20 Vegetarian Cold-Weather Comfort Foods From Around the World

Fondue owes its fame to a cheese cartel.

The Swiss Cheese Union made a regional dish a national symbol. The Union is long gone, and the pot is still on the table.

Cold-weather food is full of stories like that. In Denmark, families leave a bowl of rice porridge out so a house spirit won’t cause trouble. Korea’s favorite winter pastry is called “carp bread,” and there’s no fish in it.

Here are 20 cold-weather comfort foods from around the world, each in a meatless version, from orchid-thickened milk to maple syrup poured straight onto snow.

1. Swiss Cheese Fondue

Fondue’s big debut abroad was the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the Swiss Cheese Union’s first international stage for the dish. Back home, the Union sent fondue sets to the military and pushed slogans like “La fondue crée la bonne humeur.” Translation: fondue creates a good mood. Hard to argue.

The dish is older than the campaign, though. The earliest known recipe for the modern version shows up in a late-1600s Zürich cookbook under the name “Käss mit Wein zu kochen,” or cheese cooked with wine.

The build is simple. Melted cheese, white wine, cornstarch and often a splash of kirsch. Moitié-moitié (“half and half”) means Gruyère plus Vacherin Fribourgeois.

Don’t leave before you hit the bottom. The toasted cheese crust stuck to the pot is called la religieuse, which means “the nun.”

Lose your bread in the pot and folk custom says you pay for it. Depending on who’s joking, that’s a round of drinks, a song or a naked run through the snow.

It’s all dairy, so vegans need a different pot. For a vegetarian fondue, choose cheese labeled with microbial or vegetable rennet. Most Swiss AOP cheeses still use animal rennet, and Emmentaler AOP is required to.

2. Aligot

Aligot is mashed potato beaten with fresh cheese until it turns smooth, elastic and stretches into long ribbons off the spoon.

The cheese is tomme fraîche, a fresh, unsalted curd cheese from the Aubrac plateau in France’s southern Massif Central. It’s the same base that becomes Laguiole cheese. Butter, cream and often garlic go in too, so this is dairy from top to bottom.

According to local tradition, monks fed it to pilgrims walking to Santiago de Compostela. The legend says the first version used bread, and potatoes came later.

Eat it with greens or roasted vegetables. For vegetarian aligot, the cheese must use microbial or vegetable rennet, so check the label.

3. Ribollita

Ribollita means “re-boiled,” and that’s the whole idea.

It comes from Tuscan cucina povera, where leftovers got turned into filling meals. Cannellini beans, cavolo nero and vegetables go in with olive oil and tomato paste. Stale Tuscan bread thickens it, and the next day it’s cooked again until it’s thick and dense.

The bean, vegetable and bread version with olive oil and no cheese is vegan. Some cooks add meat stock or a Parmesan rind (Parmesan is made with animal rennet), so the bean-and-vegetable version is the one you want.

4. Fasolada

Fasolada is sometimes called the national food of Greece, and Greek food writer Aglaia Kremezi learned that in first grade. Her schoolbook after World War II called it “the Greek national dish.”

It’s a soup of dry white beans and olive oil with tomato, carrot, onion, celery, parsley and bay. Kremezi calls it “the epitome of comforting, winter meal for Greeks.” Her own vintage recipe didn’t use tomato at all.

Recipes vary, and some include meat, but the classic bean base is vegan. Put feta, olives and bread next to it, and just know the feta is dairy.

5. Colcannon

Colcannon used to come with your fortune hidden inside.

In a long-standing Irish Halloween custom, charms went into the colcannon. Find a ring and you’d marry within the year. Find a coin and you’d be wealthy. Find a thimble and you’d stay single.

Some areas used a button or a bean too, and what the coin meant depended on where you lived. Not bad for a side of mashed potatoes.

Most versions use just four ingredients: potatoes, butter, milk and cabbage, with kale in some regions. Potatoes reached Ireland around the 16th century. The name comes from the Irish cál ceannann, “white-headed cabbage.”

Vegans will want to swap out the butter and milk.

6. Pierogi Ruskie

“Ruskie” doesn’t mean Russian. It means Ruthenian, a nod to historical Rus’, the region between western Ukraine and southeastern Poland. That’s why you’ll also see them called pierogi ukraińskie.

Pierogi even have a patron saint.

“Święty Jacek z pierogami!” (St. Hyacinth and his pierogi!) is an old Polish way of saying you’re surprised.

