Vegan Self Catering in Spain

Over Spring break, my family headed to southern Spain for some quality down-time together. No phones, no Internet, just good ole’ fashioned paper books, sketch pads for the boys, and a bunch of DVDs for relaxing nights in. Through HomeAway, we’d hired an apartment in Benahavis, about 20km from Marbella. The apartment was beautiful, stylish, and had the most fantastic balcony kitted out with a comfy sofa, chairs, and stunning views.

Benahavis
View from our balcony in Benahavis

The apartment had a fully equipped kitchen (including a dishwasher), which was perfect for us as we were planning to eat in most days. I had tucked a garlic press and cafetiere in my suitcase as these are the items I often find missing in rental apartments, but I needed have bothered this time. The kitchen had everything I could possibly need, including a whole cupboard full of spices and oils. I did take a pot of nutritional flakes with B12 with me (for sprinkling on pasta dishes) and a few energy bars, pretzels and nuts for the journey but, apart from that, we didn’t bother packing any other food items.

Benahavis
Another view from our balcony in Benahavis

I loved everything about the rental apartment but I just wish I could have moved it a bit closer to the sea. We ended up spending most mornings down by the coast, so it would have been lovely to walk there rather than having to drive every day. Luckily it wasn’t too long a drive (20 minutes or so) and there was plenty of free parking space.

Lil L on Marbella Beach

One of our favourite morning activities was to chill out in a café on Marbella beach or in the harbour, sipping coffees and checking out the multi million pound yachts and ‘super’ cars that seemed to be constantly cruising past the café. We spotted plenty of Ferraris, Bentleys, Porsches, and the occasional Lamborghini and Mclaren (much to Lil’ L’s delight).

Lil L in Marbella

One thing I’d been really looking forward to this holiday was seeing orange trees in blossom. I thought we’d have to head to Sevilla to see the trees but it turned out that they were growing everywhere! It was a bonus to see the trees laden with oranges too. I thought the fruits would come after the blossom, but some were covered in both blossom and fruits. Such a beautiful sight. And the scent was incredible!

Orange Trees in Spain

As well as spending lots of time chilling out, we also enjoyed hiking in the beautiful countryside and sight seeing. Malaga and Granada were both fantastic cities to visit.

Sightseeing in Spain

This is the first time that we’ve self catered on mainland Spain, so I wasn’t sure how ‘vegan friendly’ the local supermarkets would be. It turned out that they had far more selection than I ever imagined. In our local Mercadona, they had a good selection of non dairy milks, soya yogurts and chocolate desserts.

Non dairy milks and yogurts

It didn’t take me long to find vegan choc ices and ice cream in their freezer cabinet too. Not only was the ice cream delicious and creamy (best choc ices I’ve ever tasted!), but they were really good value too.

Vegan Choc Ices

Vegan Ice Cream

We also found big tubs of hummus in the chiller cabinet which, we were relieved to find, were made the traditional way and didn’t include strange ingredients like the ‘fromage blanc’ we found in shop-bought hummus in Paris last year.

Hummus

The Hipercor in Marbella had even more vegan options. There was a whole chiller cabinet filled with vegan sausages, burgers, tofu, cheese and even Spanish tortilla. The ‘Bio’ (organic) aisle also had vegan patés and all kinds of vegan (and GF friendly) goodies. There was even a dedicated British aisle filled with PG tips, Heinz baked beans and lots of Tesco own brand products.

Vegan Pate

Needless to say, we weren’t going to go hungry this holiday!

Most days, we packed a lunch to take out with us. We found seeded wholegrain mini baguettes in the bakery section of the supermarkets. often so fresh that they were still warm. We’d fill them with hummus, pate or smoked tofu, fresh tomato slices, salad leaves and enjoy them sitting on the sea wall down in Marbella or out on a hiking trail. For snacks, we had roasted nuts, dried fruit mixes or my personal favourite, roasted sunflower seeds. I especially loved this brand as they were salted to perfection.

Sunflower Seeds

To save time preparing evening meals, we bought packs of frozen ready chopped and grilled veggies. They were really colourful, tasty, and ready in just 5 minutes.

Grilled Veggies

One of my top supermarket discoveries was Tomate Frite. I’ve consumed a lot of store-bought tomato sauces in my time and this one was by far the best I’ve ever tasted. The only ingredients it contained were tomatoes, olive oil, salt and garlic, yet it had the most incredibly rich, deep flavour. Clearly, the Spanish know how to cook their tomatoes 😉

Tomate Frite

Our evening meals were super simple affairs that didn’t require much prep. Veggie paella (using a shop-bought paella seasoning pack), pasta with grilled veggies in tomato sauce, bean salads, and stir-fried veggies (onions, courgette, peppers, mushrooms) in toasted seeded baguettes were big favourites.

We often made a double batch one night and used the leftovers the following day, combined with salad, avocado and hummus or pate-filled bread.

