What’s actually in wasabi anyway? Doesn’t soy sauce contain fish or something? When it comes to common condiments, sometimes their specific ingredients are a mystery to us. Condiments can pose a real problem for vegans or people looking to eat fewer animals products, so many will skip them entirely for a while or just stick to one or two they know to be safe. But since everyone loves to dip and dunk their food, that means no fun — and much less flavor.
Here is a quick PETA-approved guide to show you which condiments are safe for vegans and which ones you should steer clear of.
Vegan-Friendly condiments
A1 Steak sauce
A1 Steak sauce is delicious on grilled vegetables and sandwiches. If you’re vegan, no need to worry here. This flavorful sauce contains tomato purée, raisin paste, vinegar, sugar, salt, orange purée, and a blend of spices.
Barbecue sauce
With barbecue, it’s only the meat you have to worry about. The sauce is typically safe. Most barbecue sauces contain a tomato base with vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, onion, salt, and pepper. Stay away from sauces that include Worcestershire sauce on their list of ingredients.
Hoisin sauce
Hoisin sauce is a thick, sweet and salty condiment typically used as a glaze in Chinese cuisine. The word hoisin is Chinese for seafood, but the sauce doesn’t contain any seafood ingredients. Recipes vary, but most are vegan-friendly including only soy beans, red chillies, garlic, vinegar and spices.
Hot sauce
Hot sauce is flavorful and completely guilt free. It’s made with chilies and peppers, garlic, salt and water.
Hummus
Hummus is made with mashed chickpeas and other vegan-friendly ingredients like olive oil, garlic, sea salt and tahini. Dip away!
Ketchup
Ketchup is a sweet and tangy tomato-based sauce — and probably the most ubiquitous condiment of them all. Imagine if you could never have ketchup again! Thankfully, ketchup adds only sugar, vinegar, and spices to tomatoes. So dip those fries — just be sure they don’t contain animal fat like McDonald’s do!
Maple syrup
Most maple syrups come from sap collected straight from the tree. It’s a true sugary springtime phenomena.
Mustard
Mustard has been made for thousands of years from the seeds of the mustard plant, vinegar, and water. Aside from Dijon mustard and honey mustard, you can count on mustard as a vegan-friendly condiment choice.
Peanut butter
Most PBs are a simple combination of peanuts, oil, and salt — and sometimes sugar.
Try this Vegan Thai-inspired snow pea salad with peanut butter dressing.
Relish
Ad some zing to your vegan mustard-based potato salad by adding relish. Sweet pickle relish is usually only made up of cucumbers, onion, salt, mustard seeds, vinegar, and spices.
Salsa
Salsa is nothing more than a delicious mix of veggies, and most of the time, the tortilla chips are too.
Soy sauce
Soy sauce is always vegan. Kikkoman, the most popular brand, is made by brewing then fermenting soybeans, wheat, salt, and water.
Wasabi
Wasabi is the seriously tangy, bright green glob you’ll likely find on any sushi plate. Wasabi is the name of the condiment, but also the name of the plant it comes from, so the condiment is totally safe. However, if you’re eating the condiment in its country of origin, Japan, you should know they often grate the plant against sharkskin to get it to soften.
Non-Vegan condiments
Dijon mustard
Yellow mustard is vegan, but Dijon typically is not. It’s made using a filtering process that typically contains animal by-products, and some brands even contain egg yolks or honey.
Fish sauce
Fish sauce is always made from fermented fish and salt, so no hiding here!
Honey
As you probably already know, honey comes from bees. A big no-no in vegan diets.
Horseradish sauce
Horseradish itself is vegan, but many sauces contain cream, so proceed with caution.
Mayonnaise
Mayonnaise contains eggs, but there are a variety of vegan mayos on the market. Also, avocado or yellow mustard can often times adequately replace mayo in recipes.
Nutella
It’s not just hazelnuts and cocoa. Nutella contains milk and whey.
Pesto
Pass on the pesto. Though it seems fresh and vegan-friendly, don’t forget about all that Parmesan cheese mixed in there.
Ranch dressing/dip
Ranch products usually contain some sort of cream base like milk, buttermilk, or even sour cream.
Worcestershire sauce
That salty taste comes from anchovies.
Source: PETA
Also see, 9 vegan-friendly foods you can order at Chick-fil-a.
