Vegan grocery list: 8 staples read from the makers' labels

A vegan grocery list covers the same aisles as anyone’s, with tofu, beans, bread, plant milk, nutritional yeast, a dairy-free spread and peanut butter doing most of the work. The catch is the brand, not the aisle. Jif, the jar in a lot of cupboards, says its peanut butter is vegetarian and not considered vegan.

Jif’s FAQ answers both questions on the same page. Asked whether Jif is vegetarian, it says yes, because Jif “uses ingredients sourced from plants”. Asked whether it is vegan, it says some of its products contain ingredients of animal origin, “such as our Jif® Natural and Honey”, so its products “are not considered vegan at this time”. The creamy jar most people buy lists roasted peanuts, sugar, molasses, fully hydrogenated rapeseed and soybean oils, mono and diglycerides and salt. Nothing on that list says animal, and the brand still won’t put its name to the word. If you shop by what the maker is willing to say, that is the end of Jif for you. If you shop by ingredient list, the mono and diglycerides are the line to think about, and our explainer on monoglycerides sets out why that one stays open.

How this list was built

We picked the staples a vegan kitchen goes through every week rather than the specialty products, and read one maker’s page per aisle in October 2026. A product made the list if the maker’s page let us say what is in it and whether the maker calls it vegan, and every entry below says which of the two we are relying on. We did not taste or cook anything for this piece, and there are no affiliate links on this page.

Prices are left out except where the maker publishes one, because shelf prices move from store to store and week to week. Fresh produce and plain dry staples are vegan as they come and need no brand, so they are on your list and not on ours.

Eight staples, read from the makers’ pages

Staple	Product	Vegan by	Worth knowing
Peanut butter	Smucker’s Natural Creamy	Ingredient list: peanuts, salt	No vegan claim on the page
Peanut butter	Jif Creamy	Not by the maker	Mono and diglycerides, source not stated
Tofu	Nasoya Organic Extra Firm	Ingredient list	Contains soy
Plant milk	Oatly Original Oatmilk	Vegan certificate on the page	0.4 mcg B12 a cup
Nutritional yeast	Bragg Nutritional Yeast	Called vegan, vegan certification tag	15 mcg B12 in 2 tbsp
Bread	Dave’s Killer Bread 21 Whole Grains and Seeds	Maker says all its bread is vegan	Two snack bars contain honey
Spread	Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks	Product name and ingredient list	Soy in the list
Beans	Bush’s Vegetarian Baked Beans	Vegetarian by the maker	Same brand sells Maple & Cured Bacon

Smucker’s Natural Creamy Peanut Butter

Our peanut butter pick. Smucker’s lists peanuts and, at 1% or less, salt, and marks the jar kosher pareve and gluten free. There is no vegan claim on the page, which is the one thing it has in common with Jif. With two ingredients there is nothing left to wonder about, so this is a case where the list does the maker’s job for it. Expect oil on the top of the jar, because nothing in that list is there to stop it separating.

Jif Creamy Peanut Butter

Roasted peanuts and sugar lead, then, at 2% or less, molasses, fully hydrogenated rapeseed and soybean oils, mono and diglycerides and salt, with a kosher pareve mark. Jif’s own answer is the reason to skip it if a maker’s word matters to you: vegetarian, yes, vegan, not at this time. The FAQ’s reason is that some Jif products contain ingredients of animal origin, which is a statement about the range, not about this jar. Whether you buy it comes down to how much you trust an emulsifier the brand calls plant-sourced in one answer and won’t stand behind in the next.

Nasoya Organic Extra Firm Tofu

Water, organic soybeans and, at less than 2%, calcium sulfate and magnesium chloride. The coagulants are minerals, so there is no vegan question here, only a cooking one, and our guide to nigari and gypsum covers what each one does to the block. Nasoya calls itself America’s number one tofu brand for 45 years and says it is in more than 25,000 grocery stores, which makes it the tofu you are most likely to find without a special trip. Skip it only for a soy allergy, which the label declares.

Oatly Original Oatmilk

An oat base of water and oats, then, at 2% or less, low erucic acid rapeseed oil, dipotassium phosphate, calcium carbonate, tricalcium phosphate, sea salt, dicalcium phosphate, riboflavin, vitamin A acetate, vitamin D2 and vitamin B12. The product page lists its certificates as gluten free, non-GMO, vegan, glyphosate-free and kosher pareve. A cup carries 350 mg of calcium, 25% of the daily value, 3.6 mcg of vitamin D and 0.4 mcg of vitamin B12, 15%. That B12 figure is worth knowing before you count on oat milk for it. It is a fortified drink, and a modest one.

The 32 oz carton we read is the shelf-stable version, and Oatly sells chilled cartons as a separate line, so check which one a recipe or a fridge shelf is asking for.

