Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Options 2024: A Taste Of Mediterranean Cuisine

Olive oil, bread, dry spices, delightful salads, delicious dips, feta, and wine. These things immediately come to my mind when I think of Mediterranean food.

It’s simple yet packs a punch for flavor and nutrients. Being heavily focused on vegetables, grains, and legumes, Mediterranean cuisine is also quite well-suited to vegans.

Cooking Mediterranean food may seem easy, but getting that balance of flavors right can be tricky. Zoe’s Kitchen does a great job at it. Wondering if the restaurant offers vegan food? Let’s find out all about Zoe’s Kitchen vegan options.

Does Zoe’s Kitchen Have Vegan Food?

Does Zoe’s Kitchen Have Vegan Food

Mediterranean cuisine has the general reputation of being vegan-friendly. While Zoe’s attempts to live up to it by including vegan-friendly foods on its menu, don’t expect to find a huge variety of options.

The ratio of vegan to non-vegan foods on the Zoe’s Kitchen menu isn’t the best, but you can have a decent vegan Mediterranean meal here.

What’s Vegan at Zoe’s Kitchen?

What’s Vegan at Zoe’s Kitchen

Zoe’s Kitchen offers some ready-to-eat vegan options on the menu, while you can get a few more made vegan by placing a customized order. Here’s all that vegans can eat at Zoe’s Kitchen:

  • Hummus – not all varieties, though
  • Avocado Smash – requires customization
  • Mediterranean Lentil Soup 
  • Salads – through custom order
  • Build-Your-Own Bowl
  • Falafel & Salad Plate – requires customization
  • Falafel Pita – requires custom order
  • Falafel, Lettuce, & Tomato Sandwich
  • Sides
  • Sauces
  • Drinks

This Zoe’s Kitchen vegan menu guide is prepared using the menu and allergen guide given on the restaurant’s website.

Keep reading to get more details about these meatless food options, the customizations that some of them require, and how to go about building your own vegan bowl. 

I will also answer any questions about eating vegan at Zoe’s Kitchen that may not be addressed in the article in the last section. So, read till the end to know all about how to order vegan food at Zoe’s Kitchen.

Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Options 2024 – A Detailed Overview

Here are all the Mediterranean-inspired foods that vegans can eat at Zoe’s Kitchen:

Hummus 

Hummus

 What’s a Mediterranean meal without hummus? The rich, thick, creamy chickpea dip is an integral part of Mediterranean cuisine and is well-loved all across the world. 

Zoe’s Kitchen offers three varieties of hummus, two of which are vegan-friendly. 

Your vegan hummus choices at Zoe’s Kitchen include:

  • Classic Hummus – Made the traditional way with boiled chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice, tahini, and salt.
  • Spicy Hummus– Ideal for those who like a kick of spice in their food, this is classic hummus made spicy with harissa spice.

Both these hummus varieties are served with pita, which is also vegan-friendly.

Avocado Smash 

Avocado Smash 

The second choice you have for a vegan starter at Zoe’s Kitchen is the simple and delicious avocado smash. But, you have to get it a bit customized to make it fit your vegan diet.

Order Zoe’s Kitchen Avocado Smash without and get the pita chips (that it is originally served with) replaced with regular pita. Zoe’s pita chips are not vegan-friendly; they contain milk.

Mediterranean Lentil Soup 

Mediterranean Lentil Soup 

This is the only vegan soup at Zoe’s Kitchen (the restaurant doesn’t offer many soup varieties anyway). As the name suggests, it offers traditional Mediterranean flavors and is made with green lentils, tomatoes, and carrots. 

As appetizers, the soup is also served with pita and makes a good option for days when you’re looking to have a quick, healthy snack or light vegan lunch at Zoe’s Kitchen. 

Salads 

Salads

Zoe’s Kitchen offers four different types of salads. While they come with the option to choose your own protein, thus allowing you to skip meat, they all contain dairy. 

In other words, none of the salads at Zoe’s Kitchen come standard as vegan-friendly, so you will have to request a few alterations to make them suitable for your plant-based diet. 

Here’s how to go about ordering a vegan salad at Zoe’s Kitchen:

Traditional Greek Salad 

Traditional Greek Salad 

As the name says, this Zoe’s Kitchen salad is made using the traditional Greek salad ingredients, which include the spring mix, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, red onions, bell peppers, olives, and feta with Zoe’s Greek dressing.

