Four decisions, then the table
Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, November 26. A vegan version comes down to four decisions: the main, the sides that need a swap, the gravy, and the pie. The dishes are mostly plants already. What needs replacing is the butter, the stock, the gelatin in the marshmallows and the lard in the crust.
This guide is written for three people: someone cooking the whole meal, a vegan guest at someone else's table, and a host feeding one vegan among people who eat everything. The last section is for that third case. The guide to cooking for a vegan guest has the general rules it builds on.
| Part of the meal | Where it stands | Where to read |
|---|---|---|
| The main | Buy a roast or cook one; either way it needs to be a dish, not a plate of sides | Store-bought centrepieces and a main from scratch |
| The sides | Most start vegan; butter, stock, marshmallow and cheese are where they break | Sides, sorted |
| Gravy | Needs its own pot, since the usual base is drippings or stock | Gravy |
| Pie | The crust fat and the custard are the two problems | Pie |
| One vegan at a mixed table | Shared spoons matter more than the menu | The mixed table |
Store-bought centrepieces
Three makers list a holiday roast on their own sites. What follows is what each maker's page said when we read it on September 30, 2026. Prices are left out: none of the pages shows one, and stores set their own. Stock is the other variable, because some of these are holiday products, so use each maker's store finder before the week itself.
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Tofurky Plant-Based Roast & Gravy
A roast of wheat protein and tofu filled with wild rice and bread-crumb stuffing, sold with a tub of gravy. Tofurky's page marks it vegan and lists wheat and soy as its allergens.
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Tofurky Plant-Based Ham Roast with Amber Ale Glaze
For a table that wants ham instead of turkey. Also wheat and tofu, marked vegan on Tofurky's page, with a mustard and amber ale glaze that comes with it.
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Field Roast Hazelnut & Cranberry Plant-Based Roast
Hazelnuts, cranberries and candied ginger, wrapped in puff pastry. Field Roast's page carries its Vegan mark, and the pastry is listed as flour, palm fruit oil, water, salt and citric acid.
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Field Roast Sage & Garlic Plant-Based Celebration Roast
A seasoned wheat-protein roast with butternut squash, apple and lentils, sold as a centrepiece or for sandwiches. The page carries the Vegan mark.
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Field Roast Celebration Roast
Sage, garlic and bread stuffing, sold with a porcini mushroom gravy that you simmer on the stove. No animal ingredient is named in its ingredient lists.
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Gardein Plant-Based Turk'y Roast
A roast with a brown and wild rice, cranberry and kale filling, which Gardein's page says serves up to 8. The page is titled Vegan Turk'y Roast and mentions a vegan gravy to go with it.
Meat-free is not the same promise as vegan, which is the trap with roasts in particular. Quorn's Turkey Style Roast lists egg white and milk proteins on its own page, so it is vegetarian at best. Vegan vs vegetarian covers the difference, and plant-based vs vegan on a label covers the words on the front of a box. Field Roast puts the general rule on every product page: ingredients, nutrition facts and allergen statements can change, so check the actual package.
A main from scratch
The rule in the guest guide applies with extra force here: cook a dish that was never built around meat, instead of a turkey with the turkey removed. That guide already names a stuffed squash, a mushroom wellington and a lentil and walnut loaf for this exact meal. The table is the short version.
| Main | Why it holds the centre of the plate | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Stuffed squash | A whole roasted half with a grain, nut and dried fruit filling looks like a centrepiece and needs no imitation | Butter and stock habits in the filling; swap both for oil and vegetable stock |
| Mushroom wellington | Mushrooms and walnuts supply the savoury depth that stock usually does, and it slices at the table | The pastry. Some puff pastry contains butter or milk powder, and the label settles it; the butter guide covers why |
| Lentil and walnut loaf | Holds a slice, reheats well and makes the next day's sandwich | The binder. If the recipe uses egg, the four jobs an egg does says what to replace |
| Seitan roast | The closest thing to a sliced roast, since it is wheat protein worked into a dough | It is wheat throughout, and it needs time; tempeh and seitan covers both |
Tofu can carry a main too, but only with the water out: freezing and a starch coating do most of the work. Whichever dish you pick, give it the weight of a main on the plate. A plate of the sides everyone else is also eating reads as an afterthought, however good the sides are.
Sides: vegan by default, and not
Most of the ingredients on a Thanksgiving table are plants. The breaks come from four habits: butter for fat, stock for liquid, marshmallow or cheese for topping, and a cream-based sauce to hold things together. Here is each classic side against those habits.
