Peren IJsjes from Albert Heijn

Please excuse the little bit of schmutz on the box.

We haven’t had much of a summer here this year, but there have been enough sunny days in the last couple of weeks to enjoy a frozen treat or two. And one of my favorite ways to give myself an ice-cream headache are these delicious pear ice-pops from Albert Heijn. I discovered these years ago (before I was vegan) when I was living in the Netherlands and fell in love with the crisp, peariness of them. Unlike a lot of ice-pops that taste vaguely of the fruit they claim to represent, these really do taste like they were made from actual pears! I completely forgot about them until Albert Heijn recently opened up not too far from where I live in Belgium and I was so happy to rediscover them. These accidentally-vegan treats are super refreshing and taste of summer to me.

These can be found in the ice-cream section of Albert Heijn supermarkets.

Délio Plant-based Salads (Delhaize)

For a while now, I’ve been bumping into Delio’s “no-mayo” salads and getting frustrated to discover they’re not even close to vegan. They’re basically your standard meat-based salads but somehow, supposedly “healthier”. But with so many new vegan products coming on the market, I held out hope that if they were doing “no-mayo”, they might try their hand at vegan salads. And they have!

I recently found these on the Delhaize website and knew I had to try them. I was especially excited to try the tonino, because while other brands have vegan versions of chicken curry, and even more so, préparé (even Delhaize themselves have versions of these two salads), I had yet to come across a vegan version of tuna salad.

And I have to say, these are pretty good! I can’t compare them to their meaty versions because I never had these types of pre-made salads before going vegan. I used to make my own tuna salad, and while growing up in the US meant that I added different ingredients for a slightly different flavor profile, this definitely comes close enough to scratch that itch!

They are a bit pricier than the Delhaize version of the same things but I will be getting them again from time to time, for the tonino and for the variety. Plus I always think it’s great to send a signal to non-vegan companies that there’s a market for vegan products.

I’ve only seen these at the Delhaize so far, but if they’re available elsewhere, do let me know!

Boni Miniloempias with veggies (Colruyt)

Along with the Boni Veggie “meats”, these are one of my favorite finds from the Colruyt freezer section. Their larger frozen loempias all have meat in them, but these mini loempias are completely vegan! They crisp up really nicely in the deep fryer and are a great little appetizer or snack, dipped in a nice sweet chili sauce or a bit of sriracha and tamari.

These are part of Colruyt’s house brand, Boni selection, so that’s where you’ll find them.

Schovit Cacao Fantasie (Aldi)

Once again, Mr VSiB has scored an accidentally-vegan, (albeit unfortunately named) product from the Aldi: Schovit Cacao Fantasie chocolate powder for hot and cold chocolate.

Unlike Nesquik, which contains vitamin D (which usually means D3 from lanolin or fish oil), this appears to be completely vegan! So far I’ve only tried it cold in almond milk. It dissolved nicely and had a sweet, but not too cloying taste. I feel like it was missing a bit of depth, but that could have also been because I’m more used to the flavor of soy milk than almond milk. I’ll definitely try it again in both soy and hazelnut milk, and I’m also looking forward to trying it as hot chocolate. I’ll probably give it a try mixed with a few drops of water as a quick and dirty chocolate sauce over ice cream, like I did with Nesquik as a kid.

Schovit seems to be made exclusively for Aldi supermarket, so that’s where you’ll find this.

Swing chocolate orange slices (Aldi)

Mr. Vegan Stuff in Belgium isn’t vegan himself, but whenever he goes shopping he’s always on the lookout for accidentally vegan stuff for me. On a recent trip to the Aldi, he scored these delicious chocolate covered orange jellies. I checked the ingredient list several times before trying them, and still ended up double checking after biting into them, because the jellied orange under the chocolate just made me think there had to be gelatine in there. But nope, rechecking the label, they’re made with pectin. These things are so good. My only complaint is that the package is too small!

Swing is a candy line made specifically for the Aldi so that’s where you’ll find these gems.

Alpro Soy and Almond yogurt

One of the great things about living in Belgium is that it’s the home of Alpro, makers of many, many vegan products. (As far as I know, every item they make is vegan.) That means that we see new products here pretty quickly and I’m always enthusiastic to try them out.

Most recently I ran across this tub of almond flavored yogurt. To be clear, this isn’t almond yogurt, but rather soy yogurt with almond bits in it. It’s not bad, but it’s not my favorite of their products that I’ve tried. It has a somewhat stronger “beany” taste than a lot of their other products. That said, I have a tendency to like their sweeter products (fruit yogurts or vanilla yogurt) and sweetness tends to mask some of the beaniness of soy milk-based products, so if you find their other yogurts too sweet, as I know some people do, this might be right up your alley! For me, the addition of a drizzle of agave syrup put this right into my yum zone. This may have not hit all the right notes for me, but I do love how Alpro keeps putting new and exciting products on the supermarket shelves and it always makes me happy to see how many people (even non-vegans) seem to really appreciate these cruelty-free additions to their weekly grocery baskets.

