Help! How do I feed a vegan?

If you're faced with catering for a vegan for the first time, the first and most important tip is.... don't panic!

Catering for vegans at a corporate event

If you're planning a corporate hospitality event and one of your attendees tells you they're vegan, there's nothing at all to worry about.

Simply tell your caterer and ask them to ensure that each meal they provide on the day includes a plate of food or a set of courses (depending upon the format of the event) suitable for - and specially set aside for - a vegan.  Any professional caterer should take this easily in their stride. It's easy for them to do and shouldn't cost you anything extra, as you're simply asking them to use a small part of their existing budget to meet the dietary requirements of one specific attendee.

As for practicalities on the day, simply ask your vegan to identify themselves to you or to a member of the waiting staff. If it's a buffet, for example, you can ask the caterer to hold their plate in the kitchen until you've sussed out who it's for.

This may all sound obvious, but I've previously been left feeling comprehensively slighted by someone who organised an event and couldn't be bothered to accommodate me - when all it would have taken was a quick mention in advance to the buffet caterer.

Catering for vegans at home

The first step is still not to panic! You probably already have plenty of food in your home to make a lovely vegan meal, without even going shopping. To make it extra special, you may just need one or two extra ingredients.

Examples of REALLY easy to make vegan meals:

- Pasta with vegetable sauce.  Required ingredients: wheat pasta (not egg!) and a jar of pasta sauce. What to look out for: don't buy pasta sauce that contains lactic acid. Whilst it may have been made from a non-dairy source, another way that lactic acid can be made is by fermenting lactose (milk sugar / dairy product).  Make it better by: adding in some tofu, which can be drained, diced and fried for a few minutes in a pan, then added to the sauce. Tofu is, like, really good for you, man.

- Chili / Chilli con carne with rice or baked potato. Required ingredients: vegemince, which is sold at most supermarkets in the frozen foods aisle. It works just like beef mince. Simply add the same amount of water as you're using of the mince (for grams read mls) and cook it up with some chilli beans (tinned), tomato puree, onions, chopped tomatoes, garlic, garam masala and a couple of drops of Tabasco sauce (steady on!). Serve with boiled rice or baked potato and a side salad. Easy peasy.

- Indian take-away. No, seriously - this one's as easy as it gets. Just order a vegetable biryani and explain that the person it's for is allergic to dairy products. Usually, this means asking them to make sure they cook it using vegetable oil instead of ghee (which contains butter) and using plain rice as opposed to pilau rice. This solution's so easy, it becomes laughable to think you were ever worried in the first place - especially after a few drinks.

Other ideas: buy a vegan cook book or borrow one from the library!  I'm not planning to turn this page or site into a recipe book, so I'll stop there. My point is simply that having a vegan guest to dinner really truly doesn't need to be a cause for worry or hassle. Of course, if you want to go the whole hog (an unfortunate turn of phrase), you can create suitable starters and desserts with equal ease.

Getting the drinks right

Take a look at the vegan facts page, as some wines, beers and spirits are vegetarian, some are vegan and many are neither. The easy option is to let your vegan drink whatever bottle of wine they bring with them - assuming they have sufficiently good manners to bring one!