A Proper Vegan Full English Breakfast - The Only Recipe You Need! (2024)

A vegan full english recipe with all the vegan fry up favourites… who doesn’t love a good old fashioned greasy breakfast. This vegan and vegetarian cooked breakfast is plain old salty goodness. It’s perfect for enjoying as a vegan big breakfast with friends on a drizzly Sunday. Or perhaps offering a little morning salvation after late nights of debauchery. Vegan, vegetarian, omni – this breakfast will satisfy all fry up lovers.

Vegan cooked breakfast is perhaps one of my favourite past times. There’s nothing more comforting than grabbing a plate of grease on a lazy weekend morning with a steaming mug of tea or coffee. I’ve shared many a good memory over this recipe for a filling vegan english breakfast. I thought it was about time I gave back and share my all encompassing recipe for the biggest and baddest of plant-based fry ups.

This recipe includes the holy trinity of veggie breakfast ingredients – seitan sausages, scrambled tofu and tempeh bacon. Who said you couldn’t enjoy all three of the main vegan protein sources together in one huge meal! Speaking of huge this recipe is rather large, so I’ve designed it so you can pick and choose which components you want to make and which ones you want to leave out.

If I’m entertaining or feeling famished I’ll prep the whole breakfast. Most days, however, I’ll just settle for a plate of homemade baked beans and some tempeh bacon. Do as you wish and mix and match all the ingredients to make a breakfast that works for you. It all tastes delicious and every part will satisfy that cooked breakfast craving.

How to make the best vegan full english

So you want to know how to impress your friends with a breakfast from the gods. A fry up that would rival even the greasy spoon under a railway arch where the chairs are entirely plastic and the owner looks slightly put out by your business. I know the feeling, I’ve spent the best part of 5 years trying to reach that pinnacle of excellence. Now I will share my secrets to the perfect veggie cooked breakie.

Grease & salt are key but don’t forget your acidity

Everyone knows that a full english consists of mostly beige fried foods. Fat and salt are synonymous with a fry up. However don’t neglect acidity in your breakfast. This comes from your fried tomatoes and baked beans. Having this acid and sweet notes will help cut through the fat and salt and give much more flavour. Crucially it’ll make you able to eat more as you’ll not be hit with a constant one note of salt.

Now I’ve educated you on the importance of acidity in the vegan full english let me tell you how to get it right. There’s nothing worse than watery tomatoes in a cooked breakfast. My secret english breakfast tomato recipe is simple and straight forward.

Mix cherry tomatoes with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and roast for 10 – 15 minutes until blackened. You can also move to the grill/broiler and get a wonderful blistered outside. Using cherry tomatoes is my preferred tomato as they not only look great but they’ll keep their water in better. So you won’t end up with a soggy breakfast plate.

Baked beans are essential in my book for a successful full english. They help lubricate the dish and provide a sweet and acidic undertone to the breakfast. You can settle for heinz baked beans, however making your own is super easy and it’s a sure fire way to impress the mates.

Bung 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, 80ml of tomato ketchup, 4 crushed garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 400 ml of vegetable stock in a pan. Simmer for 5 minutes and then add in your haricot beans and cook until soft. The key ingredient – corn flour – comes later. Adding a tablespoon of corn starch to the beans thickens the sauce and makes it pretty much indistinguishable from the store bought variety.

Thou shalt make your own sausages

Yes vegan sausages litter the supermarket shelves these days, but nothing really comes close to making your sausages at home. Not only do they taste better, but making homemade sausages will suitably impress whoever you are making this decadent fry up for. My recipe for homemade seitan sausages is a real winner – making crisp but chewy vegan sausages every time. The key is that you can make these well in advance and keep in the fridge. then just heat up using the frying pan when needed.

If you are too hungover to make your own vegan sausages here’s a list of sausages that I personally recommend:

• Meatless Farm Sausages – decent plant-based sausages that don’t wow on the flavour but have a good texture. Decent with omnis who like “richmond” style sausages.
• Future Farm Sausages – By far the most “real” looking sausages I’ve tried. Taste is lacking.
• Vegusto – Pepper Sausage – Incredibly expensive but by far the best sausages I’ve had. The swiss certainly have an eye for detail!

