The best vegan pies for Australia Day

“Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars”. The famous jingle that celebrated Aussie icons might be a well-known classic, but it’s showing its age. Along with the closure of Holden manufacturing Down Under, the iconic meat pie is also undergoing a transformation, and luckily this one doesn’t involve the loss of any Australian jobs. Instead, it’s taking the pie we all love and giving it a much kinder spin – a vegan spin, to be exact.

Because Australia Day falls during Veganuary – during which millions of people around the world eschew meat, eggs and dairy for ethical, health and environmental reasons – the ever-helpful vegans at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have rounded up some of the best vegan alternative meat pies money can buy or bakers can bake.

Four’N Twenty Plant Based Meat Free Pie

One of Australia’s most iconic pastry brands has joined the plant-based party with a meaty, gravy-laden offering wrapped in its famous flaky golden pastry to delight even the most voracious beef-lover. Available in supermarket frozen sections as well as Caltex Star Marts, it’s easy as, well, pie to get your hands on one.

Funky Pies

This all-vegan Bondi-based pastry paradise is a Sydney institution, serving up its animal-free goodies with mushy peas and gravy at its cafe as well as offering online ordering so you can stock your freezer with its delicious pies. Traditionalists will love the Funky Chunky Pie, or give the Nepalese Lamb-Style Curry Pie a go.

Pie Face

Pie Face has been giving the public what it wants – pies, pies and more pies – for almost 20 years, and it recently added vegan offerings to meet growing demand. Grab its Vegan Mexi Pie, Vegan Spag Bol Pie or popular Vegan Cheeseburger Pie – all ideal for when you can’t decide which fast-food mood you’re in.

Ferguson Plarre Plant-Based Aussie Pie

Attention Melbournians: family-owned heritage bakery chain Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses has a vegan pie that’s to die for – except no one did. Die, that is. Made using the traditional methods that have made its products popular throughout Victoria, the vegan options on offer are a labour of love, and the result is a home-style pastry that’s simply delightful.

7-Eleven No Beef Pie

Out and about when your Aussie pie craving hits? 7-Eleven – which has 700 outlets nationwide – has you covered. Even the most ardent meat-lover will have no beef with its vegan offering, which envelopes juicy plant-based meat in perfect pastry. Add a Slurpee in one of 7-Eleven’s new reusable bottles to really put the green in “green and gold”.

Whichever beefy, juicy, flaky little pocket of goodness you go for, one thing’s for sure: the iconic meat pie’s plant-based glow-up is proof that vegan eats are here to stay. And if these pie-deas have whet your appetite but you want to take your pastry–otism one step further and make your own Aussie vegan meat pie, check out this recipe – it combines Fable Food Co’s Braised Plant-Based Beef (available from Woolworths) with legendary pantry staple Vegemite (yes, Vegemite) to create a vegan flavour sensation that everyone will love.

For more vegan recipes and alternatives to animal-derived foods, go to PETA.org.au