The trick is to not eat disappointing imitation food at all. Make food that's good for it's own sake and just so happens to be vegan

imo, it is easier to ignore/shun most “replacement food” and to develop an appreciation and deep enjoyment of new meals that are full of vegetables while being rich and satisfying. I have had a much easier time just learning new recipes and exploring new meals than approaching food with a “this is an acceptable replacement for what I have lives with my whole life” approach. Once you have more than a few favorite options of vegan meals, for each type of meal throughout the day, sticking to those becomes easier because you are enjoying it, and it is also not a facsimile of something you actually want

but god damn I NEED cheese and eggs in life

:bugs-no:

My overall response will be to say to avoid premising your attempt to go vegan on substitutes and to then still recommend you some substitutes.

It is usually impractical to go vegan with the expectation that you'll be eating basically the same foods, as omnis eat a lot of meat and dairy and while many substitutes are great, you'll just be setting yourself up for disappointment from the ones that aren't.

Instead, try to eat foods that are "accidentally" vegan or nearly so. Those foods will taste the same. Indian, Southeast Asian, and East Asian food cultures have many options fitting this description. Most Indian dals are incredibly nutritious and accidentally vegan. Those that aren't usually just have some cream or yogurt in them and vegan yogurt will work as a perfect substitute for both in dals. Phad Thai is vegan if you sub fish sauce and eggs - soy sauce and black salt stir fried tofu both work well enough. Veggie Chinese dumplings, green onion pancake, sesame noodles - all accidentally vegan.

Some other options that are accidentally vegan or easy to make vegan from whole ingredients:

• Chili
• Hummus
• Falafel
• Pita (combine with the last three and tabouli you've got a nice meal).
• 95% of tofu-heavy dishes, including veggie tofu pho and salt and pepper tofu.
• Peas and rice (a coconut rice with red beans)
• Fried rice, sub tofu black salt egg
• Guacamole
• Rice & beans
• tortillas (combine with the above and you've got burritos)
• black bean burgers
• most breads
• olive oil for dipping bread in

Adopting the above eating habits will help your palette adapt to no longer eating meat and dairy without making you frustrated with substitutes.

Anyways, substitutes can still help, just treat them like something that is nice to have, like a noveltu or a way to have comfort food, not your daily meals. Keep in mind that many substitites aren't considered vegan by every vegan bevause they are often owned by meat/dairy companies or use animal testing / animal product testing. Anyways, here are some substitutes that do the job:

• Vegan yogurt is delicious and while it tastes a little different, I prefer it. Tastes cleanesr and a little nutty.

• Sliced vegan cheeses from chao, follow your heart, and violife are superior to the rest and are nice to eat straight out of the fridge. In a grilled cheese, the texture will be a little off, but the flavor is good enough that it can be a comfort food. It takes a while to melt, so use low-medium heat. On a burger, use the trick of adding a little water and covering after putting cheese on top: the steam will melt it nicely.

• beyond/impossible burgers have a similar quality to a thin back yard grill burger. They also work well in Chinese dishes calling for a little mince.

• Miyoko's butter is fantastic. Use the salted one on a nice baguette.

• Miyoko's mozzarella wheel is delicious antipasti style.

• Miyoko's weird liquid pizza cheese is legit. Follow the instructions.

• Frozen chik'n nuggets are just as good if not better than omni ones.

• Soyrizo is really good.

• Soy curls are very versatile. Boil them for a minute before doing things with them.

• Better than boullion has good vegan substitites for various broths.

• Vegan oyster sauce is good.

• Follow your heart mayo is good.

• Oat milk is great with coffee.

There's lots more but really I mostly recommend acclimating yourself to accidentally vegan foods.

god damn I NEED cheese and eggs in life you feel?

No, I do not. Imagine saying this about any other act of violence. "But it makes me feel good." So what? Shut the fuck up.

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As has been conveyed if you're not going vegan for majority ethical reasons, or finding them along the way, 99% of the time it's a recipe for failure. No amount of lackluster or expensive or difficult imitations will keep you there, the animals will. If you're a good cook(and enjoy it!) you're already in a stronger position than most to. Texture is the harder part to replace honestly, where as most flavors you can learn to let stand on their own easier, I feel. That said I'm not some pariah that doesn't use imitations, some are amazing, some are just convenient, but not many are worth the cost.

Seitan (made from vital wheat gluten, VWG) can be the mother of most meat imitations, but is damn annoying to make yourself(or I just suck at it) and stupidly overpriced to buy already prepared.

