The festive season is here so it’s time to throw the diet plan out the window, ready the almond milk for Santa’s arrival and start planning your Christmas dinner ideas. Whether you’re plant-based yourself, have vegetarian guests coming or just want some delicious vegetable-based recipes in your festive cooking arsenal, we’ve got you covered with our best meat-free Christmas menu ideas.
There are so many reasons to eat plant-based this festive season. It could be to reduce your carbon footprint, to save animals or for your health. But going plant-based doesn’t mean that you have to miss out on a delicious Christmas dinner. You can recreate what you would normally make, but make it vegan. While meat and dairy are cornerstone ingredients of the traditional feast, your vegan Christmas dinner can include all of your favourites without sacrificing the flavour of the food you love.
Here are our top delicious Festive recipes and tips that will make this season’s eatings full of joy and merriment:
The festive season is here so it’s time to throw the diet plan out the window, ready the almond milk for Santa’s arrival and start planning your Christmas dinner ideas. Whether you’re plant-based yourself, have vegetarian guests coming or just want some delicious vegetable-based recipes in your festive cooking arsenal, we’ve got you covered with our best meat-free Christmas menu ideas.
There are so many reasons to eat plant-based this festive season. It could be to reduce your carbon footprint, to save animals or for your health. But going plant-based doesn’t mean that you have to miss out on a delicious Christmas dinner. You can recreate what you would normally make, but make it vegan. While meat and dairy are cornerstone ingredients of the traditional feast, your vegan Christmas dinner can include all of your favourites without sacrificing the flavour of the food you love.
Here are our top delicious Festive recipes and tips that will make this season’s eatings full of joy and merriment:
It’s not even the festive season yet and people are already preempting the growing, new-age year-end tradition: returning unwanted gifts. In fact, over 1/3 of gifts received are returned, with some e-commerce retailers seeing a much higher rate of up to 50%!
So how do we avoid this waste?
Let’s take a few steps back and think about how we can turn frivolous spending into thrifty savings, from imported to locally made, and from garbage to gem.
The question we are asking ourselves is how can leave the lightest footprint this Christmas time.
The way we shop and consume during this holiday season includes not only the presents we buy from family and friends, but also the Christmas décor we purchase and the food we choose to eat.
Choose Plant-Based Food this Christmas
If you truly want to have a sustainable Christmas, then you need to first take a look at your plate, for our food choices have the biggest impact on the environment.
Indeed, livestock and their by-products account 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, according to the ground-breaking environmental documentary, Cowspiracy. More than half of the water consumed is for animal agriculture while only 5% of water consumed is used by private homes. Could switching to a plant-based diet and/or reducing your animal protein consumption be the solution to lightening the pressure we put on our natural resources? We think so, and so do some of these famous vegan environmentalists including, Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, James Cameron and more!
Additionally, due to the demand for turkeys during the festive time, “Seasonal Slaughterhouses” are used, with 10 million turkeys killed in the run-up to Christmas, according to this study. Turkeys came to grow to ten years old but are slaughtered between the ages of 9 to 12 weeks old. Choosing a plant-based diet drastically decreases the amount of suffering caused around the globe for not only poultry but cows, dairy cows, fish and many more.
So what are you waiting for?! Get the almond milk ready for Santa, here are our top 10 recipe ideas for Christmas, or for any festive occasion for that matter! All recipes are cholesterol-free, low in saturated fat, high in protein and bold in flavour! Eat your heart out!
What pecan do, you can do better! This is a hearty and rich dish, made with our Country Roast, comes with great depth of flavour and is a great addition to the Christmas table that will delight even the pickiest of eaters! This also works great in sandwiches for the next day. #justsaying
Download our Festive Foods Cookbook for the recipe right over here.
Quintessentially English, served with our meat-free Traditional Sausages and enveloped in crispy batter, we think this toad in the hole is better than mum’s!
Download our Festive Foods Cookbook for the recipe.
