Filo pastry (also known as phyllo pastry) is a very thin unleavened dough that’s used in both sweet and savoury recipes. Crunchy and flaky, filo pastry is an all-round favourite that’s used to make all kinds of pastry dishes including pies, tarts, parcels, samosas, baklava, strudel and vol-au-vents.
You can make your own or buy it ready-made, but is filo pastry suitable for vegans? Read on for everything that vegans need to know about filo pastry…
Then, check out these vegan filo pasty recipes.
Is filo pastry vegan?
Filo pastry is generally suitable for vegans as it’s made of just flour and water with a little olive oil, salt and vinegar. However, in some recipes, the filo pastry is brushed with egg, butter or ghee, so it’s worth checking before you order any dish that’s made with it.
What is filo pastry made of?
Filo pastry is typically made of:
- Plain flour
- Water
- Vegetable oil
- Salt
- Vinegar
How to make vegan filo pastry
Making your own filo pastry is fairly simple to do, you just add the ingredients into a bowl and use your hands to mix it together into a dough. Knead it for five minutes, then wrap it up and leave it to rest for an hour. After resting, you can roll the dough into thin layers, dust with cornstarch, stack them up and roll them into larger sheets.
This video shows you the technique to make vegan filo pastry at home…
Of course, whilst making your own filo pastry may be fun, it can be pretty time-consuming and there’s absolutely no shame in buying ready-rolled filo pastry to use when baking.
Is Jus Rol filo pastry vegan?
Jus Rol filo pastry is suitable for vegans. It does not contain any animal-derived ingredients and is marked as ‘suitable for vegans’ on the packaging which means that there is little to no risk of cross-contamination with non-vegan products.
Jus Rol filo pastry sheets are available chilled or frozen. The ingredients are the same whichever type you choose.
Jus Rol filo pastry ingredients:
Wheat flour, water, corn starch, humectant: glycerol, salt, preservative: potassium sorbate, flour treatment agent: L-cystein.
Jus Rol filo pastry isn’t available in every supermarket. However, there are other brands of vegan ready-rolled filo pastry that you could use instead. Be sure to check both the fridge and the freezer of your local store when searching for filo.
Brands of vegan filo pastry in the UK include:
- Sainsbury’s ready rolled filo pastry
- Asda ready rolled filo pastry
- Morrison’s filo pastry sheets
- Theo’s filo pastry (available at Tesco)
What pastry is vegan?
Filo pastry is generally always vegan. Other types of pastry such as shortcrust, puff, choux and flaky pastry tend to use butter and may also use lard or eggs. However, any type of pastry can be made vegan, by replacing the butter with vegan margarine.