Soy Curls and Soya de Carne (aka TVP/textured vegetable protein) are both dried soy that you rehydrate and make amazing texture imitations. They don't have much flavor on their own so rely heavily on seasoning to get somewhere. Also IME most of the flavor is imparted through the stovetop cooking, not the broth used to rehydrate. Both are also [theoretically] very affordable if you find a vendor that isn't grossly inflating the prices(curls should be ~$3/8oz and tvp $2/lb and both double their volume when rehydrated) . Soy curls are like thin steak strips and are amazing for soups and stir fries, and I make a killer Philly Cheese Steak with them(the only reason I buy imitation cheese anymore). Tvp I like to use in chili or balognese sauce.

Replacing eggs in all their forms takes too much effort. If you're baking it's usually easy enough with apple sauce or something else(recipe dependant) . Scrambled eggs are super easy, look up tofu scrambles. My go to is crumble and heat a package of extra firm tofu(no squeezing necessary) and 1tbsp soy sauce, then add 1/4 cup nooch, 1tsp ea. curry, black salt, and turmeric, usually with onions and peppers sizzled before the tofu. Other eggs I gave up on or didn't care to figure out.

I'm a big fan of the various frozen meat patty substitutes from King Soopers/Kroger's Simple Truth brand if you're in the US, for quick and easy burgers/sandwiches. Already affordable and go on sale often.

:lmayo: has great store bought replacements though can be a tad pricey, I usually use Hellmans. I've had success using aqua faba to make it at home though!

As you mentioned elsewhere, nooch is nice for a cheesy flavor in limited applications. Best to just appreciate the savoriness it brings otherwise. I haven't tried many cheese substitutes otherwise. I know this seems to be the biggest hangup for people so it's up to you to figure out the balance of cost and convenience, sorry, but there are a lot of products out there and they're getting better everyday from my understanding.

Try making a pizza where you replace both the sauce and cheese with hummus!

I avoid Impossible, Beyond, and Just Egg products for the various animal testing they each performed to bring their products to market.

I think the trick is to not do 1-to-1 substitutions for animal products but just start making food that doesn't require them in the first place.

I've never heard of such a database but I'm sure you can ask in /c/vegan and people will give you options for whatever you're craving. A lot of this varies based on where in the country you are.

To be frank I'm starting to forget what animal products taste like, but as far as I recall no substitutes are at parity with meat/eggs/cheese/etc. Some things sort of approach them in specific applications, like an impossible or beyond burger is pretty close to a flesh burger, and you can get fake egg that works in e.g. fried rice. A product that is "as good" is impossible - it will always be different in some way, and since the original is the culinary ideal any differences make it "worse". But as you already know it's harder to cook without a whole cultural tradition helping you.

They make decent cheese and yogurt substitutes that have bacteria cultures in them so they have the right tang. And those restaurant fake shrimp are good but idk where the fuck to get them, I think they're like Impossible Burgers in the days when they were only selling to food service.

Don't know about eggs but a top-tier ground beef sub is Soya de Carne. Lots of vegan subs just don't hold up to what they're imitating. They're good on their own but a black bean burger is not the same as a hamburger. However, Soya de Carne for tacos, casseroles, and sloppy joes is almost 1:1.

I've heard but never confirmed that nutritional yeast flakes apparently have a "cheesy" flavour but ymmv. People use it a lot in soups/stews to make something akin to cheese.

Maybe some videos from Sauce Stash on YouTube would help. He does a lot of like imitation stuff. A while back, his tofu video helped me out tremendously to make it taste good (never would have guessed to boil it)

Speaking purely culinarily:

Pan-fried seitan (or field roast) is the best protein-rich food with caramelized bits. Not the best vegan one, just the best. Only downside compared to meat is that it's kind of weird to eat it with bread.

Nutritional yeast is on par with cheese as a source of weird funky flavors. Less popular mushrooms can also fit that niche (crimini/button/portabella mushrooms of course are not funky at all).

Pan-fried fruit is under-explored in our culture. Pears work well, and cook well with booze.

Chocolate is vegan. I mean, milk chocolate obviously isn't, but milk chocolate is trash anyway, so whatever.

There's no general-purpose replacement for eggs and cheese when they're used as emulsifiers or whatever. If you're baking or making a sauce or something, you'll have to look up a vegan substitute specific to the recipe you're using. You should expect your first try with any given substitute to be bad.

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i think more than anything else, watch dominion to remind yourself why its so important (cw: incredibly graphic violence). remember it if youre ever tempted to fall off the wagon again, missing out on a bit of cheese or whatever pales in comparison to contributing to this horror

agree with everyone else here saying not to focus on replacements but to make things that are delicious in their own right. this is my favourite recipe website, it has so much good shit. and ive cooked plenty of them for groups of omnis to very positive reviews. people are genuinely surprised that vegan food is tasty as fuck, but if you cook them imitations theyre just gonna focus on "it doesnt really taste like <dead animal>"

also i used to be the "i could never be vegan, i could never give up cheese" guy, and then i gave up cheese and literally never even think about it any more