Trinidad Vegetarian Recipes You’ll Love

Here are must-try Trinidad vegetarian recipes that will fill your kitchen with incredible aromas and make your tummy happy. From flavorful curries to delicious stews, you can find a great veggie meal for lunch or dinner. There are also some simple and easy to make Trini dishes here.

If you love Trini cuisine, check out my other roundups of Trini recipes to explore.

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Trinidad vegetarian recipes for breakfast

Doubles

Doubles might not be the national dish of T&T (because we don’t have any) but it is still the most popular street food on the islands. It featured 2 flat, deep fried dough called baras and a chickpea (channa) filling with optional sauces and chutneys with tamarind, mango, pepper, coconut, and cucumber.

Besides doubles, aloo pie (fried potato stuffed pie), saheena (fried dough containing taro or dasheen leaves), baiganee (fried eggplant slices coated with dough) and kachori (fried dough containing chickpeas) are all vegetarian.

Sada roti and sides

Sada roti and chokas are also popular Trini vegetarian recipes enjoyed for breakfast. Sada roti is a simple dough made with flour, baking powder, salt and water, kneaded together, rolled out and cooked on a flat surface (called a tawaa). The roti puffs up when cooking, creating a wonderful pocket for vegan sides.

Choka is a vegetarian dish where the veggies are roasted on an open flame with garlic, before being peeled, crushed, and seasoned with hot oil and aromatics. Baigan choka is made with roasted eggplant and tomato choka is a delicious tomato dish.

Other veggie dishes served with sada roti include fried plantains, fried ochro, fried aloo (potatoes) and more:

Bake and sides

The same vegetarian sides mentioned above can also be served with bake.

Fry bake is a round, deep fried dough that puffs up nicely in the oil and is perfect for making sandwiches. Coconut bake is a thick, dense bread that is made with freshly grated coconut, nutmeg and more.

Special mentions for a Trini vegetarian breakfast include: hot hops bread to enjoy with avocado slices, cheese and veggies and a piping hot cup of cocoa tea.

Trinidad vegetarian recipes for lunch

Pelau

There are lots of delicious Trini recipes that are vegetarian and great for lunch. Veggie pelau is made much in the same way as chicken pelau. Brown sugar is burnt to form a browning sauce before veggies, pigeon peas and rice are added and cooked together with coconut milk. Once all the liquid has boiled off, this tasty veggie pelau is often served with coleslaw.

Rice and sides

There are lots of great Trini rice recipes like ochro rice, carrot rice, and Christmas rice. All are made with veggies and aromatics like onion, garlic and pepper. I also enjoy a veggie fried rice made with red rice but regular parboiled or jasmine rice can be used.

As for the sides, there are so many options:

• Vegan callaloo made with young dasheen or taro leaves, pumpkin, ochro and coconut milk is a wonderful spinach-like, saucy option.
• Stewed lentils is made by burning sugar before adding in veggies, brown lentils and water. Ketchup is sometimes added in too.
• Macaroni pie, usually made with eggs or a flour roux, my version of macaroni pie has a baked, cheesy Crix crust and uses evaporated milk and your favorite herbs.
• Chow mein noodles is made with veggies, cooked chow mein noodles, soy sauce and other flavors.
• Chunky veggies is an easy-to-make recipe with large vegetable chunks sauteed in a little oil and Chinese seasonings. I sometimes add cashews for a crunchy element.
• Healthy options like boiled plantain, sauteed broccoli and carrots are also great.

Indian vegan recipes

Since Indian cuisine has strong influences on Trinidadian cuisine, there are lots of Indian Trini vegan recipes. Dhal, made with yellow split peas, aromatics and roasted garlic and cumin seeds, is often served with rice and bhagi (type of spinach made with either taro leaves or spiny amaranth (chori) leaves).

Roti is the typical staple that is mainly served alongside curried veggies and talkaris (which often have a dominant masala and cumin taste). There are two main types of roti enjoyed for lunch – buss up shut and dhalpuri.

Buss up shut is dough that has been brushed with butter, folded onto itself, then rolled out and cooked on a tawaa (flat surface) with oil. The resulting roti is super soft, layered and tastes incredible.

Buss up shut is often served with curry channa (chickpeas) and aloo (potato), pumpkin talkari, mango talkari (made with green mango, sugar, masala, and spices), curry bodi, curry chataigne (or breadnut which is cooked in a curry sauce with coconut milk) and more.

Dhalpuri is dough that has been stuffed with seasoned yellow split peas (dhal) before being rolled out and cooked on a tawaa with oil. In roti shops, curry aloo (potato), pumpkin talkari, or mango talkari are added to the center of the dhalpuri before being folded into a square “sandwich.” It’s an incredibly filling lunch.

Soup

Corn soup is another great lunch option. It’s a one pot, flavorful soup made with veggies, pieces of corn still on the cob and flour dumplings.

Dhal and dumpling is another soup like option made with yellow split peas, veggies and flour dumplings.

Trinidadian vegetarian snacks

The best veggie snack in T&T is chow! Any fruit or vegetable can be used alongside chadon beni leaves, garlic, pepper and sometimes lime juice. Mango chow is my favorite, but pineapple and cucumber chow are also popular.

What are some of your favorite Trini vegetarian and vegan foods? What did I miss? Let me know in the comments below.