Lou Malnati’s publishes a genuine, quotable vegan statement — one sentence, written by the company, about how to order a vegan pizza or salad. The previous version of this page never used it, and instead built its advice on a sentence about cheese that it misread badly enough to recommend dairy to vegans.
Answer: yes, on Lou Malnati’s own terms, and only by removing the cheese. Verbatim from the company: “Our salads and pizzas can be prepared vegan if you order them without cheese.” Two conditions ride along with that, and both are Lou Malnati’s own: not Buttercrust, and you must specifically say you do not want romano sprinkled on top.
The Correction: The Cheese Is Not Vegan, And Lou Malnati’s Never Said It Was
This page previously told readers that Lou Malnati’s mozzarella, parmesan and romano are “all vegan-friendly” because they are made with vegetable rennet, and then said outright: “What does this mean to vegans? Yes, it’s safe to have these types of cheese.” It repeated the claim in three separate places, including the closing summary.
That is wrong, and it is worth being precise about how. Here is the only thing Lou Malnati’s actually says about those three cheeses, verbatim: “Our mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, and romano cheese are all made with a vegetable rennet, not an animal rennet.”
Rennet is the coagulating enzyme. Saying it is vegetable rather than animal is a statement about that enzyme and nothing else. It makes the cheese suitable for vegetarians. The cheese is still dairy. Lou Malnati’s nowhere describes any of its cheeses as vegan or vegan-friendly, and every cheese-bearing item in its own allergen tables is flagged for milk.
What the previous version of this page did was read a vegetarian claim as a vegan one. That is a specific, repeatable mistake, and it is the reason this correction is stated here rather than the sentence simply being deleted. Lou Malnati’s vegan route is the exact opposite of a vegan-cheese claim: it is cheese removal.
Everything below comes from Lou Malnati’s own Allergen Information page — its prose statements plus eight per-category allergen tables — and its current menu, both read on 31 July 2026. Lou Malnati’s publishes no date stamp on that page.
Pizza: The Statement, And Both Of Its Conditions
Lou Malnati’s Dairy paragraph, quoted in full because the conditions matter:
“Our Deep Dish pizza dough and pizza sauce do not contain any egg or dairy (just so long as you do not order Buttercrust and specify that you do not want romano cheese sprinkled on top). Our salads and pizzas can be prepared vegan if you order them without cheese.”
This page previously carried only half of that. It said “just don’t get the butter crust” and stopped. The romano sprinkle is applied by default and you have to decline it explicitly. That is Lou Malnati’s own condition and dropping it changes the outcome of the order.
Two further corrections on pizza. This page said to avoid the Buttercrust and the gluten-free dough “because they contain eggs.” Lou Malnati’s attributes egg only to the gluten-free dough — “our gluten free pizza dough does contain egg” — and lists Buttercrust under Dairy, not egg. Right conclusion on the gluten-free crust, wrong reason on the Buttercrust.
And this page said “their thin crust is also gluten-free.” That garbles what Lou Malnati’s publishes, which is that there are gluten-free versions of both its Deep Dish and its Thin Crust: “Lou Malnati’s gluten free Deep Dish and Thin Crust pizzas are tested and confirmed to be gluten free, but processed in a facility that uses wheat, and finished in our kitchens where wheat and wheat products are present. Crust contains egg.” The standard thin crust is a different product.
One open question this page should raise rather than answer. Lou Malnati’s Deep Dish section blurb reads “Our signature flaky, Buttercrust…” as though it is the house crust, while two named pizzas call out Buttercrust individually as though the others do not have it. Whether Buttercrust is the default is not something Lou Malnati’s states clearly, and the whole vegan instruction turns on it. Ask which crust comes as standard.
Note also that Lou Malnati’s publishes no per-pizza allergen table. Its eight tables cover appetizers, salads, dressings, pasta, sauces, sandwiches, the children’s menu and desserts. Everything about pizza rests on the prose above — which is explicit, but it is prose, not a grid.
Salads: “Just Ask For No Cheese” Is Not Enough
This page listed four salads under “Everything can be made vegan. Just ask the staff not to include non-vegan cheese and meat.” Lou Malnati’s own tables show that is insufficient in three of the four cases.
House Salad w/ Croutons is flagged for milk, soy, wheat, onion, garlic and corn. Its current menu description contains no cheese at all — iceberg and romaine, red cabbage, carrots, roma tomatoes, cucumber, red onions and croutons. So the milk is in the croutons, and Lou Malnati’s publishes Croutons as its own row, flagged for milk. The precise instruction is: order the House Salad without croutons, not just without cheese. This page never said so.
Malnati Salad is flagged for milk, onion, garlic and corn, and its menu description names Volpi salami, gorgonzola and romano. Removing the cheese leaves the salami.