I found this at the Colruyt, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t available at all of the other supermarkets carrying name-brand products.

Pirato pickles chips (Aldi)

One of the frustrations of browsing the supermarket shelves as a vegan is the inclusion of animal ingredients where there is absolutely no need for them. A really obvious example of this is flavored potato chips. Plain potato chips are pretty much always vegan (with a simple ingredient list of potatoes, vegetable oil, and salt) but I’m always amazed at the animal by-products that manufacturers sneak into flavored varieties, either in the form of dairy or animal-derived, flavor-enhancing e-numbers. (Seriously. Most “salt & pepper” chips I’ve run across contain dairy. Why?!)  So too with most pickles chips.

Enter Aldi! Although there are hidden animal ingredients in most of their flavored chips, I was delighted to discover that their Pirato pickles chips are accidentally vegan! I have never had “Belgian Pickles” (a variant on Piccalilly), but Mr. Vegan Stuff in Belgium informs me that that’s what these chips taste like. To me, they’re just a delicious combination of crispy chips, with a tart/sweet/mustardy edge.

GranoVita Vegan Liverwurst

I have to confess. Even when I still ate meat, I was pretty grossed out at the idea (and smell) of liverwurst. So it was with trepidation that I found myself buying this granoVita vegan liverwurst. But there it was, staring at me from the shelf, the word “vegan” (or “vegane”) as big as day on the label, whispering “C’mon. Just try me. Who could it hurt?” And the answer is, no one. It could hurt no one. A look at the ingredient list showed this was made primarily of kidney beans, with some tofu, onion, salt, and spices. Intriguingly the tail end of the ingredient list includes bourbon vanilla and beechwood smoke.

So in the name of science, I popped open the jar today (or rather, my partner popped it open for me, because this thing was hermetically sealed), and spread some on a piece of melba toast. What can I say? I ate half the jar in one sitting. Slightly beany and slightly smoky, this is a really nicely flavored spread. I can definitely see this becoming a regular part of my lunch rotation, and also something that I would happily serve as an hors-d’œuvre if I was having folks over for drinks.

I’ve only ever seen GranoVita Vegan Liverwurst at health food stores, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find it at vegan specialty stores, both online and offline.

Garden Gourmet Lentil Burger

In a previous post, I mentioned that most of the meat analogue products found in the refrigerated sections of supermarkets have hidden egg in them. Until recently, this was also the case with the Garden Gourmet brand. About a month or two ago, though, I noticed that one item in the line-up of their green packaging in the Delhaize was actually marked “vegan”: the Lentil Burger. I double checked the ingredients (it’s not that I don’t trust them… well, maybe it is), and indeed, it’s vegan!

These burgers are an interesting blend of lentils, carrots, and mint. I have yet to eat one in traditional burger style, but I have pan-fried them and served them over mashed potatoes with gravy and some greens and they were really good! The carrots and mint give this a fresh twist that differentiates them from other veggie burgers. According to the Garden Gourmet website, their Couscous Burgers are also vegan. I haven’t run across those yet, but will definitely keep an eye out for them. So far I’ve seen the Garden Gourmet Lentil Burgers in the refrigerated sections of both the Colruyt and the Delhaize.

Bosphorus Dürüm wraps (Colruyt)

One of the more frustrating items to find in Europe in my experience has been vegan wraps/tortillas. This is made all the more frustrating by the fact that wraps/tortillas are normally always vegan, and yet most of the brands I’ve seen in supermarkets both in Belgium and the Netherlands have contained either dairy (what?) or iffy e-numbers. (You can get vegan ones in health food stores, but these tend to be pretty small and rather pricey.) The most common iffy e-number in items like this is E471 which could be either plant or animal derived, and so I tend to avoid it unless a company has confirmed that it uses only plant-derived E471, or it is indicated on the package that the E471 is plant-based.

In the case of these (halal) Dürüm wraps, the fact that they’re completely vegetable based is stated on the front, and then again, on the back under the ingredient list, it indicates that they are made without using any animal products! (Halal and Kosher product sections in the supermarket are often good places to look for vegan-friendly products, as some of the concerns – like iffy, animal based e-numbers, or in the case of Parve products, hidden dairy – are similar to the concerns of vegan consumers.) In addition to being totally vegan, these wraps are HUGE, so that you can fill them up to your heart’s desire and still get them to close. I keep mine frozen, just heating one up in a pan on the stove before filling it with hummus, Boni gyros, left-over veggies, avocado slices, and/or mashed beans.

So far, I’ve only ever seen this particular brand of Dürüm wraps at the Colruyt (on the shelves with the “ethnic” food above the freezers).