Veggie Paella Salad Dish

We did eat out on a few occasions. There were two dedicated vegan restaurant/cafés that I couldn’t wait to check out, but we also had a couple of impromptu meals. Italians are my ‘go to’ restaurants for impromptu vegan meals as I find they’re always happy to make me a cheeseless pizza. I just order the vegetarian pizza (‘vegetariana’ or ‘giardinera’) and ask for no cheese. The one I had at Da Pino Ristorante Italiano in Benahavis was especially tasty and had lots of flavourful char grilled veggies and herbs. I definitely didn’t miss the cheese!

Pizza in Benahavis

In the bigger towns and cities, there were plenty of Indian restaurants offering a wide selections of veggie dishes. In Fuengirola we had a lovely al fresco meal consisting of poppadum and chutney, onion bhajis, tarka dhal, pilau rice and veggie biryani. As we were heading back to the car, we suddenly stumbled into an Easter procession. It was fascinating to watch. The Nazarenes (the guys in the tall pointy hats) were pretty spooky looking!

Easter in Spain

I never realised that Easter was such a big affair in Spain. The celebrations went on for days!

As I mentioned above, we also ate at two 100% vegan restaurants/cafes. Both were outstanding and definitely warrant a dedicated post, which I’ll publish next week. For now, I’ll leave you with a photo of a beautiful cloud that we saw in Ronda. It’s amazing what you spot in the sky when you’re not busy rushing around.

Cloud Angel

What does the cloud look like to you? ….

M thought it looked like a bird but, to me, it was definitely an angel 😉

Have you ever self catered as a veggie or vegan in Spain? If so, I’d love to hear your top tips.

15 thoughts on “Vegan Self Catering in Spain

  1. What an amazing holiday Sharon, just perfect! The choice of foods looks amazing, it’s so comforting to know that vegan food is becoming more readily available in Europe and looking at the pictures of the ice cream and desserts, it looks like gluten free labelling is excellent too. I’ve never been to Spain but would love to go someday.

    How lovely to see the orange trees in blossom AND with fruits on them, awesome!

    The cloud looks like an angel to me too 🙂

    1. The gluten free labelling was super clear and I saw it everywhere – supermarkets, cafes, restaurants. GF seems to have really taken off in Spain! One of the cafes we visited in Malaga was 100% vegan AND 100% GF. I tried about 14 different dishes there and all were amazing!

  2. Looks like you all had such a lovely time!
    Awesome to see how easy it was to eat vegan – and that you managed to find some treats too! I don’t think I’ve done the self-catering thing since going vegan but lived for a year in France and Spain where I never had a problem.
    P.S. I went to Marbella with friends after my GCSEs (many!) years back and remember the fancy yachts and flashy cars well. Granada is gorgeous too 🙂 Did you visit the Alhambra?

    1. Yes we did visit the Alhambra! Unfortunately I was a bit distracted as we’d passed the Hicuri vegan restaurant on the way there and I couldn’t wait to get back and dive into their menu. I’m glad I’d worked up an appetite climbing up and down that hill though as the food was fab, especially the almond tiramasu 😉

  3. Thanks so much for this post Sharon! My boyfriend and I are off on a short tour around Andalucia in a week’s time, so it’s reassuring to hear that the supermarkets are well stocked in the south. It’d be great to hear about your experiences in the restaurants you visited soon!

    1. Hey Alex! I’m so happy that this post has proven useful to you. Just in case I don’t get time to post the cafe/restaurant review in time, I’ll email their details to you. Have a wonderful trip! xx

  4. I’m glad you had a good time away 🙂 This is a helpful post too, because on my one trip to Spain, I found finding vegan food really hard! We were in Madrid and didn’t have access to any very large supermarkets, and as my Spanish is poor, understanding ingredient lists was quite challenging for me (and ditto restaurant menus when we ate out!). I pretty much resigned myself to being vegetarian for the trip but it’s nice to know it’s possible to get good vegan food.

  5. Sounds like you all had a lovely break – not only catering but the views look amazing. It’s so much fun to find vegan items in grocery stores in other countries hey! 🙂

    It’s nice to turn off technology for a bit and just enjoy living 🙂

    Look forward to your veg’n restaurant post!

    1. I love checking out the supermarkets in other countries…especially when I discover they stock a big selection of vegan goodies 🙂

      The time away from technology did me the world of good. Since I’ve been back, I’ve got a much better balance between screen and off-screen time. Let’s hope I can maintain it!

  6. Wow, what a beautiful getaway. I have always wanted to go to Spain! It’s amazing how vegan-friendly it was…so cool! Everything looks awesome. That pizza looks so yummy, but I think I am craving veggie paella now!

    I’m glad you enjoyed your trip!!

    1. You’ll definitely have to make it to Spain some time! It’s a beautiful country with stunning coasts, countryside and cities. I’ve still got plenty of places to visit, including Valencia & Madrid x

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