Founded by Tom Forkner and Joe Rogers on September 5th, 1955, Waffle House Inc. has become one of America’s most popular breakfast restaurant chains. The restaurant owns over 2,100 outlets in 25 states of the USA. Their restaurants are famous for their waffles and scattered hash browns.
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Vegan Options at Waffle House
If you are a vegan looking to order something from Waffle House, you might have to rethink your decision. The restaurant can be a last resort option due to their very few options. However, it is undoubtedly not the place to order from if you’re looking for a healthy vegan meal. The restaurants offer very greasy food, which might always risk cross-contamination.
The best vegan ordering option at Waffle House is the already vegan hash browns. The good thing is that the restaurants offer these hashbrowns in a variety. Therefore, you still have something to choose from if you are hungry and have nowhere else to eat. Let us explore Waffle House’s vegan options and see how you can eat there as a vegan.
What Can I Order at Waffle House as a Vegan?
Waffle House is one of the several restaurant chains that have not yet responded to the vegan movement. All the vegan-friendly options they have are accidentally vegan.
When you go through the Waffle House website, you will not find any ingredients list or an allergen guide. Therefore, exploring and figuring out Waffle House’s vegan options is dicey. Our biggest suggestion, as always, is to talk to your server to know if what you’re ordering is vegan.
While most grease-dominant, southern-cooking restaurants do not have even a single vegan option on the menu, Waffle House thankfully does. So, without further ado, let us explore the Waffle House vegan options.
Hash Browns
Waffle House is famous for its scattered hash browns; the good news is you can consume them on a vegan diet. It is an obvious ordering option on the menu. You can even create complete meals out of the hash browns with the serving and toppings you choose.
Scattered hash browns are unique to Waffle House. They are cooked thoroughly on both sides, shredded, and topped with special dressings. You can choose between multiple toppings to make a unique flavor for yourself. Below are some of the Waffle House vegan options for hash browns.
- Plain: Light, medium, or dark shredded hash browns served without seasonings and toppings.
- Smothered: Light, medium, or dark shredded hash browns served with sauteed onions.
- Diced: Light, medium, or dark shredded hash browns served with grilled tomatoes.
- Peppered: Light, medium, or dark shredded hash browns served with jalapeño peppers.
- Capped: Light, medium, or dark shredded hash browns served with grilled mushrooms.
While ordering hash browns from Waffle House, you should ask the chef to use separate utensils for cooking your meal. It will drastically reduce the risk of whey and dairy contamination.
While hash browns are the most important and filling vegan option on the menu, you don’t have to stay hungry after leaving Waffle House. You can order your hash brown in regular, large, or triple servings to fill you up. You can add a side and beverage to the mix and create a hearty meal for yourself.
Caution: Waffle House’s hash browns tend to be very greasy. If you are not a fan of fatty food, you might find eating the large or the triple size difficult.
Toast
If you want to balance your hash brown meal a bit or want some variety, you can opt for toast. Toasts anywhere are vegan-friendly. Therefore, toast is a safe bet even at the most meat-centric restaurants.
Make sure you do not get your toast covered in butter. You can opt for jam or peanut butter instead. You can even opt for peanut butter and jam and create a fine vegan PB&J sandwich with the toast.
Salad
Since Waffle House Inc. has many outlets, the smaller ones do not serve salads. However, if you land in an outlet that does, it is your lucky day since you get another filling option at Waffle House.
According to previous menus, their garden salad includes purple cabbage, carrots, romaine, iceberg lettuce, and tomatoes. Just ensure to specify that you want your garden salad without cheese.
You should also ask your server if the salad automatically comes with croutons and dressings made of eggs or dairy. If yes, ask them to remove these ingredients from the mix, and you should be good to go.
Waffle House Syrup
You can add vegan waffle house syrup to your salad or hash browns for the maple syrup’s sweet taste. However, doing so will create a flavor that few people like. Therefore, you can experiment at your own risk. Who knows, you might end up with a dish of your own!
Oatmeal or Grits
Your server or chef can answer whether Waffle House’s oatmeal and grits are vegan.
Water-cooked oatmeal and grits are generally vegan. Therefore, we can assume that they are also vegan at Waffle House. However, a few pre-additions might be a part of their oatmeal and grits. Therefore, it is best to ask the server for accurate information before ordering.
Beverages
You can side your hearty meal of hash brown, toast, and salad with a couple of vegan beverage options at Waffle House.
- Coca-Cola
- Diet Coke
- Hi-C
- Sprite
- Pibb Xtra
- Lemonade
- Barq’s Root Beer
- Orange Juice
- Alice’s Iced Tea
- Alice’s Iced Tea-Monade
- Hot Tea
- Coffee
Can I Get Custom-Made Vegan Waffles at Waffle House?
Currently, there is no way of getting a vegan waffle at Waffle House. They rely heavily on dairy items such as butter and milk to make the waffles soft and supple. Without them, the restaurant will not serve waffles to uphold their quality standards.
Even after efforts from several animal rights organizations such as PETA, Vegan Society, and Movement for Compassionate Living, Waffle House has failed to add vegan options to the menu. However, considering the pace at which the vegan movement has been growing, we might not be wrong to expect a vegan waffle on the menu in the coming years.
If you are interested in something vegan that tastes like it is from Waffle House, you can follow this copycat Waffle House waffle recipe at home. You can make vegan alterations to this recipe to make the most delicious waffles at home.
Searching for Food Options as a Vegan
Searching for vegan-friendly options at pre-established restaurants can be challenging. The lack of vegan options at many chains is not because of a lack of inclusivity but also because of several factors affecting food manufacturing.
PETA has formed a handy guide to most of the vegan options you can find at most fast-food chains across America. This guide is beneficial to every vegan to help them figure out ways to eat when they’re out and need a snack.
Except for the very few restaurants where you can see your food being cooked, such as hibachi restaurants, cross-contamination must be taken with a grain of salt when eating out. No matter where you eat, you always risk cross-contamination when you eat outside.
We suggest you ask a few of the following things while determining whether any food option is completely vegan:
- Is there any animal-based product included in the recipe?
- If the answer to the previous question is yes, has that animal-based ingredient been replaced with a plant-based one?
- If the answer to the last question is yes, what vegan-friendly alternatives have been used?
- Does the food share a utensil with the non-vegan items on the menu?
- If the answer to the previous question is yes, are the utensils thoroughly cleaned before cooking the vegan dish?
- What oil is used for cooking each ingredient and the complete dish as a whole?
- Is the food served on vegan-friendly utensils?
While ordering food outside as a vegan, your server has to be your buddy. You should talk to your server or the chef about your dietary restrictions and see what can be prepared at the restaurant for you.
Wrapping Up
If you are looking for a place to hang out while not compromising your food options, we do not suggest Waffle House. It is one of the places where you can find something to eat if you do not have any options; however, it will only make do since, while you have some waffle house vegan options to consider, the number is very restricted.
If you are flexible with your vegan dietary restrictions and are not wary of dairy and whey contamination, you can eat at Waffle House. However, if you are not okay with cross-contamination, we suggest you either talk to the server and the chef or refrain from eating at Waffle House altogether.
