If you weren’t already aware from my previous blog posts, Tom and I holidayed in France this year and we continued our search for vegan food.

I don’t think it would be unkind to say that the French are quite reluctant to adopt and invite veganism into their daily lives. Compared to the UK, it’s a lot more difficult to find mainstream meat replacements but there were a few gems that we did find in our local French supermarkets.

Alternative Milks

What I can say for the French is they have a massive alternative milk range. Their shelves are lined with their own brand products, as well as the well known brand Alpro which is what we usually buy.

Fresh Fruit and Veg

What I also really love is how fresh their fruit and vegetables are. There’s a lot less plastic packaging and they do taste so much better than the vegetables we buy in Britain. It might be that everything tastes better on holiday! However, we did notice some oddities in vegetable range which is likely to be due to accessibility. For example, we couldn’t find broccoli at E-Leclerc, but we found some at Super U.

Meat Alternatives

As I mentioned in my introduction paragraph, veganism hasn’t quite been adopted by the masses so they are lacking in meat substitutes compared to the UK. Here’s what we did end up finding though:

Most products are very clearly labelled vegan. We usually only picked it up if it was labelled vegan as our French language skills aren’t quite good enough to decipher the ingredients list fully!

Tofu was a nice option to have and we made ourselves a panko coated tofu katsu curry (with items that we brought over from the UK in our car on the way down).

The veggie balls were an interesting find. The flavour was quite unusual and we put them in a pesto pasta which I didn’t enjoy. I think they might have been much nicer with a tomato based sauce instead.

The ‘Cordon bleu’ was a processed chicken style item with what I can only assume was vegan cheese and vegan ham supplements. I did not enjoy these at all. They had a really weird texture and were very dry.

The soya steaks were great. We enjoyed these so much that we bought them again. We had them as burgers with lettuce as a lunch on numerous occasions. They have a great texture and a nice flavour.

Another item we purchased by didn’t photograph here where the chicken nugget replacements, also part of the Cereal Grill Vegetal range. These were awful. No flavour, very dry. I do not recommend purchasing these if you see them.

Desserts

I’m gunna finish this blog post as I would with a dinner out, desserts!

The French aren’t such on alternative yogurts. There were plenty available, again from their own brand ranges, as well as Alpro. We also found vegan Ben & Jerrys in Chunky Monkey flavour which was Tom’s favourite.

One of my greatest finds in Super U were these amazing looking puddings! From what I could see, they came in 3 different flavours: Mango & Passionfruit, Raspberry (not pictured) and Chocolate Almond.

I bought all 3 and loved all 3. The chocolate almond was lovely but was just like a chocolate yogurt. The Mango & Passionfruit and the Raspberry flavour were delicious! They had the texture of a panna cotta and were really delicious. I hope they bring them to the UK soon!