When ordering it vegan, just ask them to hold the feta. The Zoe’s Greek dressing is vegan as per the restaurant’s allergen menu. However, I would recommend confirming its vegan status once before ordering to be on the safe side.

The salad is served with pita bread, which is, as mentioned earlier, vegan-friendly.

Classic Greek with Potato Salad 

Classic Greek with Potato Salad 

This is the Traditional Greek Salad served over potato salad. Just skip the feta cheese to make it vegan-friendly; the potato salad it’s served over is vegan.

You get vegan pita with this Zoe’s salad too.

Roasted Corn and Avocado Cobb Salad

Roasted Corn and Avocado Cobb Salad

This Zoe’s Kitchen salad requires a little more customization than the two mentioned above to become fit for the vegan diet. It originally contains spring mix, avocado, roasted corn, tomatoes, red onions, feta, boiled egg, and tzatziki sauce. 

Can you identify the non-vegan culprits in the ingredients list? I am sure you can, but let me say them aloud to avoid any confusion. To make this Zoe’s Kitchen salad vegan, ask them to hold the cheese, egg, and tzatziki. 

As per the Zoe’s Kitchen menu, this salad is served with lemon dressing. When I checked Zoe’s allergen guide to determine its vegan status, the only lemon-y dressing I found listed on it was the Lemon Herb Tahini, which is marked as vegan-friendly. 

Assuming both are the same, you can have the dressing that comes with the Cobb salad. However, confirm it with your server; if you’re the extra cautious one, confirm with your server vegan.

*If you’re wondering why I have only discussed three salads when I earlier stated that the restaurant offers four, it’s because the remaining one will become the same as Traditional Greek Salad after customizations. 

It’s called Tossed with Pasta Salad and is made by tossing the traditional Greek salad tossed with pasta salad.

However, the pasta salad is non-vegan, so there’s no point in getting it customized when you can order the Traditional Salad separately.

Note:

As mentioned above, Zoe’s Kitchen allows you to get your salads made with your choice of protein. While the restaurant offers many choices, only one of them is vegan-friendly.

Can you guess what that is? Falafel! And these are baked, not fried, making them the perfect protein choice for your healthy vegan salad.

You can also have avocado added to your salad, at an extra cost, of course.

Build-Your-Own Bowl

Build-Your-Own Bowl

Zoe’s Kitchen offers a basic cauliflower rice bowl and allows its customers to have it customized with their choice of protein from the various available options.

The cauliflower rice bowl is labeled as vegetarian and gluten-free on the menu. It includes chilled cauliflower rice, cucumbers, fresh dill, feta, tzatziki sauce, and skhug sauce (the Middle Eastern hot sauce). 

When ordering vegan at Zoe’s Kitchen, get the cauliflower rice bowl without feta and tzatziki (skhug is vegan) and choose falafel from the protein options. You may get it without protein too.

Falafel & Salad Plate 

Falafel & Salad Plate 

As the name tells, falafel and salad make the main components of this Mediterranean plate at Zoe’s Kitchen. Other elements include rice, classic hummus, lemon herb tahini, and pita. 

To order it vegan style, simply ask your server to hold the cheese on your plate. 

Wondering where did cheese come from? It’s in the Greek salad this Mediterranean plate comes with.

Note

You can also get the Hummus & Salad Plate made vegan through custom order. However, it’s not worth it. The plate contains Greek salad, classic hummus, tzatziki, and pita. When you skip tzatziki, you will be left with hummus, salad, and pita, which you get in the Falafel & Salad plate, too, with two more elements.

Falafel Pita 

Falafel Pita 

Pita wraps are traditional to Mediterranean cuisine. Zoe’s Kitchen offers a few different varieties of it. But, only one of them comes with the option to be ordered vegan, and that is the Falafel Pita Wrap.

It comes standard vegetarian with falafel, cabbage, tomato relish, fresh dill, skhug, tzatziki, and feta. Order it without feta cheese and tzatziki sauce to get it made vegan. 

Falafel, Lettuce, & Tomato Sandwich

Sandwiches make great on-the-go meals. They are rich, filling, delicious, and less messy than burgers. Zoe’s Kitchen offers a few different types of sandwiches in Mediterranean flavors.

But, only one is meatless and comes standard as vegan-friendly (it’s even labeled vegan on the menu).

