Vegan Pizza in Austin

Vegan Pizza Day is this Saturday. If you’re having trouble picking a slice in Austin, here’s a guide to the best vegan pizzas in Austin. (Not in Austin? Check out this post about vegan pizza in Texas.)

Note: This list is regularly updated.

Austin’s Pizza
Vegan cheese: Follow Your Heart Vegan Cheese
Recommended pie: Mediterranean (minus the feta) because kalamata olives
Tip: Avoid the online ordering system. For whatever reason, calling gets more accurate results

Bistro Vonish
Vegan cheese: homemade!
Recommended pie: Whatever is on special
Tip: This cart is entirely vegan. As with all carts, check social media for accurate hours.

Brick Oven on 35th 
Vegan topping: chipotle pesto, no extra charge
Recommended pie: Spicy Vegan, a personal sized pizza with chipotle pesto, tomatoes, red bell pepper, onions, and jalapenos
Tip: Be aware, this is an entirely different restaurant than Brick Oven. (Bonus tip, you can get the chipotle pesto on pasta as well. Just ask for no cream.)

Spicy Vegan from Brick Oven on 35th

Spicy Vegan from Brick Oven on 35th

Conan’s Pizza
Vegan cheese: Daiya, counts as double topping
Recommended pie: Don’t Choke Art, spinach, sliced tomato, artichoke heart, garlic
Tip: Both the deep dish and thin-style crusts are vegan now

Counter Culture
Vegan cheese: homemade!
Recommended pie: Whatever is on special
Tip: Gluten-free pizza available

East Side Pies
Vegan cheese: Daiya, $2/14-inch pie, $4/18-inch pie
Recommended pie:
Sharon’s Pie with spinach curry sauce, broccoli, and red potatoes
Tip: 
They make thin-crust pizza, so you may want to order a bit more than usual. Take advantage of their unusual pizza sauces, including hummus and curry sauce.

Flaming Pizza
Vegan cheese: Daiya, $1 extra
Recommended pie: Eater’s choice. Choose your own toppings.
Tip: Like Mi Pizza and Mod Pizza, you can have unlimited toppings for no extra charge

Hoboken Pie
Vegan cheese: Daiya and tofu ricotta, $3 extra for any size
Recommended pie: Any pie with fruit (pineapple, pear, or misison fig)
Tip: They also have seitan and occasional vegan specials. (Bonus tip:The garlic knots can be made vegan.)

House Pizzeria
Vegan topping: Not actually cheese, but the eggplant tapenade is a wonderful topping made of eggplant, lemon, tomato and onion
Recommended pie: Eggplant, no parm. In addition to the tapenade, this pizza has capers and kalamata olives.
Tip: Start your meal with roasted olives or cannellini bean spread.

Marye’s Gourmet Pizza
Vegan cheese: Daiya, unknown extra charge
Recommended pie: sun-dried tomato, red onion, rosemary, and garlic

Mellow Mushroom
Vegan cheese: Daiya, $1.49-3.29, based on pizza size
Recommended pie: Tempeh (because where else can you get tempeh on a pizza?), onions, and bell peppers.
Tip: Remind your waiter, “No butter or parmesan on the crust.”
[Guadalupe location closed]

Mi Pizza
Vegan cheese:
Daiya, $1 extra

Recommended pie: build your own personal pie with as many toppings as you like for only $6.99.
[closed]

Mod Pizza
Vegan cheese:
Daiya, no extra charge
Recommended pie:
Garlic rub with arugula.
Tip:
Red sauce is not vegan. They’re working on a new recipe. In the meantime, get BBQ sauce or garlic rub as your base.

North Door Pizza
Vegan cheese: Daiya, $3 extra
Recommended pie: Green and black olives (in honor of Lazy Smurf, who recommended this place and loves olives)
Tip: North Door Pizza only serves pizza during events at North Door.

The Parlor
Vegan cheese: Follow Your Heart, $3.50-5.50 extra, depending on the pizza size
Recommended pie: Any pie with their homemade vegan meats (pepperoni, sausage, chicken). The meats aren’t always available. If they have all three and you can get a vegan meat lover’s pie, it’s like you’ve won the lottery.
Tip: If there’s no vegan meat, try a vegan French bread pizza with broccoli. Trust me.

