According to some people, traditional Finnish food is a bit tasteless. Yes, maybe it’s not as spicy as the food in many other countries is, but in my opinion it’s still really good. Unfortunately, it contains a lot of meat so as I went vegetarian five years ago, I thought it meant saying goodbye to several traditional dishes for good. But then vegetarianism and veganism started becoming more popular in Finland and suddenly the stores were full of all kinds of meat substitutes. At the same time, food blogs started posting recipes for vegan versions of different traditional Finnish meat dishes that were just as good as the original ones, or maybe even better. So, this article is for you who have always wanted to try traditional Finnish food, but don’t eat meat; introducing my favourite vegan versions of traditional Finnish dishes!
1. Karelian pasty
Karelian pasties, also known as Karelian pies are salty pastries that are made of rye and wheat flour and filled with rice porridge. They don’t have any meat in them, but usually they are baked with milk and buttered before baking so they’re not vegan. Luckily making them vegan is super easy. All you need to do is to switch the milk to a non-dairy milk such as oat milk or soymilk and the butter to a non-dairy margarine of your choice. You’ll find the recipe by using Google.
2. Gravlax
This is not exactly a traditional Finnish food but a Nordic one. It’s salmon that’s prepared by cooking it without heating it up. The way to make it vegan is somewhat surprising: the salmon is switched to carrot. Making this dish requires a bit of time, because the salmon/carrot needs to marinate in the fridge for several days, but it’s super simple and also super good! You’ll find the recipe by googling “carrot lox”.
3. Karelian stew
Karelian stew is usually prepared with pork or beef and some vegetables such as onion and carrot. Preparing it is easy, you just throw your ingredients in a pot with some spices and water to cover them up and put the pot in the oven for a couple of hours. Making the vegan version is not any harder, you just change the meat for pulled oats. If you cannot find those, soy strips for example work great as well.
4. Sautéed reindeer
Reindeer is a traditional dish in Finland. Sautéed reindeer is prepared by, as you may have guessed, sautéing reindeer in a frying pan with some onion. Then you poach the meat in some beer, water and spices for around an hour and serve it with mashed potatoes and cranberry jam. Making a vegan version of this dish is, again, not difficult. Just like with Karelian stew, you just replace the meat with pulled oats or some other kind of meat substitute, preferably something that’s in strips. You can use beer and water for poaching the meat substitute, but you can also just change that to veggie broth and that’ll taste great as well!
5. Chanterelle gravy
This is not really a dish on its own, but it’s really good with for example some boiled potatoes and roasted vegetables. Chanterelle is a mushroom found in Finnish forests that you can make gravy out of by sautéing the mushrooms and adding some butter, flour, water, cream and spices to them. This dish, again, doesn’t have any meat in it yet is not vegan. To make it vegan, you only need to replace the dairy products with non-dairy ones. Milk and cream can be substituted with for example soy or oat milk and cream whereas butter can be changed for plant-based margarine. Easy and tasty!
6. Blueberry pie
Time to talk about the dessert! If you don’t like blueberry, you can also change it for cranberry or rhubarb, which are both also traditionally used in Finnish desserts. The recipe usually has egg, butter and milk in it. You can, once again, substitute the milk with a non-dairy milk of your choice and butter with margarine. The egg isn’t honestly even needed; if you just add some more liquid into the batter than you usually would, it will hold its consistency nicely. You should bake the base for a bit, then top it with blueberries and keep it baking for a while more (especially if the blueberries are frozen). Top with vegan ice cream and enjoy!
7. Runeberg cakes
Johan Ludvig Runeberg was a very prestigious Finnish poet. He is celebrated in Finland every year on the fifth of February, which was his birthday. That’s when these cakes are eaten. It is said that Runeberg often had them for breakfast, which is why they are named after him. You would usually have egg, butter and cream in these cakes, but in the vegan version the egg can be substituted with mashed apples, butter with oil and cream isn’t really even needed since the oil functions as a liquid and a fat at the same time if you add a bit extra. Top the cakes with raspberry jam and a mixture of icing sugar and water for a final touch. You’ll find the recipe by googling “Runeberg cakes”.