For the perfect festive feast entrée, give these Prawn-Style and mango skewers a try. Served with a side of sweetcorn tacos, this creative dish is savoury-sweet, crisp and flavourful.
Download our Festive Foods Cookbook for the recipe here.
Have a magical, merry and meat-free Christmas with our award-winning Country Roast, recently voted a Xmas Best Buy by The Independent. Served with a gorgeous cranberry glaze and a side of your favourite mash, this dish is perfect whether you have relatives coming over from afar or if you’re choosing to have a more intimate celebration.
Let the good times roll with these mini hot dog pastry rolls, made with our ever-popular #frysfans’ favourite: The Hot Dog! Perfect finger food, as an entrée or for the kids! Get the recipe for this fun, tasty and easy party dish right here.
This oh-so-hearty Country Roast comes with flavourful balsamic glazed onions and perfectly roasted vegetables. We think this is a meatloaf-inspired dish worth celebrating this festive season!
This dish brings a breath of fresh air to the otherwise hearty Christmas meals we generally end up eating. Served with dairy-free tzatziki, a selection of your favourite crisp veggies and our Battered Prawn-Style Pieces, this platter is colourful, nutritious and easy to make too.
The festivities continue! Make the morning after count, with a stack of bold breakfast waffles, served with crunchy gluten-free Chia Nuggets and sweet maple syrup. Pile them up high!
Download our Festive Foods Cookbook for the recipe here.
Don’t forget that when you go grocery shopping to bring your own bags. Reuse old plastic bags and material ones that can be used again and again over a longer period.
Choose DIY Décor this Christmas
As the stores and malls cram every nook and cranny with festive décor, from baubles to shiny ornaments, and from tinsel, to flickering lights, why don’t you consider making your own decorations?
Considering South Africa produces 108 million tons of waste per year, it seems all the more reason to cut back on purchases that are on display in the lounge for only a few days. Additionally, many of these purchases are “made in India” or “made in China”. When we shop locally, when possible, it reduces our carbon footprint and we can support local businesses thus helping the local economy flourish.
When you go about shopping for fun and festive décor, either make your own (a quick Google or Pinterest search will leave you feeling creatively inspired), purchase from local businesses that treat their workers ethically, and/or choose items that you know will last a good few years.
As a DIY idea, why don’t you consider giving our packaging a second life by reusing our boxes! They come in green, red and white boxes which we think fits into the green Christmas cheer! Hang on the tree as a Christmas tree garland or turn it into a X-Mas wreath
Choose to Donate this Christmas
Avoid the awkward conversation about how much you loved your aunt’s gift that you have already returned to the retailer.
Over and above the countless gifts that are returned, each Christmas, as much as 83km² square kilometers of wrapping paper ends up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. So rather than wasting time wrapping a gift that ends up being cast away to a remote island, why not donate to a charity in your friend’s or family’s name, assist a community group in need, or invite someone who is without a family to the dinner table. The gift of happiness is surely the most powerful gift to give.
Not sure which charity to give to? Some of our favourite charities include:
I just walked into the shops this weekend to find myself faced with shelves and shelves of Christmas goodies, baubles, tinsel, lights and the list goes on and on! The retailers are all over the Christmas mayhem – let me reword that… the retailers are creating the Christmas mayhem. Most of these goodies are of course “made in India” or “made in China”. Although I do not have a problem with imported goods, I do have a problem with creating plastic junk that ends up in boxes in my house or in the dump.
I always try and look at the bright side of things, so I have decided that seeing that I do have a few weeks to prepare for 1 day, I should not give in to those last-minute emergency gift-buying sprees and start to think like the eco-conscious girl that I am!
#ComesTheResearch
Did you know?
1) Last year, 75% of people received a gift that they didn’t want.
2) 13.7% of people will throw away these unwanted presents
3) Gumtree estimated that 14.3 million unwanted gifts were given last year!