The filling is potato, twaróg (a farmer’s cheese) and onion. They’re topped with fried onion, butter and sour cream, so there’s dairy inside and out, and many doughs contain egg.

People take them seriously. At Kraków’s 2007 Pierogi Festival, 30,000 pierogi were eaten every day.

7. Risengrød

Danish families leave a bowl of this rice porridge out for the nisse, a farm or house spirit, so he doesn’t cause trouble.

Risengrød is rice cooked in milk and served with a pat of butter and cinnamon sugar. It’s a December and Christmas-season dish, and an almond is often stirred in. Whoever finds it gets a prize.

It wasn’t always a cozy everyday thing. Rice was once a luxury for the wealthy, and rice porridge became more common in Denmark in the late 18th century.

Risalamande is its richer cold cousin, made with cream, vanilla, chopped almonds and cherry sauce. Both are dairy, so vegans should note the milk and butter.

8. Khachapuri

Georgia has an inflation measure named after cheese bread. Economists at Tbilisi State University built the Khachapuri Index, which uses the cost of making khachapuri to compare prices across Georgian cities.

The name breaks down to khach’o (curd) and p’uri (bread). The most common version is Imeretian, a round yeast bread filled with white Imeretian cheese. The one you’ve probably seen online is Adjarian, a boat-shaped loaf with cheese, butter and an egg yolk in the middle.

On January 22, 2019, “The Khachapuri Tradition in Georgia” went onto the country’s national list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. That’s Georgia’s own list, not UNESCO’s. It’s cheese, butter and egg, so it’s not one for vegans.

9. Salep / Sahlab

The original version of this drink is thickened with orchids, and Turkey made it illegal to export the real thing.

Salep is a flour made from the tubers of Orchis orchids. Its glucomannan thickens hot milk into a creamy winter drink, topped with cinnamon and sold as street food across the Middle East, where it’s called sahlab.

Demand has been rough on wild orchids. In the 2013 April-to-June harvest season, more than 24.5 tons of fresh tubers were collected from three districts in Golestan province alone, requiring an estimated 5.5 to 6.1 million orchids. The study identified 16 species and subspecies from seven genera.

That’s why most cups you’ll find now are milk thickened with starch and flavored with rosewater or orange blossom. Drink that version and leave the orchids in the ground. It’s milk-based, so vegans will want a plant milk.

England had its own spin, called “saloop,” which was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.

10. Bissara

In northern Morocco, winter breakfast is often a bowl of beans.

Bissara is dried, peeled split fava beans cooked with garlic, cumin and olive oil into a thick soup, and some make it thick enough to use as a dip. It’s topped with more olive oil, cumin and paprika and eaten hot with bread.

It’s popular in the colder months and sold in town squares and alleyways. It’s vegan as is, no swaps needed.

11. Shiro

Ethiopian Orthodox laypeople have about 180 fasting days a year, and shiro, a hot, thick chickpea stew, is a popular fasting meal.

Fasting means no meat, dairy or eggs.

The ground chickpeas, sometimes mixed with other legumes, are seasoned with berbere. That’s a blend of dried chilies, black pepper and spices like cinnamon, ginger and cumin.

The fasting version is made with oil and is fully vegan. On other days, some cooks finish it with niter kibbeh, a spiced butter, so ask if that matters to you.

12. Khichdi

There’s an Indian festival that people call by the name of a rice-and-lentil dish. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Makar Sankranti in mid-January is colloquially called Khichdi, and khichdi is ritually offered to Guru Gorakhnath that day.

The dish itself is rice and lentils (classically mung) cooked together, often with ghee. It’s old. The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta described it in India around 1350, and the 16th-century Mughal Ain-i-Akbari lists seven variations. Kedgeree is thought to come from it.

In 2017, Indian media started calling khichdi the “national dish.” The food-processing minister then clarified the government had no plan to name one. The bowl didn’t need the title.

Skip the ghee and it’s vegan.

13. Gajar ka Halwa

This dessert runs on a carrot that keeps a strict calendar. Red “Delhi” carrots show up in North Indian markets in winter and are gone by spring, which is exactly what makes gajar ka halwa a winter specialty.

The carrots are slow-cooked with milk, ghee, sugar and cardamom, and many versions add khoya. The long cook lets moisture evaporate gradually, which concentrates the flavor.

It’s a dairy dessert through and through, with milk and ghee doing the heavy lifting.

14. Tangyuan

There’s a Chinese tradition that you get a year older right after the winter solstice instead of waiting for Chinese New Year.