Bragg Nutritional Yeast

This is where the B12 is. Bragg lists dried yeast with added niacin, vitamin B6, thiamin, riboflavin, folic acid and cyanocobalamin, the B12 form, and its panel gives 15 mcg of vitamin B12 in a 2 tablespoon serving, 630% of the daily value. Bragg calls it vegan, and its store tags it with a vegan certification. A 4.5 oz shaker is $9.99 on Bragg’s own store, with 12 oz at $14.99 and 24 oz at $29.99.

Two cautions. The B12 in nutritional yeast is added, so a brand or bag that skips the fortification skips the B12, and the panel is the only place you find out. And how much B12 you need is a separate question from how much is in a spoonful, which our article on whether vegans need B12 works through with the sources.

Dave’s Killer Bread 21 Whole Grains and Seeds

Dave’s Killer Bread answers the question in its FAQ: all of its bread products are considered vegan and contain no animal products. The same answer names the exceptions, two limited-edition snack bars, Trail Mix Crumble and Oat-Rageous Honey Almond, which contain organic honey. So the loaf is fine and the bar beside it in the bakery aisle may not be. The company also says it uses no artificial or chemical preservatives, so a loaf won’t keep as long as the soft white bread next to it.

Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks

Palm, canola, soybean and flaxseed oils, then water and salt, with natural flavor, soy protein isolate, olive oil, organic soy lecithin, lactic acid and annatto under 2%. Conagra’s SmartLabel page says each stick substitutes for half a cup of butter in recipes, which is why this is the stick to buy if you bake from old recipes that count in sticks. The word vegan is in the product’s name. Don’t buy it for a soy allergy; soy shows up three times in the list.

Bush’s Vegetarian Baked Beans

Bush’s describes its Vegetarian Baked Beans as slow-cooked in a tomato-based sauce with brown sugar and spices, with all the flavor and none of the meat, and lists vegetarian and gluten free among the reasons to buy them. The same baked beans range includes a Maple & Cured Bacon flavor, so the word on the can matters more here than on most cans. What the page we read did not show as text was an ingredient list, so vegetarian is the maker’s word and vegan is not. Read the can’s ingredients in the store before it goes in the basket; that is the one item on this list where we are passing the job back to you.

Where the B12 on this list comes from

Two items carry it, and neither is subtle about it on the panel. Bragg’s nutritional yeast gives 15 mcg of B12 in 2 tablespoons. Oatly’s oat milk gives 0.4 mcg in a cup. Both are fortified, so the B12 is in the ingredient list as an added vitamin, cyanocobalamin on Bragg’s and vitamin B12 on Oatly’s.

Oatly’s vitamin D is listed as D2. If vitamin D is the reason you are buying a fortified milk, check which form any other carton names, because vitamin D3 is often made from lanolin, the grease in sheep’s wool, and D2 is not.

What the basket cooks

Eight items don’t make a week, but they cover the meals people new to vegan cooking tend to get stuck on.

Breakfast is the easy one. Toast two slices of the Dave’s loaf and spread on the Smucker’s, and there is nothing on the plate to check. Stir the oil on top of the jar back in first. If you want something hot, crumble the Nasoya block into a pan with a little of the Earth Balance and shake in nutritional yeast at the end, where it adds a savory, cheesy note along with the B12 on Bragg’s panel.

Lunch is where the beans earn their place. Baked beans on toast is a full meal in Britain and a side dish in most of the US, and either way the can only needs heating. Read it first, for the reason given above.

Dinner is the tofu again, pressed and cut into cubes for a stir-fry or into slabs for the oven. Extra firm holds its shape in a hot pan better than the softer blocks do, which is the reason to buy this one and not the silken tofu on the shelf beside it.

Baking is the Earth Balance. A pack holds four sticks, and at half a cup a stick that is two cups of butter’s worth, enough for most cookie and cake recipes written for one or two sticks. The Oatly stands in for milk in the same recipes, and Oatly’s page says to use it in cooking and baking in exactly the same amounts.

The aisles that need a second look

Most of a vegan basket needs no brand at all. The aisles below are where a familiar product changes its verdict without changing its look.

Peanut butter is the clearest case, and Jif made it for us. Baked beans are the next, because the same brand can sell a vegetarian can and a bacon one on the same shelf. Bread is mostly fine, but a bakery that adds honey or milk to some loaves won’t always say so on the front, which is why we lean on makers like Dave’s Killer Bread that answer the question outright. Spreads are the easy aisle when vegan is in the product name, as it is on the Earth Balance sticks.

Read three things on anything that isn’t on this list: the Contains line, the ingredient list for gelatin, honey, whey and casein, and whether the maker says vegan anywhere at all. If the answer to the third is no, you are relying on the list, and the list is usually enough.

Buy the Smucker’s, the Nasoya, the Oatly, the Bragg, the Dave’s and the Earth Balance without a second look, and read the Bush’s can in the store. For the foods that fail for reasons you wouldn’t guess from the front of the box, our list of foods that aren’t vegan picks up where this one stops.