4) South Africans produce over 10 million tons of waste every year
Christmas Gifting
Let’s get sustainable:
If you intend to buy a material object, think twice. To quote a funny man;
“A house is just a place where we keep our stuff while we go out and buy more stuff” – George Carlin
Choose experiences over stuff or something to look forward to after the one single day. Why not a voucher for a restaurant or a cooking class; instead of a new coffee machine. Sign your dad up for a gardening class over the weed wacker. There are some fantastic Digital Magazines available and they make the perfect e-stocking gift.
The options here are endless; membership trials for a gym/dance/yoga/Crossfit/surfing class… or a spa treatment are far more valuable than more things.
Sustainable Seasoning’s Eatings
Christmas is about giving and remembering why we give – let’s not let Christmas become about materialism and the turkey on the table. If you are truly wanting a sustainable Christmas, then you would need to look at the foods you are consuming. Food choices have the biggest impact on the environment.
Consider what you are eating at your Christmas Dinner. Turkeys are one of the worst treated animals in factory farms so please think compassionately when you choose. There are plenty meat-free options to choose from, check out these 6 ways to have the best vegetarian Christmas. Eat less meat and more veg. A plant-based diet is not only better for the environment but is also better for your health. Try and at least commit to eating a flexitarian diet (consciously cutting out meat a few days a week).
And last but not least, do something or give something to someone in need. Adopt a grandparent who may not have family to share Christmas with, give to someone in need, or assist a community group with an initiative that they already have. By making someone else feel good, you too will feel good.
Here’s to a more sustainable, healthy and compassionate Christmas! Do you have any more tips? Let me know now!
The festive season is usually a time of eating too much food, drinking too much, and excess merriment. This year why not reduce and reuse by making your own DIY Christmas Decorations? These simple Christmas decorations will save you a trip to the store (that means not having to listen to Jingle Bells in the aisles!) and you will be able to give your green boxes a second life.
Christmas Gift Tags
What you will need: – Any Fry’s Box
– Colourful Ribbons
– Scissors
– A pencil
– A punch Step 1: Using your pencil, draw out the shape that you’d like your tags to be on the inside of your Fry’s box.
Step 2: Cut your shape out.
Step 3: Punch a hole at the top of your shape. Try to get it as centered as you can.
Step 4: Tie a bow at the top and you’re done!
Festive Fry’s Wreath
What you’ll need:
– Any 2 Fry’s boxes
– A cardboard box
– Multi-Purpose glue
– Scissors
– A pencil
Step 1: Draw out a leaf shape on the back of one of your fry’s boxes. You’ll need quite a few leaves so repeat this process until you think you have enough.
Step 2: Cut out all your leaf shapes.
You should end up with quite a few leaves like this:
Step 3: Draw a circle with a smaller circle in the centre on the cardboard box.
Step 4: Cut out the circle as well as the circle in the centre.
You should end up with something like this:
Step 5: Add glue to your cardboard circle.
Step 6: Glue all your leaves onto the circle.
Step 7: Tie a bow to the bottom and you’re done!
Christmas tree decorations:
What you’ll need:– Any 2 Fry’s Boxes – Multi-purpose glue – Pliers – A pencil – Scissors – Bendable wire
Step 1:
Draw 12 circles onto the back of your Fry’s box and cut your circles out as neatly as possible! We know this is easier said than done though!
Step 2:
Wrap the wire around your circles and glue the circles closest to the wire together.
Step 5:
Fold out all of your circles and tie a ribbon on the top… you’re done!
And there you go! Reuse and recycle this Christmas with Fry’s.
This collection of vegetarian Christmas recipes and vegan holiday tips will make this year’s festivities the best yet
The festive season is upon us so it is time to throw the diet plan out the window, ready the almond milk for Santa’s arrival and hear your crazy uncle’s latest idea for a “better-than-sliced-bread” invention. The Fry’s family has been in the kitchen and we have come up with some delicious recipes and tips which will make this season’s eatings full of joy and merriment.
1. Glazed Game On with roasted onions, pineapples and cherry tomatoes.
The Christmas classic gets a meat-free spin with our polony. The centre of the table will now be complete with a mouth-watering roast infused with garlic.
Step 1:
