Vegan Christmas food from the store: 10 checked, 4 to skip

Most of a vegan Christmas can come off the shelf. Sweet Loren’s doughs, Partake gingersnaps, Spangler candy canes and Pepperidge Farm puff pastry are vegan by their makers’ own word. The trap is the pie crust. Three of the four Pillsbury crusts we read are made with lard.

Two of those Pillsbury crusts sit in the same freezer case under almost the same name. The Frozen Pie Crust, Deep Dish and the Pie Crusts, Deep Dish, All-Vegetable Shortening are both frozen deep dish crusts, two to a 12 oz pack. The first is made with lard and hydrogenated lard. The second is made with soybean oil and hydrogenated soybean oil. Their allergen lines are identical, word for word: “CONTAINS WHEAT INGREDIENTS.” That is correct labeling, because lard is not one of the 9 major food allergens a US label has to declare. It also means the allergen line says nothing about the one thing a vegan needs to know. The ingredient list does, and so do the words “All-Vegetable Shortening” in the product name. Our guide to checking whether ingredients are vegan covers the rest of the terms on a label like this. Everything below comes from what the makers publish on their own pages, read on 20 October 2026. We did not bake any of it.

The short list

Product	Vegan, per the maker	Watch for	Price on the maker’s own store
Sweet Loren’s Pie Crust	Yes: all Sweet Loren’s products	The instructions suggest an egg wash	$72 for a case of 6
Pillsbury Pie Crusts, Deep Dish, All-Vegetable Shortening	No claim; nothing animal listed	A lard twin of the same size	Not published
Wholly Wholesome Traditional Organic 9″ Pie Shells	No claim on the pages we read; nothing animal listed	Facility uses dairy, egg and soy	Not published
Sweet Loren’s Puff Pastry	Yes	Must stay refrigerated	$72 for a case of 6
Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Sheets	Yes, on the foodservice page	Contains soy; retail page makes no vegan claim	Not published
Annie’s Organic Crescent Rolls	No claim; nothing animal listed	Organic natural flavor, source not stated	Not published
Sweet Loren’s Gingerbread Cookie Dough	Yes	Shared equipment with egg and soy	$60 for a case of 6
Partake Crunchy Ginger Snap	Yes	Free of the top 9 allergens	$34.99 for 6 boxes
Spangler Peppermint Candy Canes	Yes, on the 144-count case page	Red 40	$54.95 for 144
Elmhurst Oat Nog	“100% plant-based”, no vegan wording	Cashews	$13.98 for 2 cartons

Prices are what each maker’s own store listed on 20 October 2026, mostly by the case. A single pack in a supermarket will cost something else, and four of the makers publish no price at all.

The ten, one by one

Sweet Loren’s Pie Crust

Sweet Loren’s says every product it makes is vegan, with “no animal or animal-derived products”. The crust is corn starch, water, rice, pea and buckwheat flours, plant fibers, palm oil, sugar, ethyl alcohol, salt, rapeseed oil, xanthan gum and a few thickeners and flavorings. It is free of the top 9 allergens and made in a room free of gluten, wheat, milk, peanuts, tree nuts and sesame. Of the three crusts here it is the only one without wheat, so it is the one for a table that includes someone who cannot eat gluten.

Then the baking instructions tell you to brush it with egg wash or a milk of your choice, coconut milk given as the example. Use the coconut milk. Bake at 375°F for 35 to 45 minutes in a 9-inch dish. On the maker’s store it comes only as a case of 6 for $72, which is $12 a pack by our arithmetic; the FAQ says Sweet Loren’s is sold in more than 30,000 stores, which is where a single pack makes more sense. Don’t buy it if what you want is a classic flaky wheat crust. There is no wheat in it to be flaky with.

Pillsbury Pie Crusts, Deep Dish, All-Vegetable Shortening

The Pillsbury crust that passes, and it passes on its ingredient list alone. Enriched flour, soybean oil, water, hydrogenated soybean oil and sugar, with salt, baking soda, sodium metabisulfite and annatto under 2%. Nothing animal is listed. Nothing vegan is claimed either: “all-vegetable” describes the shortening and nothing more. It is a frozen crust, two to a 12 oz pack.

This is our pick when the plan is a pumpkin or pecan pie and the supermarket freezer is the only option, with one condition. The box in your hand has to say All-Vegetable Shortening on the front, because the plain Deep Dish beside it is the lard one. If the store has only the plain Deep Dish, walk past the whole Pillsbury section.