Promise  Pizza
Vegan cheese: Daiya, no extra charge
Recommended pie: Nature’s Choice, a pizza loaded up with all the veggies
Tip: Stretch the definition of pizza and try a Vegan’s Choice calzone

Rockin’ Tomato
Vegan cheese: Daiya, $1.50/10-inch, $2.75/14-inch or 18-inch
Recommended pie: Farmers Market

Sagra
Vegan cheese: Homemade nut cheese, no extra charge. They sometimes substitute Daiya if they run out of the homemade cheese.
Recommended pie: Calabrese vesuvio. Named after Mount Vesuvius, the pizza comes flopped over on itself.
Tip: Walk your waiter through the definition of vegan when you order. They’re really flexible about adapting many of their dishes, but it means they get a bit confused sometimes.

Sauced
Vegan cheese: A blend of mozzarella and cheddar Daiya
Recommended pie: Veggie meat and basil
Tip: Wednesday and Saturday you can order vegan pizza by the slice. The rest of the week, you’ll have to order an entire pizza.
[Closed]

Spartan Pizza
Vegan cheese: Galaxy Foods vegan rice cheeseDaiya, $2.5/10-inch or $4.50/14-inch
Recommended pie: The Athena, with roasted garlic olive oil, fresh spinach, red onion, mushroom, whole roasted garlic cloves
Tip: The tomato sauce, the roasted garlic spread, and roasted garlic olive oil sauce are all vegan.

Via 313 vegan pizza

Via 313 vegan pizza

Uncle Maddio’s Pizza Joint
Vegan cheese: Daiya
Recommended pie: It’s build your own, so it’s up to you.
Tip: They list all of their vegan ingredients online.

Via 313
Vegan cheese:  Follow Your Heart, $2 extra
Recommended pie: They serve Detroit-style pizza, which mean deep dish, cooked in a square cast iron, with a strip of tomato sauce on top rather than under the toppings.
Tip: Try a Vernor’s Ginger Ale, a Michigan classic. The ginger is so spicy, the first sip makes you cough.

Wheatsville Coop
Vegan cheese: Daiya, cheese price incorporated into the price of the pizza
Recommended pie: Popcorn tofu pizza. They’ve added everyone’s favorite sandwich topping to their pizza. Pick up a ready-made pizza in the refrigerated case and cook it yourself at home.
Tip: Occasionally, pizza-by-the-slice is offered at the deli counter.

Whole Foods
Vegan cheese: Cheddar or mozzarella Daiya, $1 extra/pie. As far as I know, this is the only place in town that offers cheddar (or as the last employee I talked to called it, yellow) vegan cheese.
Recommended pie: Red, green, and yellow bell peppers for a really colorful pie
Tip: Thursday is $10 pizza night, the best deal in town

ZPizza
Vegan cheese: Daiya, $1.35-2.25 extra/pie, depending on size
Recommended pie: The Berkley Vegan, with (Gardein) veggie crumbles, zucchini, tomatoes, mushrooms, red onion, bell pepper
Tip: Their gluten-free crust is vegan. See the FAQ section for a vegan menu.

Updated 3/3/16

Vegan Pizza in Texas

Cartoon by Matthew Diffee

So I get this cartoon. Really. Texas is a wasteland of BBQ and chicken fried steak. Except it isn’t, exactly. Don’t get me wrong. You can drive along miles and miles of highway seeing signs advertising brisket and chicken fried chicken, and Texas isn’t exactly known for its fresh produce or vegetarian cuisine. But this cartoon always makes me a little wistful, because people who think like this are missing out on some great vegan pizza.

Here in Austin you can find vegan New York-style, deep dish, Detroit-style, Italian wood oven-baked, and French bread pizzas, among the many many options. That’s a lot of vegan pizza.

So partly in honor of this cartoon and partly in honor of the fact that “vegan pizza in _____” is always one of my top search terms, here are links to vegan pizzas around Texas.

Austin, by Red Hot Vegans
Dallas-Fort Worth, by Dallas Vegan
Houston by Vegan Houston
San Antonio: Fraolo’s Art of Pizza and ZPizza via San Antonio Vegans

***

I have a few favorite vegan pizzas in Austin that didn’t make the Red Hot Vegans list. The Spicy Vegan at Brick Oven on 35th (not to be confused with Brick Oven) for some reason doesn’t get much love. Maybe because there’s no cheese on the pizza. But there’s chipotle pesto, which I think is even better. FYI you can also get the chipotle pesto on pasta (ask for no cream).

Sagra also makes some great vegan pizzas, and recently they started making pistachio cheese for their vegan pies. The pizzas are Italian-style, not the Italian-American pizzas which are the norm in the U.S., which means you get more creative vegetable toppings including arugula, truffle oil, and asparagus. Their menu changes seasonally.

