Somewhere in an Addis Ababa kitchen, a pot of lentils has been simmering with berbere spice since before “plant-based” was a marketing term.
In a monastery in Kyoto, monks have spent over a thousand years perfecting tofu and vegetables into an art form.
Neither of them were chasing a trend. They were just cooking the food their grandparents cooked.
It’s easy to think of veganism as a modern invention, something born out of Instagram and oat milk lattes. But long before the word existed, entire cultures were building their daily meals, religious calendars, and family recipes around plants. Some did it out of necessity. Some did it for faith. Some just discovered, generations ago, that beans and grains and vegetables could carry a meal all on their own.
Here are 12 countries where vegan food isn’t a phase. It’s history.
Key Takeaways
- Plant-based eating has deep roots in religious fasting traditions across Ethiopia, India, Greece, and beyond, often predating the modern vegan movement by centuries.
- Necessity, geography, and climate shaped many traditional vegan diets long before ideology did, from Okinawa’s sweet potato staples to the legume-heavy cooking of the Levant.
- Buddhist and Jain monastic traditions in Japan, China, and India developed sophisticated plant-based cooking techniques that are still studied by chefs today.
- Many of the world’s most iconic ‘accidentally vegan’ comfort foods, like hummus, dal, and injera with shiro, come from cultures that never labeled the food at all.
Where Fasting Traditions Built Entire Vegan Cuisines
Before veganism was a lifestyle choice, it was often a religious obligation. Orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, and other faiths have long included extended fasting periods that ban animal products, sometimes for a third of the year or more.
Over centuries, that repetition didn’t just produce the occasional meat-free meal. It produced whole culinary traditions, techniques, and signature dishes designed to make plant-based eating deeply satisfying rather than a sacrifice.
1. Ethiopia
In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, followers observe roughly 180 fasting days a year, and on those days, no meat, dairy, or eggs are allowed. That single religious rule shaped one of the richest vegan food cultures on earth.
Dishes like misir wot (spiced red lentils), shiro (a smooth chickpea or broad bean stew), and gomen (collard greens with garlic and ginger) are eaten atop injera, the spongy fermented flatbread made from teff.
This isn’t a side dish or a compromise; fasting food in Ethiopia is often considered some of the country’s best cooking, rich with berbere spice blends, garlic, and slow-cooked depth.
2. India
India’s relationship with plant-based eating runs deep, shaped by Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism, all of which encourage or require vegetarian and often fully vegan practices.
Jain cuisine in particular avoids not just meat and dairy in some traditions, but also root vegetables like onions and garlic, out of respect for the insect life disturbed when they’re harvested.
Across the country, dal (lentil stew), chana masala (spiced chickpeas), and countless vegetable curries built on mustard oil, coconut, and coriander have sustained families for generations without a single animal product. If you want to bring some of that lentil tradition home, a vegan lentil soup is a good place to start.
3. Greece
Greek Orthodox fasting rules, known as nistisima, ban meat and dairy for over 180 days across the year, including all of Lent.
The result is a whole category of Greek cooking built entirely around vegetables, legumes, and grains: fasolada (white bean soup), gigantes plaki (baked giant beans in tomato sauce), and horta (wild greens dressed in lemon and olive oil).
These dishes are so embedded in everyday Greek cuisine that many people eat them year-round, fasting season or not.
Where Geography and Necessity Made Plants the Main Event
Not every plant-based tradition started with religion. In plenty of places, the landscape simply made meat scarce, expensive, or impractical, and cooks built extraordinary meals out of what grew locally instead.
These cuisines tend to be less about restriction and more about resourcefulness.
4. Japan (Okinawa)
Okinawa has long been studied by researchers interested in longevity, and traditional Okinawan eating patterns lean heavily on sweet potatoes, soy, seaweed, and a wide variety of vegetables, with meat historically eaten only occasionally.
According to reporting summarized by the BBC, older generations in the region grew up on a diet that was plant-heavy almost by default, shaped by what the islands could produce.
Purple sweet potato, or beni imo, became a staple food centuries before nutrition researchers started paying attention to it.
5. Lebanon
Lebanese cuisine has a long tradition of mezze spreads built almost entirely from plants: hummus, baba ganoush, tabbouleh, and fattoush all rely on chickpeas, tahini, bulgur, and fresh vegetables rather than meat. Much of this comes down to practicality.
Legumes and grains were affordable, storable, and reliable in a way that meat historically wasn’t for many families, and the mezze tradition turned that necessity into an art form of small, varied plant-based dishes shared at the table.
6. Mexico
Long before dairy and meat were introduced by European colonization, the Indigenous cuisines of Mexico were built on what’s often called the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash. These crops were grown together, complemented each other nutritionally, and formed the backbone of meals for centuries.