| Side | Vegan as usually made? | What breaks it, and the fix |
|---|---|---|
| Mashed potatoes | No | Butter and milk or cream, and sometimes chicken stock. Olive oil or vegan butter with plant milk or the potato water does the same jobs; dairy substitutes by job has the detail. |
| Stuffing or dressing | It depends | The bread is usually vegan (bread); the butter and stock are not. Kraft Heinz's pages for Stove Top Stuffing Mix for Chicken and for Cornbread both list cooked chicken. Use oil and vegetable stock. |
| Green bean casserole | No | The classic recipe is built on a cream of mushroom sauce. A mushroom, flour and plant milk sauce replaces it. Crispy onions vary by brand, so read the list. |
| Sweet potato casserole | The potatoes, yes; the casserole, usually no | Butter, sometimes eggs or milk in the mash, and marshmallows set with gelatin. Standard marshmallows are not vegan. Dandies lists vegan marshmallows on its own site, made with tapioca syrup, carrageenan and soy protein. |
| Cranberry sauce | Yes, homemade | Cranberries, sugar and water. Some US cane sugar is whitened with bone char, which that page sorts out, and where vegans draw the line explains why some vegans care and some do not. |
| Roasted vegetables | Yes | Butter or bacon added at the end, or a honey glaze. Oil and maple syrup do the same work; honey substitutes has the ratios. |
| Dinner rolls | Check the label | Most bread is vegan, but enriched rolls can use milk, butter or egg, and a glossy top is often egg wash. Read the list in order. |
| Green salad | Usually | Honey in the dressing, or parmesan on top. |
| Mac and cheese | No | It is built on cheese. Which vegan cheese melts best is where to start. |
The fixes come down to three swaps: oil or vegan butter for butter, vegetable or mushroom stock for chicken stock, and plant milk for milk. For anything that does not fit, name the job the ingredient is doing and replace that. Sauces and condiments are the other place things hide, and the condiments guide lists the four ways they fail.
Gravy
Gravy is where a mixed table most often goes wrong, because the usual base is turkey drippings or stock. A host who has made everything else vegan can still serve a vegan guest a gravy boat they cannot touch. The guest guide notes that gravy is almost always made with meat drippings or stock unless it is made separately. Make it separately, and make it the only gravy if you can.
From scratch, it takes oil, flour cooked in it until it smells toasted, a liquid with real savoury depth and onion browned for longer than feels necessary. Mushroom stock and soy sauce or miso supply the depth that drippings would. Read the soy sauce and any bottled seasoning: traditional Worcestershire sauce is fermented with anchovies and turns up in gravy more often than anyone expects.
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Tofurky Plant-Based Gravy
Tofurky's page lists it as vegan. The ingredients are water, wheat flour, soy sauce, canola oil and seasonings, and the allergen line is wheat and soy.
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Simply Organic Vegetarian Brown Gravy Seasoning Mix
A dry mix you whisk into liquid. The product page shows Vegan: Yes and lists cornstarch, onion, cocoa, mushroom and yeast extract, with no animal ingredient.
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Imagine Vegan Wild Mushroom Gravy
A ready-made gravy that Imagine labels vegan on its page, made from corn starch, mushroom flavour and soy sauce. It lists soy as an allergen.
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Pacific Foods Organic Mushroom Broth
For the liquid in stuffing, gravy or mashed potatoes. Pacific's page calls it a vegan broth and lists water, organic mushrooms, sea salt and organic garlic.
Pie
A classic pumpkin pie has two problems. The crust is often made with animal fat: Pillsbury's refrigerated pie crust lists lard and hydrogenated lard on its product page, and lard is a pig product. The filling is a custard, which common recipes set with eggs and evaporated milk. Both are fixable, and neither needs a specialist ingredient.
For the crust, use oil or a vegan butter, and read the fat and water math before you swap, because a crust is a precise ratio. For the filling, pumpkin purée sets with starch where a custard would use egg, and the four jobs an egg does explains which job you are replacing. If you want something more ambitious, we featured a vegan pumpkin tart with miso caramel from Vegan Food & Living as a recipe of the day, and the vegan baking list on the Vegan Bookshelf has pie books.
One vegan guest at your table
Ask the guest two things once, by text: whether honey counts, and whether shared pans and spoons matter to them. The guest guide explains why those two settle most decisions. Then cook them a main with weight, and skip the plate of sides.
The cheapest move at a mixed table is to make two or three of the sides vegan for everyone. Mashed potatoes made with oil, a mushroom gravy and a cranberry sauce cost the other guests nothing, and nobody is handed a separate vegan version of dinner. Put the vegan dishes out first, and do not make the meal a discussion of what is missing from it.
Shared spoons and shared pans
Cross-contact is the failure that looks fine on the plate. One serving spoon moves from the buttered green beans to the vegan ones, the gravy ladle gets shared, or the vegan roast bakes in the pan the turkey just left. FoodAllergy.org's cross-contact guidance says even a trace on a spoon or spatula can carry food from one dish to the next, and it is written for allergies, where the stakes are higher than a vegan guest's. The fix is the same: a separate spoon for each dish, the vegan roast on its own pan or foil, and vegan dishes cooked and served first.
Allergies are a different problem from veganism, and the guest guide covers why nut-based vegan swaps can be the wrong call. If wine is on the table, how to shop for vegan wine and beer is the quick read.
If you are the vegan guest
Tell the host early that you would like to bring something, and ask what the plan is for the main. Bring a dish with weight, not a fourth side, and bring it in something that can go in the oven or on the table without a transfer. A gravy in a jar is the most useful thing you can carry to a table that has only one. Bring your own serving spoon, so the dish stays as you made it.
You do not owe the table an explanation of your plate. If someone wants to argue, the objections guide has a section on how to have that conversation, and the usual advice is to lead with what you are eating.
