’s very vegan- friendly city with a long list of vegan and vegetarian restaurants. The Yucatán is Mayan country and Mayan cuisine was historically vegetarian-based diet. Other vegan-friendly destinations in Mexico are Quéretaro, Puerto Vallarta (largest number of vegetarians per capita) and of course Mexico City (where hay de todo).
Patel’s tips on maintaining a vegan diet in Mexico.
When in restuarants
Do a little research. If you’re visiting Mexico on vacation, likely you’ll want to explore the local cuisine. When considering a restaurant, call and tell them your vegan and what you can and can’t eat. If helps to give them an ideas, like beans, rice, salad, and clarifying no animal based products. They are usually very accommodating.
Read reviews not just of Vegan/Vegetarian restuararts but others as well. Type in “vegan” and look for comments like “it’s not a vegan restaurant but their “dish.” is vegan and was excellent” Look for what they ordered that worked.
Make sure to play it forward and leave reviews when you have a good experience. The Happy Cow website is devoted to helping you find vegan restaurants near you. It gives reviews of both vegan and non-vegan restaurants that have good non vegan offerings.
Dishes to look for chiles relleno (stuffed chiles), mushroom tacos (you can substitute mushrooms for meat in a number of dishes), quesadillas with flor de calabaza (zucchini) and Elotes/Esquites (a corn dish sold as street food). Ask if beans are cooked with meat (they usually are). Some dishes, such as molletes (a toasted bread with toppings) can be made vegan simply by asking that they leave off the cheese.
On the road
While the vegan lifestyle is gaining acceptance in larger cities, it can still be hard if you’re traveling through pueblos. It’s important to plan ahead and carry vegan options with you. When cooking, stick to basic ingredients such as squashes, beans, noples, ginger, garlic, egg substitutes, onions, peas, garlic, and ginger, all of which can be found in open air markets as you come upon them. Jackfruit has a meaty texture and is often used in vegan cooking by master chefs.
Local ingredients to try which may be less familiar are chayotes, nopales and huitlacoches, which is a mushroom that grows on corn. Chayotes are a form of squash. Buy them “sin espinas” (seeds) and roast them with a olive oil, salt and pepper.
Pack your favorite spices with you (plack the in TicToc containers). If you have access to a skillet and heat source, you can saute vegetables for pastas and corn tortilla tacos. In larger cities, vegan cheeses are fairly easy to find.
Online options
If you are staying Mexico long enough to order online, your vegan options open up exponentially. Some of Patel’s favorite online sources are:
Abillion has thousands of intriguing items such as camembert-style cashew cheese and wild blueberry vegan muffins.
Chedravi Selecto is a grocery store chain with over 330 branches that carries imported products including many vegan ones. Branches operate in Guadalajara, Mexico City, Queretaro, Veracruz, Puerto Vallarta, Cuernavaca and Oaxaca. Like Walmarts, they also have online ordering.
Beyond Meat has outlets and it the #1 brand for plant-based meat substitutes. It’s not cheap but it’s a great quality, their sausages taste indistinguishable from meat. It can be purchased both through Amazon.com.mx and Mercado Libre, (Amazon’s online competitor in Mexico).
Mr. Tofu has branches and sells in stores, including Walmart and Costco, and has thousands of vegan offerings.
Common useful phrases when in restuarants
Mexican cuisine has evolved over centuries, and the same dish in one place may be quite different in another region. Enchiladas alone have dozens of varieties. In times like these, it’s easier to qualify how the dish is prepared by asking a few questions rather than look for specific dishes.
Most of what you read about keeping vegan in Mexico doesn’t acknowledge that language barriers do exist in all but the most touristy and expensive restaurants and areas. Keeping your diet will make it worth writing down and use simple phrases and questions in Spanish. A few minutes with Google Tranlate can assist you in practicing them before showtime. Keeping your diet straight makes it well-worth the effort.
Be polite
If you’re making special requests, it’s productive to be polite (and we all know what happens when you piss off the server). Mexicans value courtesy over money or success. Here are some useful phrases.
Quisiera un ___ (I would like) will get you off to a better start than the demanding “yo quiero” (I want”)
Esta frito? (is it fried?), or a la parilla (grilled)?
Lleva algo de carne/queso? (Does it have any meat/cheese?), lleva manteca de cerdo (lard)
Ofrecen opciones veganas - (Do you offer vegan options?), is a much better phrase than the abrupt announcement “Soy vegano/a” unless you’ve had a conversational warm-up, or offer a bit of an apology, “Disculpa, no como carne, pescado, huevos ni leche. Soy vegano/a)
Sin (without) - Example: Me pueden preparar algo sin leche (milk)/ azucar (sugar), juegos (eggs), queso (cheese), pollo (chicken), sin pescado (fish) (As non-vegan restaurants at times think you only want to eliminate meat)
Despacito por favor - Please slow down, is a wonderful phrase to have with you at all time. Using the diminutive in the “please slow down,” when the servers talk too fast, especially on the phone, is bound to warm their hearts and want to do anything for you. Here’s a good song to practice the word with, and much more fun than Google Translate) and conveys the charms of using the diminutive in Spanish.
I’m allergic (Soy alégica/o)
While I haven’t used this little lie in restaurants, I have used it when rental hosts haven’t provided enough cookware to prepare simple meals, which I believe is a reasonable expectation if you’ve paid to have a kitchen. AirB&B hosts would rather you not cook, that you eat out every meal, which isn’t always practical or safe, especially if you’re a solo female traveler like me. AirB&B hosts are also obligated to provide cookware if they have included it in their listing description.
As a diner, I suspect the this gambit would be equally effective in making your servers take your dietary requests seriously. Many restaurant staff and owners don’t realize that some people really can get sick from meat and dairy and tristamente, they will lie at times.
To be truly in control, you must cook
The happiest vegans are those who cook. I contend that you can’t maintain a healthy diet of any kind in Mexico without cooking some meals. Open markets carry a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, beans (to cook) and of course corn tortillas, which are gluten free. You have plenty to work with.
The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico, a cookbook for travelers and expats, is not a vegan/vegetarion cookbook, but as Patel writes in his Amazon review “Many non-vegan recipes [in the cookbook] can easily be veganized, for example, replacing bone broths with vegetable broths, which makes them healthier and ethical.”
About the author:
Kerry Baker is the author of several books. The second book is “If Only I Had a Place,” giving you the benefits, pitfalls and opportunities of renting long-term in Mexico.
The Mexico Solution: How to save your money, sanity and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico, is the cumulation of all I know, love and want to teach you about part-time expat life. Her most recent book, “The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico” is a cookbook for travelers, snowbirds and expats. (spoiler: to maintain a healthy diet in Mexico, you must cook.)