Dishes rooted in this tradition, like beans simmered with epazote or nixtamalized corn masa, still show up in modern Mexican kitchens, even if today’s Mexican cuisine also incorporates plenty of dairy and meat introduced later.
Where Monastic Traditions Perfected Plant-Based Cooking
Some of the most technically refined plant-based cooking in the world didn’t come from home kitchens at all. It came from monasteries, where monks spent lifetimes figuring out how to make vegetables, grains, and soy genuinely delicious, not just filling.
7. China
Buddhist monastic cooking in China, sometimes called zhaicai, developed elaborate techniques for making mock meats out of wheat gluten (seitan), tofu, and mushrooms centuries ago. Monks weren’t trying to replicate meat because they missed it; they were demonstrating skill and reverence for ingredients.
Dishes designed to mimic the texture of duck or pork using only plants show up in temple cooking traditions that predate any modern plant-based meat company by well over a thousand years.
8. Japan (Shojin Ryori)
Separate from Okinawa’s everyday diet, Japan also developed shojin ryori, the formal Buddhist temple cuisine still served in Kyoto today. It excludes meat, fish, and pungent vegetables like garlic and onion, focusing instead on seasonal vegetables, tofu, and grains prepared with extraordinary precision.
Multi-course shojin ryori meals are considered a genuine culinary art form, not a workaround, and chefs train for years to master the balance of flavor, texture, and presentation using only plants.
9. Sri Lanka
Buddhist and Hindu influences run deep in Sri Lankan cooking, and the country has a long tradition of vegetable curries built on coconut milk, curry leaves, and a spice blend as distinctive as any in South Asia.
Dishes like parippu (dal) and a huge range of vegetable curries called mallung have been staples for generations, often eaten alongside rice as a complete, satisfying meal with no meat required.
Where Everyday Staples Turned Out to Be Vegan All Along
Some countries never set out to be vegan in any formal sense. They just built their staple diets around grains, legumes, and vegetables because that’s what worked, and those staples have quietly remained plant-based for centuries.
10. Italy
Although most Italian will be shocked to see their country listed here, Italy’s “cucina povera,” or peasant cooking, produced dishes built almost entirely from what was cheap and available: beans, bread, pasta, and vegetables.
Pasta e ceci (pasta with chickpeas), ribollita (a Tuscan bread and vegetable soup), and many traditional bean dishes were never designed as vegan food, they were designed as food people could actually afford, and they happened to skip meat and dairy in the process.
11. Morocco
Moroccan cuisine is often associated with tagines featuring lamb or chicken, but the country also has a long tradition of vegetable and legume-based dishes, particularly during Ramadan and everyday home cooking.
Harira, a hearty soup made with lentils, chickpeas, and tomatoes, is a Ramadan staple often eaten to break the fast, and countless vegetable tagines built on eggplant, chickpeas, and dried fruit have been family staples for generations.
12. Peru
The Andes region gave the world potatoes, quinoa, and countless varieties of beans and corn, all staples of Indigenous Peruvian diets long before European contact.
Quinoa in particular was a sacred crop to the Inca, valued for its nutritional completeness, and traditional highland diets leaned heavily on it alongside potatoes and legumes.
Modern Peruvian cuisine has since incorporated a huge range of meat and seafood, but its plant-based roots run centuries deep.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is traditional Ethiopian food always vegan?
Not all of it, but a significant portion is, especially fasting-day dishes eaten during Ethiopian Orthodox fasting periods, which ban meat, dairy, and eggs for roughly half the year. Dishes like misir wot and shiro are traditionally vegan by default.
Why does India have such a strong plant-based food history?
It comes down largely to religion. Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism all encourage or require vegetarian eating in various forms, and Jain cuisine goes further by avoiding certain root vegetables entirely. This shaped centuries of plant-forward cooking across the country.
Was ancient food really ‘vegan,’ or just meat-free?
Technically, most of these traditions predate the word vegan and weren’t built around avoiding all animal products in every area of life, like clothing. They were plant-based in their cooking, often for religious or economic reasons, which is why we describe them as vegan food traditions rather than a modern vegan lifestyle.
What’s the difference between shojin ryori and everyday Japanese food?
Shojin ryori is formal Buddhist temple cuisine that strictly avoids meat, fish, and pungent vegetables like garlic. Everyday Japanese food, including in Okinawa, has traditionally been plant-heavy but isn’t formally vegan, since fish and occasional meat have long been part of the diet.
Which of these cuisines is easiest to recreate at home?
Lentil-based dishes from Ethiopia, India, and Lebanon tend to be the most approachable for home cooks, since they rely on pantry staples like lentils, chickpeas, and basic spices. A simple vegan lentil soup is a great starting point before moving on to more involved dishes like injera or shojin ryori.