That solstice is Dongzhi, around December 21 to 23, the longest night of the year. Families eat tangyuan, glutinous rice balls that symbolize reunion. Northern China tends to eat dumplings instead.

The sweet fillings are usually black sesame, red bean or peanut. Here’s the catch: classic Ningbo-style black sesame filling is made with lard. Plenty of cooks use butter or oil instead, so look for red bean, peanut or a sesame filling made with butter or oil, and check the label on any frozen pack.

15. Bungeo-ppang

Bungeo-ppang means “carp bread,” and there’s no fish in it. It’s just the shape.

The classic filling is sweet red bean paste, and newer versions do custard, sweet potato and chocolate. It’s one of South Korea’s most popular winter street foods.

It came back during the 1990s retro craze. As stalls got harder to find, fans built a crowd-sourced “bungeo-ppang map” of the ones still standing.

Its parent is Japan’s taiyaki, “baked sea bream,” which reached Korea around the 1930s. Taiyaki was first sold in 1909 by Naniwaya in Tokyo’s Azabu area. Founder Seijirō Kobe reshaped an existing pastry into a sea bream, a lucky luxury fish, so ordinary people could finally buy a “tai.”

The batter usually has egg and milk in it.

16. Ishi-yaki-imo

Japan has trucks that sell nothing but hot sweet potatoes, and you’ll hear one before you see it.

Ishi-yaki-imo means “stone-roasted sweet potato.”

Vendors used to push carts. Now they drive trucks with a stone brazier in the back, calling out “yaki-imo, ishi yaki-imo!” through autumn and winter. Your potato often comes wrapped in newspaper.

Why does it taste like dessert? Sweet potatoes carry an enzyme, beta-amylase, that turns cooked starch into maltose, a sugar. Japanese researchers found sweetness tracked maltose levels in steamed roots, and slow heat gives the potato’s own enzyme more time to turn starch into sugar.

Korea has a cousin called gun-goguma, roasted in drum cans and sold from late autumn by vendors in ushanka hats. Both are naturally vegan.

17. Champurrado

Champurrado is hot chocolate thick enough to count as breakfast.

It’s a chocolate atole made with masa or corn flour, sweetened with piloncillo and sometimes spiced with cinnamon, anise or vanilla. It’s traditionally served with a churro, for breakfast or as an afternoon snack.

It’s very popular during Día de Muertos, November 1 and 2, and at Las Posadas. The history is a mash-up of Maya and Mexica drinks that mixed cacao with corn, plus later Spanish additions.

Made with water, it’s vegan. Made with milk, it isn’t.

18. Locro de Papa

Quito has the biggest claim to this potato soup, which is why it’s also called locro quiteño.

It’s a highland dish, more common in Ecuador’s Andes than anywhere else in the country, and it’s made for cold, rainy or snowy weather. Potatoes and achiote go in, and queso fresco and avocado go on top.

The word locro likely comes from the Quechua ruqru, meaning stew. The cheese and milk make it a dairy dish.

19. Tire sur la Neige

In Quebec, snow is a kitchen tool.

Tire sur la neige is maple taffy served on snow. It’s made during sugaring season at a sugar shack, or cabane à sucre. In Vermont, that season runs February to April.

New Englanders call it “sugar on snow” or “leather aprons.” They serve it with donuts, sour dill pickles and coffee to cut the sweetness. Yes, pickles.

The taffy is vegan. The full sugar-shack meal around it isn’t meatless, so the taffy is the part to go for.

20. Macaroni and Cheese

James Hemings, the enslaved chef who trained in French cooking in Paris, cooked macaroni and cheese at Thomas Jefferson’s table. The dish is older than both men, and neither invented it.

Jefferson did serve “a pie called macaroni” at a state dinner in 1802. A guest, Rev. Manasseh Cutler, wrote it down.

The boxed version came later. Kraft Dinner launched in late 1937 promising “dinner for four in nine minutes” for under 20 cents.

Then World War II made it a hit. Milk rationing and more meatless meals pushed sales to 50 million boxes during the war, and one ration stamp got you two boxes.

Canada never let go. In figures reported in 2020, Canadians bought more than 1.7 million of the 7 million boxes sold worldwide each week.

It’s dairy. For vegetarian macaroni and cheese, choose cheese made with microbial or vegetable rennet and check the label.

The Cartel Folded. The Fondue Didn’t.

The Swiss Cheese Union shut down in 1999, partly over corruption among its own officials. Its marketing campaign is still undefeated.

Somewhere tonight, someone’s dropping a cube of bread into a pot of cheese and owing the table a song.