Wholly Wholesome Traditional Organic 9″ Pie Shells

Five ingredients: organic wheat flour, organic palm fruit shortening, water, organic cane sugar and sea salt. That is the shortest list of the three crusts, and nothing in it comes from an animal. The same page says the shells are made in a facility that uses dairy, egg and soy, and neither the product page nor the brand’s FAQ that we read calls them vegan. A clean list and a vegan claim are different things, and this shell has only the first.

For most vegans buying for their own oven that is enough. If shared facilities are where you draw the line, or a guest has a milk or egg allergy, this is the shell to skip. It comes as a 2-pack of 9-inch shells; the maker’s site gives no price.

Sweet Loren’s Puff Pastry

Vegan under the same FAQ as the crust, wheat-free like it, and built on water, rice, pea and buckwheat flours, corn starch, palm oil, plant fibers and rapeseed oil. The maker says to unroll it straight from the fridge with no thawing, then bake at 425°F for 12 to 15 minutes. That makes it the pastry for a mushroom wellington decided on at four in the afternoon. The catch is storage. The FAQ says the puff pastry should always be kept refrigerated, so it is not something to buy in November and forget in the freezer. The instructions suggest an egg or milk wash for a golden finish, the same advice as on the crust, and the same answer applies. $72 for a case of 6 on the maker’s store.

Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Sheets

Pepperidge Farm’s retail page lists enriched wheat flour, water and palm, soybean and hydrogenated cottonseed oils, then, under 2%, high fructose corn syrup, salt, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, malted barley flour, and turmeric and annatto for color; it contains wheat and soy. Nothing on that page says vegan. Mono and diglycerides are usually the line that stops a vegan reading a label, and our page on whether monoglycerides are vegan explains why.

The answer is on the brand’s foodservice site, which sells the same puff pastry in bulk sheets: “Our puff pastries are vegan and Kosher certified.” The statement is written about the foodservice product, with an ingredient list that matches the retail one except that its flour is unbleached. We take it as Pepperidge Farm’s word on its puff pastry, and we would still read the box. Don’t buy it for a guest with a soy allergy. The maker publishes no price.

Annie’s Organic Crescent Rolls

An 8 oz can of 8 rolls, made from organic wheat flour, water, organic palm oil, organic cane sugar, baking powder, sea salt, organic natural flavor, organic sunflower oil and xanthan gum; it contains wheat. No vegan claim. The organic natural flavor is the one item whose source the page does not give. What the list does not have is a dough conditioner, which is what sets it apart from the Pillsbury crescents further down.

Bake at 375°F for 11 to 14 minutes, and once the can is open the whole thing has to be baked. With 8 warm crescent rolls on a holiday table, finishing them has never been the hard part. If an unexplained natural flavor is where your line sits, this is not the can for you, and Annie’s page will not settle it.

Sweet Loren’s Gingerbread Cookie Dough

This is the one for cut-out cookies. A flour blend of oat, tapioca and potato starch, then sugar, palm oil, filtered water, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, natural flavors, sea salt and baking soda. Vegan under the brand’s FAQ and free of the top 9 allergens, but it is made on shared equipment with products containing egg and soy, the only Sweet Loren’s page we read with that line.

The maker gives a cut-out method: roll the dough to 1/4 inch, cut the shapes, chill them for 5 minutes in the freezer or 10 in the fridge, then bake. As plain portions it bakes at 325°F for 9 to 13 minutes for soft cookies or 13 to 16 for crisp ones. $60 for a case of 6 on the maker’s store, $10 a pack by our arithmetic. Skip it if someone decorating these at your table has an egg allergy.

Partake Crunchy Ginger Snap

The ginger cookie that needs no oven. Partake says all of its treats are gluten-free, vegan, non-GMO and free of the top 9 allergens. The ingredients are a rice, oat, cassava and sorghum flour blend, organic cane sugar, sunflower oil, water, tapioca starch, tapioca fiber syrup, vanilla extract, baking soda, sea salt, ground ginger, oat fiber, cinnamon, xanthan and konjac gums, and rosemary extract.

A box holds 5 servings of 3 cookies, so 15 cookies, and Partake’s store sells 6 boxes for $34.99. That is about 39 cents a cookie by our arithmetic, which is a lot of money for a gingersnap. What it buys is a box you can bring to someone else’s house when you don’t know which of the 9 major allergens their guests avoid.