Caesar Salad w/ Croutons is flagged for egg, milk, soy, wheat, onion, garlic, corn and anchovy — the anchovy being in the dressing. It should not have been on a vegan list.
Chicken BBQ Club Salad is a chicken dish, flagged for egg, milk, soy, onion, garlic and corn. Same.
Dressings: The Page Said “Ask For A Vegan One” And Never Named One
Two of Lou Malnati’s eight published dressings declare no egg, no milk, no soy, no wheat and no anchovy:
House Red Wine Vinaigrette — garlic and corn only. Malnati Sweet Vinaigrette — onion and corn only. Those are the two best-documented options and this page named neither.
The other six all declare egg and milk: Caesar (also anchovy), Club, Creamy Lemon Garlic, Gorgonzola (also anchovy), Reduced Calorie Ranch and Thousand Island.
Appetizers: All Five This Page Listed Are Flagged For Milk
Under a heading reading “what we can possibly order as vegan on request,” this page listed five appetizers. Lou Malnati’s flags every one of them for milk: Bruschetta, Three-Cheese Bread, the Combo Platter (also egg), Mozzarella Bites and Garlic Bread. That bulleted list has been removed, because a list of dairy items under a vegan heading reads as a set of recommendations.
Two of those entries were also out of date. The Combination Platter is now published as “Mozzarella nuggets, ravioli crisps and breaded mushrooms” — no cheddar cubes, no zucchini. And Cheddar Cubes are gone from the menu entirely; the item is now Mozzarella Bites.
Minestrone Soup has also been removed. It returns zero hits on the current menu, there is no soup section, and there is no soup row in any of the eight allergen tables. The detail about ordering it two days ahead had no source either.
The Extra Toppings list this page ran under its vegan section included “extra cheese.” That has gone.
Things With No Declared Egg Or Milk That This Page Missed
Marinara Sauce — no egg, no milk; soy, onion, garlic and corn. Lou Malnati’s attaches its own footnote to it, verbatim: “Please note: The marinara sauce is not the sauce used on our pizzas.” Two different sauces, and it is easy to get wrong.
Spaghetti (without sauce) — wheat only, no egg and no milk. Penne Pasta (without sauce), by contrast, declares egg. That is a useful, precise distinction and this page never drew it. It also contradicts the old claim that “all other dishes on their menu are served with meat and can’t be modified.”
Bar-B-Lou Wing Sauce declares no egg or milk — though the wings it goes on are not vegan. For contrast, the BuffaLou wing sauce declares milk.
The Limits Of This Data, In The Company’s Own Words
Lou Malnati’s tables track egg, milk, soy, wheat, onion, garlic and corn, plus anchovy on salads and dressings and mushroom on pasta and sauces. They do not track honey, gelatin, lard or stock. “No egg and no milk declared” is therefore not the same as vegan, and nothing above is presented as though it were.
The company’s own closing note, verbatim: “Limited time offers, seasonal products, and regional items are not included. While we make every effort to keep this information current, ingredient changes and substitutions may occur. We recommend that our customers with food allergies or special dietary needs speak with a restaurant manager before placing an order. Due to the uniqueness of allergies and food sensitivities, Lou Malnati’s cannot make recommendations that are suitable for your dietary needs.”
What Else Was Removed
Roughly a third of the previous version of this page was about other companies. A list of eleven vegan pizza brands and a list of nine vegan pizzerias in other cities have been removed — along with a first-person endorsement of places the page had supposedly visited — because they were unsourced and had nothing to do with Lou Malnati’s.
Also removed: the location counts (“58 locations in the Chicago area, and 14 more”), which loumalnatis.com does not publish; the founding narrative about 1940, Rudy Malnati, the 1971 opening and the 1978 death, none of which appears on any Lou Malnati’s page checked; a vague third-party attribution about deep-dish pizza at another chain since 1926; a claim comparing the calories, fats, sodium, vitamins and minerals of vegan versus non-vegan Lou Malnati’s pizza, which the company publishes nothing to support and for which no vegan pizza exists to compare; and the suggestion to ask for the frozen pizza and Italian ice to be “made vegan-friendly,” which is not something that can be done to a packaged product. A paragraph of undated filler has gone too.
The Bottom Line
Lou Malnati’s is one of the few chains that writes down a vegan instruction in its own words, and the instruction is: order the pizza or salad without cheese, not Buttercrust, and say explicitly that you do not want the romano sprinkled on top.
Beyond that: the House Salad needs the croutons left off as well as the cheese, the House Red Wine Vinaigrette and Malnati Sweet Vinaigrette are the two cleanest dressings on the table, and the mozzarella, parmesan and romano are dairy — vegetarian-suitable because of the rennet, but dairy.
