Emirates' Vegan Vision: Innovative Ingredients & Culinary Excellence

Vegan Delights on Emirates

Emirates places significant importance on refined vegan cuisine, responding to the growing number of vegan travellers worldwide. Many non-vegan passengers also choose vegan options when flying because they are lighter and more digestible. To enhance its vegan offerings, Emirates actively develops new dishes using innovative ingredients, including a solid egg substitute crafted entirely from legumes with excellent taste and nutrition. The airline also provides curated vegan meals for children and regularly introduces fresh dishes onboard and in its lounges.

Emirates’ Continuous Commitment to Innovative Vegan Meals

Marking Veganuary, an initiative highlighting the benefits of a vegan diet for the last decade, a collective of Emirates’ talented chefs gather in Emirates Flight Catering Concept Development Kitchen to workshop new dishes and experiment with the latest innovative ingredients on the market. Chefs trialled the new solid egg substitute in spicy shakshuka sauce at the workshop. They developed a premade vegan pastry sheet into savoury vegan cannelloni and evaluated some of the celebrated ingredients and high-quality products already onboard.

Emirates features over 300 vegan recipes available for flights to 140 destinations worldwide. Their extensive menu includes a variety of high-quality plant-based products sourced from around the globe, such as plant-based proteins from Beyond Meat in California, soybean protein from the UAE and Singapore's Arlene, pressed tofu from Japan's Qian Ye for authentic Asian flavours, organic dark vegan chocolate produced by Linnolat in France, vegan margarine from Meister Marken in Germany, vegan curry paste from Pantai in Thailand, and almond milk from Italy's Koita. In partnership with Emirates Flight Catering, Emirates also promotes sustainability by utilizing fresh produce from Bustanica, the world’s largest hydroponic vertical farm. This farm provides pesticide- and chemical-free leafy greens, including lettuce, arugula, mixed salad greens, and spinach, directly to Emirates’ catering facilities. Emirates has also recently rolled out individual servings of vegan milk in Economy and Premium Economy Class, with over 30,000 customers opting for this in their monthly coffee and tea.

Highlighting its commitment to culinary excellence for all customers, Emirates recently introduced vegan meals for children. Kids' vegan meals include tasty and tempting dishes like vegan pizza, sweet and sour vegetable casserole, vegetable fajitas, vegan muffins, cauliflower bites with sweet sauce, and desserts like strawberry crumble and vegan chocolate pudding. Emirates recently introduced vegan meals for children, highlighting. These,

Vegan options are available to order and pre-order onboard and in Emirates Lounges. Customers can request vegan meals on all Emirates flights and across all travel classes up to 24 hours before departure. However, plant-based meals are also provided as main menu options on high-demand routes.

Emirates’ Vegan Cuisine in Every Class

Serving over 400,000 plant-based meals onboard annually, Emirates offers vegan cuisine across every class. Last year, vegan meal consumption grew in line with passenger volumes, but in some regions, it has exceeded passenger volume growth, such as in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Many Emirates cabin crew members also follow a plant-based diet, and Emirates has offered vegan meals for cabin crew for the last nine years.

In Economy class, Emirates customers can enjoy dishes like crêpes filled with sautéed carrots and peppers, served with roasted potatoes, mushrooms and tomato concassé, or curried vegetable puffs and chocolate mousse cake with chocolate sauce and blackberry crumble.

In Premium Economy class, customers choosing vegan cuisine will be served delicious dishes like braised mushrooms with vegetables in five-spice soy sauce, served with steamed jasmine rice and blanched pak choi, followed by desserts like chocolate tart drizzled in apricot compote or raspberry tonka mousse cake with berry coulis.

Business class offers a range of creatively curated dishes, including Thai red curry tofu with aubergine, beans, mushrooms and taro in aromatic gravy, served with steamed jasmine rice. Customers who have room for dessert can feast on a tropical coconut pineapple cake or indulge in a chocolate pecan cake.is,,

In First class, customers will be treated to elevated vegan cuisine, such as creamy polenta cake with thyme mushroom ragout and sautéed spinach drizzled in a rich root vegetable jus. Other dishes offer flavours such as aubergine curry, charred rice, turmeric potato, and a dash of coconut and mint chutney. Decadent desserts feature curated contrasts, including the tartness of rhubarb tempered with strawberry charlotte, Chantilly cream, and raspberry tuille or a warm chocolate fondant dashed with salted caramel sauce and whipped cashew cream.

Crafted Vegan Options in Emirates’ Lounges Dubai

At Dubai International Airport, Emirates operates 7 lounges in its flagship Terminal 3—3 designated for First Class and 3 for Business Class customers, along with the newly opened Emirates Lounge, which caters to all premium customers. These lounges feature a diverse selection of vegan options, including soya and pea protein crispy pops available at the Business Class Lounge Snack Counter, as well as Baharat and turmeric spiced kofta in coconut gravy at the buffet and an amaranth porridge breakfast with compressed green apples, red grapes, raspberries, and walnuts in the First Class Lounge, among many others. Besides various popular vegan salads, the standard vegan dish is the Emirates Green Burger—a soya and flax seed green burger with a signature sauce and pickled cucumbers.