Spangler Peppermint Candy Canes

Sugar, corn syrup, natural flavor and Red 40. Spangler’s page for the 144-count case says the canes are vegan, OU Kosher certified, made on dedicated equipment and free from gluten, dairy and other common allergens. They are made in Bryan, Ohio, or at a co-manufacturing facility in Juarez, Mexico, and the label on your box says which. The case is 12 boxes of 12 for $54.95, about 38 cents a cane by our arithmetic, so it is a case for a tree, a classroom or an office rather than a stocking.

If Red 40 is a color you keep out of the house, buy something else. Whether the sugar in candy can be a problem in itself is a separate question, and our roundup of vegan Halloween candy covers it.

Elmhurst Oat Nog

Filtered water, whole grain oats, cashews, cane sugar, natural flavors and salt. Elmhurst calls it 100% plant-based and dairy-free; the page does not use the word vegan. The cashews make it a tree nut product, so it is off the table for anyone with that allergy. Unopened cartons keep at room temperature, and once opened it goes in the fridge and should be used within 7 to 10 days. The store sells 2 cartons for $13.98, which the page puts at $6.99 a carton. It was the only nog we could read on a maker’s own page this month.

Four Pillsbury packs to leave in the case

The lard is not hidden. It is the second ingredient on three Pillsbury crusts we read. The Refrigerated Pie Crusts, two crusts in a 14.1 oz package, are made with lard and hydrogenated lard with BHA and BHT. The Frozen Pie Crust, Regular, two 9-inch crusts in pans at 10 oz, uses lard and hydrogenated lard. So does the Frozen Pie Crust, Deep Dish, the 12 oz twin of the all-vegetable crust above. All three say “CONTAINS WHEAT INGREDIENTS” and nothing else in the allergen line.

The fourth is Pillsbury’s Original Crescent Rolls, and the problem there is not lard. The list includes monoglycerides, mono and diglycerides inside the shortening, and a dough conditioner made of L-cysteine hydrochloride and enzymes. The FDA allows L-cysteine as a dough strengthener in yeast-leavened baked goods, and its rule defines the chemical without saying where it comes from. The Vegetarian Resource Group wrote in 2018 that most L-cysteine is made from feathers or hair, and that the non-animal kind now comes from fermentation. Pillsbury’s page does not say which kind is in the can. We count it as unknown, and on this site unknown is not vegan. Buy the Annie’s can instead.

What the allergen line can and can’t tell you

A US label has to declare 9 major allergens: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame. Milk, eggs, fish and shellfish come from animals, so the Contains line is worth a glance. It just stops there. Lard, L-cysteine, natural flavors and mono and diglycerides are not on that list, which is how a lard crust and a soybean oil crust end up with the same allergen line.

The facility lines work the other way round. Wholly Wholesome’s shell lists nothing animal and is made where dairy and egg are used. Sweet Loren’s gingerbread is vegan by its maker’s word and shares equipment with egg. For a vegan that is a judgment call, and plenty of vegans buy products with a shared-facility line. For a guest with an egg allergy it is not a judgment call at all. Our line is that the ingredient list decides whether it is vegan, and the facility line decides who else can eat it.

Why there is only one nog

We set out to compare four or five nogs and mostly found pages that were not there. On 20 October 2026, Silk’s US site listed nog recipes, one of them for a homemade vegan eggnog, and no nog to buy. Califia Farms’ Holiday Nog address sent us to the brand’s general product page. So Delicious’s Holiday Nog address sent us to its list of beverages. Blue Diamond’s site listed a nog recipe and no Almond Breeze nog. These are seasonal cartons and some may be back by December, but we will not describe an ingredient list from a page that does not exist.

If a different nog turns up in your store, the check is short. Milk and egg would have to appear in the Contains line, so start there, then read the full ingredient list for natural flavors and anything else whose source the carton doesn’t give.

Buying it

Sweet Loren’s says its puff pastry should always stay refrigerated, while its cookie dough can be frozen and used for up to two more months if it goes in the freezer by the Best By date. The pie crust page gives no storage advice, so follow the pack, and buy the puff pastry in the week you bake. The Pillsbury all-vegetable crust and the Pepperidge Farm sheets are frozen products, and the Elmhurst cartons keep unopened at room temperature, so those can go in the basket now. Read the front of the Pillsbury box twice before you pay, and leave the other three Pillsbury packs where they are.

For the middle of the table, our comparison of store-bought vegan roasts picks the roast, and it works as well in December as it does in November.

Vegan Christmas food from the store: 10 that pass, and the Pillsbury crust that doesn’t

The short list