As evident from the name, Zoe’s Kitchen vegan sandwich has falafel (in the form of a patty), lettuce, and tomato. But, it has more to it.

Other components of the sandwich include spring mix, sliced tomatoes, classic hummus, and lemon vinaigrette. All these ingredients come to you packed between multigrain bread slices.

*Zoe’s Kitchen sandwiches come with your choice of fresh sides. Refer to the next section for vegan-friendly side options.

Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Sides

Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Sides

Make your vegan meals at Zoe’s Kitchen more flavorful and filling with any of the following vegan-friendly side choices:

  • Cauliflower Rice
  • Turmeric Rice
  • Baked Falafel
  • Braised White Beans
  • Potato Salad
  • Grilled Potato Salad
  • Roasted Vegetables
  • Pita Bread
  • Chips (these are different from pita chips)
  • Apple Slices
  • Orange Slices

You can also have your choice of sides from these added to your Zoe’s Kitchen vegan rice bowl to make it more filling and delicious.

Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Sauces

Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Sauces

Zoe’s Kitchen doesn’t offer too many sauces, but it has the classic options you would expect at a Mediterranean restaurant.

You can’t obviously have all of them while following the vegan diet. Want to know which Zoe’s sauces are vegan?

 Here are your options for vegan sauces at Zoe’s Kitchen:

  • Salsa Verde
  • Skhug
  • Harissa
  • Lemon Herb Tahini
  • Bottle Zoe’s Greek Dressing

Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Drinks

Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Drinks

Zoe’s Kitchen has a limited beverages menu comprised of just the standard options. Technically, they all should be vegan.

However, the restaurant menu labels bottled beverages as ‘vegetarian’ and not ‘vegan’. I am not sure why, but you can ask your server.

The drinks that are labeled vegan on the Zoe’s Kitchen menu include:

  • Fountain Sodas
  • Juices
  • Teas

Zoe’s Kitchen menu given online doesn’t provide the list of exact options in these categories because the available varies across various restaurant locations. So you will have to check your local Zoe’s menu to know your choices.

Zoe’s Kitchen Foods That May Look Vegan but Are Not

Zoe’s Kitchen Foods That May Look Vegan but Are Not

Here are a few items on the Zoe’s Kitchen menu that may appear to be vegan-friendly, but the restaurant’s allergen guide tells that they contain non-vegan ingredients:

  • Pita Chips – contain milk.
  • Basil Pesto Hummus – contains dairy.
  • Pasta Salad – contains dairy.
  • Spicy Aioli Sauce – contains egg.

Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan Menu FAQs

  • Is Zoe’s falafel vegan?

Zoe’s Kitchen offers baked falafel, which is vegan-friendly on its own. However, they are often served with tzatziki sauce, which contains dairy, so make sure to skip it.

  • Is Zoe’s Kitchen pita bread vegan?

Pita bread at Zoe’s Kitchen is vegan-friendly. The pita chips, however, are not. As mentioned earlier, they contain milk.

  • Are Zoe’s Kitchen white beans vegan?

Zoe’s Kitchen offers Braised White Beans as a side, and they come labeled as ‘vegan’ on the menu.

Conclusion – Is Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan-Friendly?

Is Zoe’s Kitchen Vegan-Friendly

Even a cursory look at the Zoe’s Kitchen menu is enough for a vegan to figure out that the restaurant isn’t highly vegan-friendly. It isn’t the worst place for vegan diners either.

Zoe’s Kitchen lies somewhere in between the two extremes. There aren’t too many vegan options at Zoe’s Kitchen, but enough to order a decent vegan Mediterranean meal. 

The restaurant has at least one vegan-friendly option in most categories, making it a good place to visit when you’re in the mood for some Mediterranean food, assuming you crave it occasionally.

If you’re a huge Mediterranean food lover and want to have it every other day (if not every day), you would quickly run out of options here.

Did you find this article helpful? Interested to know your vegan-friendly options at other eateries too? Check out my article, The Vegan Nom Menu, to find out what this Austin-based Tex-Mex restaurant offers for vegans.

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Author Bio
Im Emma and I’m the creator of Vegan Calm. When I became a vegan seven years ago, I mainly did it for health and ethical reasons. To my surprise, it had another amazing benefit; I became a much calmer and peaceful person. This change inspired me to create Vegan Calm. Whether you’ve been a vegan for a long time or just want to learn more, this website will have something for you!

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