Healthy dinner ideas — the plant powered body

Last week, I shared tips on eating at Japanese restaurants. Don’t have any Japanese restaurants in your area? Looking for more dining out ideas? This week I’ll share a few of my favorite plant-based options at Vietnamese restaurants.

Bookmark this as a resource for future use. 😎

Read on for tips for enjoying plant-based meals at Vietnamese restaurants >>>

Veggie fresh spring rolls from Non La, NYC.

1 - Order the fresh spring rolls

There are a few dishes “I could live off.” Vietnamese fresh spring rolls with peanut sauce, steamed or baked tofu, mint and veggies is one of those dishes.

Fresh spring rolls with tofu from Cloud Vietnamese. What I liked: the combo of the peanut sauce with the hot sauce. What didn’t I like? The tofu was fried.

2 - Order the green papaya salad

This may be hard to find without the shrimp and/or fish sauce. If you can find it, give it a try. I love green papaya salad. Anything with peanuts is on my list.

I could not find vegan green papaya salad in my immediate area. Veganizing this dish doesn’t seem terribly difficult with the availability of vegan fish sauce (which Cloud Vietnamese had!). The dried shrimp would be eliminated and replaced with crispy shallots. The rest of the ingredients are already vegan.

3 - Order the vegan pho

Pho can be made with a base of mushroom or veggie broth. If the restaurant has a vegan option, it will be listed on the menu. It may be listed as vegetarian even if it’s vegan, so check with the server to confirm.

The vegan pho at Non La: wow. Veggie broth, rice noodles, fresh tofu, bok choy, broccoli, jalapeno pepper, mint, bean sprouts, carrots, napa cabbage, crispy shallots, and maybe some other green I didn’t recognize? This dish was so fresh, so healthy…cloud 9, 5 stars.

Pho is slurpy and a little messy. Who cares? It’s bursting with flavor and nutrients. It’s filling and satiating because of the broth. Using chopsticks can help slow down fast eaters and also improves dexterity.

4 - Order the vermicelli noodles

Who else loves noodles? Keep an eye out for egg noodles vs. rice noodles on menus. Vermicelli noodles are rice noodles. Also note this can be a greasy dish depending on the restaurant.

But there’s good news here regardless of how much vegetable oil the restaurant has used! By ordering the vegan noodle dish, you’re lowering the saturated fat* in your meal, eliminating the heme iron which is linked to stroke risk, and also not supporting factory farming. Three things to feel great about.

*coconut and palm oils are higher in saturated fat than other plant oils

Vermicelli noodles from Cloud Vietnamese.

5 - Check the sides

Options may include eggplant, string beans, or tofu with mushrooms.

6 - Ask!

It’s well worth asking the server what vegan options are available if the menu appears limited.

Non La, in the East Village of Manhattan, has ~8 vegan options on their menu! This isn’t typical, but the more demand we demonstrate, the more options we’ll have.

Make Your Own!

Vietnamese fresh spring rolls with peanut sauce are easy to make at home! Check out this recipe. You can find rice paper rolls at some grocery stores. If not, you can find them online. Brown rice options are also available online and in some stores.

Fresh spring roll with tofu from Cloud Vietnamese.

Story time

Slanted Door was my favorite restaurant in San Francisco. Their spring rolls are perfection. After moving to NYC, I dined here at least once per visit when I traveled back to San Francisco for work. Living in Arlington, Virginia in my early 20s, there was a Vietnamese restaurant my roommate and I used to frequent. My go-to order there was a vermicelli noodle dish.

If you’re in NYC, Non La was the clear winner in this round of ordering. Hanoi House is another good option. That’s three Vietnamese restaurants (there may be more!) within a one mile radius.

Know Before You Go

The vast majority of restaurant meals are high in some combination of fat, salt and sugar. I dine out for the experience, the atmosphere, and the novelty. I also find that the more I cook, the more I like my own cooking. It’s not because I’m a good cook, or even getting better necessarily. I think it’s because I can feel the difference in my body.

It’s a balance.

Tip

Order as close as you can to the traditional dishes that have been around for centuries, like pho.

Do you have a favorite Vietnamese restaurant? Tips to share? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!

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What To Order At Vietnamese Restaurants