Austin: BBQ Vegan pizza

Vegan pizza from Hoboken Pie in Austin. Photo by mollyjade

Vegan Pizza Day in Austin was a huge success. Thanks to Kristen at Capital City Bakery for hosting, and the folks at Red Hot Vegans for facilitating everything. Hoboken Pie made three special kinds of pizza for the event. The one on top is the Red Hot Butcher with Field Roast sausage, Yves pepperoni, and Daiya cheese. The one at the bottom is Vegan BBQ pizza with BBQ sauce base, Daiya cheese, seitan, red onions, jalapeños, and cilantro. There was also a pizza with tofu ricotta that is not pictured because ricotta is gross and does not belong on food (opinions cited belong to me only, but you know you agree).

Today is Wednesday, July 18, which means you have two weeks left to try the Vegan BBQ pizza at Hoboken Pie. It’s one of their specials for the month of July. Though Daiya is always available. Go buy a pie and support vegan specials!

***

Suggestion has been made that there needs to be a Vegan Tot Day. Get to it, people! I’ll bring tater tot salad, and the Food for Lovers can bring Totchos. Think of the possibilities.

Vegan Pizza in Fort Worth

I was alerted to a vegan pizza option in Fort Worth through this blog post. Chadra Mezza, a Mediterranean restaurant, has updated their menu. The new menu indicates vegetarian and vegan items with a dark orange leaf. Unfortunately, popular items are marked with a light orange leaf, but you’re smart enough to figure out the difference. (Some people might call that leaf yellow, but I swear it’s light orange.)

There are lots of items marked with the leaf, and the owner seems eager to discuss vegan options with customers. But probably most exciting of all is that Chadra Mezza offers Daiya cheese for their pizzas, and, presumably, other dishes as well. For an up charge of course.

I’m intrigued by some of their non-pizza items like the Mezza burger, which is hummus and turnip pickles in a falafel bun. Doesn’t a falafel bun sound interesting? There’s no telling which of the vegetarian items can be made vegan just by looking at the menu, but I’m planning to ask about the eggplant parm next time I’m in Fort Worth. I’ve been dreaming about spaghetti and eggplant parm!

Have you been to Chadra Mezza? Have a favorite dish there? Tell us about it in the comments.

Pizza Fusion in Houston

Vegan pizza in Houston!
Crossposted from Walking the Vegan Line

To celebrate the new year, we joined some good friends for dinner at Houston’s new “green” restaurant, Pizza Fusion. Well, calling it Houston is kind of a stretch since we had to drive 40 minutes to get there (which, I know, isn’t very green to drive that far for dinner), leaving the 610 loop which we rarely venture outside of. Pizza Fusion is a restaurant chain that prides itself on minimizing their ecological footprint through the use of organic ingredients, hybrid delivery vehicles, reclaimed building materials (the floors and tables in this one were from the basketball court of a local high school), LEED certification, and recycling. All good things if you ask me! Of course, the fact that they have a vegan cheese option as well as a vegan dessert, also helped lure me outside the loop.

It was kind of surreal to see the word “vegan” emblazed on a building in the suburbs of Houston. If that’s not progress, I don’t know what else is.

After some confusion over volumetric conversions with the bartender (the 16oz glass of beer came marked in a 0.4L glass, which is equivalent to about 13.5 oz, but we were still charged for the 16oz), our vegan breadstick order arrived with a mix of both white and multigrain minis and a marinara dipping sauce. We probably would have ordered two if we knew our pizzas would take almost an hour to arrive….
But arrive eventually they did. Two specialty pizzas, a veggie medley (mushrooms, broccoli, bell pepper, onions) and a Seattle (onion, garlic, basil, balsamic vinegar, and artichoke hearts) both with FYH mozzarella on a crispy white dough crust. The Seattle was my favorite with the bite of the vinegar, the sweetness of the onion, and the creaminess of the melty “cheese”, all the flavors melded into a perfect pairing. The pizza was definitely a hit with the vegan and non-vegan parties at our table.
To make up for the very slow service, the manager gave us a few freebies… “I’m a vegan” bracelets, coupons for soy cheese pizzas, and dessert! This vegan, gluten-free brownie was a nice ending to the meal. Not as good as my homemade brownies (they were a little grainy and could have been more chocolatey), but still good.
While I enjoyed out trip out to the boonies for a vegan pizza, it’s not likely a trip I’ll make very often. Luckily, Pizza Fusion has plans to open more locations throughout Texas and the country. Maybe one will be opening close to you (and me)!