Don’t lather your mushrooms in oil

I’m sure you, like me, have had that moment cooking breakfast where you stare at the mushrooms in the frying pan, wondering why they won’t cook. Inevitably you add buckets of oil to try and break them down into a soft salty mess. The finished mushrooms end up more oil than vegetable. I’ve got a solution.

Instead of frying your mushrooms in oil, fry them in a broth which you completely reduce down whilst cooking. This speeds up cook time, as the broth completely coats the mushrooms to start, and makes them considerably more healthy.

My formula for the cooking broth is as follows – for 500g of mushrooms add 150 ml of water/stock and 2 – 3 tablespoons of flavouring. For the fry up recipe I just add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, but you can add other flavourings like tomato paste, miso, e.t.c.

And don’t worry about soggy mushrooms, once the broth is reduced you can fry the reduced mushrooms on the dry pan to get a lovely sear.

Other vegan cooked breakfast ideas

So you’ve tried out the vegan full english but now you want to branch out to some other cooked breakfast treats. Here’s some ideas of different dishes you can make by taking a few of the components from this recipe.

• Vegan Breakfast Burrito – Slice up some of the sausages from the recipe into 1 cm circles and fry until crispy. Wrap the sausage slices in a soft tortilla wrap with a portion of scrambled tofu. Grate some vegan cheese over the top and finish with some hot sauce and a handful of baby spinach. Grill until crispy on the outside.
• Vegan Sausage & Bacon Baps – Make the seitan sausages and tempeh bacon from the recipe. Then butter some soft white baps and fill with a generous amount of sausage and bacon. Finish with some vegan mayo and tomato ketchup.
• Scrambled Tofu & Carrot “Smoked Salmon” Bagels – Make the scrambled tofu from the recipe. Thinly slice carrot into long strips. Fry in a mixture of 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and 1 tsp of liquid smoke until soft and taking a little colour on the outside. Ladle a good helping of scrambled tofu onto a toasted bagel, top with the carrot and finish with a little chopped dill.

Vegan english breakfast FAQs

How to make a healthy full english?

Making a full english healthy is quite easy. This plant-based full english is packed full of healthy whole food ingredients, however it does rely on a heavy amount of vegetable oil. In many cases this can just be omitted. For example with the tempeh bacon you can use water instead to first fry and crisp off the bacon. Just make sure you use a non stick pan.

what is a full english breakfast?

A traditional english breakfast is considered one of most calorific British specialties. It’s a traditional meal that traces its origin back to the 1300s. It has evolved since then to include many of the ingredients that we see as “traditional” in today’s world.

What’s in a full english breakfast?

A “traditional” full English breakfast consists of of bacon, eggs, sausages, baked beans, fried tomato, fried mushrooms, black pudding and fried bread. Vegan full english can take many different shapes and sizes, however in my book it consists of: tempeh bacon, tofu eggs, seitan sausages, baked beans, fried tomatoes, fried mushroom, fried potatoes and toasted bread.

Why do the British eat beans for breakfast?

A simple answer is that they are delicious. Baked beans often provide lubrication and balance to many British cooked breakfast dishes. They act in the same way that gravy does for British roast. They tie together the whole dish and provide added moisture to dry foods such as toast or sausages.

What can vegans eat for breakfast?

If you’re reading this recipe in desperate need for catering requirements for a vegan coming to visit fear not we are simple beings. Vegans can eat lots of things for breakfast and cooked breakfast is just one of them. The explosion of plant-based milks in recent years has made many breakfast staples incredibly accessible. Most vegans eat a very similar breakfast to yourself. Here’s some ideas:

• Granola/cereal with plant-milk (ask your vegan friend which milk they prefer)
• Toast and jam with margarine/vegan butter to lubricate
• Baked beans on toast
• Avocado on toast
• Vegan pancakes

If you like this recipe you’ll love these:

Did you delight at enjoying this greasy mess?! Well here’s a list of other recipes that I think you’ll enjoy

• Vegan Sunday Roast With All The Trimmings
• Vegan Banana Pancakes