If you’re a vegetarian planning a trip to Spain you’re right to start thinking about your food options in advance. Larger cities do have dedicated vegetarian restaurants but traditional Spanish cooking does not particularly cater for vegetarians or vegans so if you’re not in Madrid or Barcelona, you’ll need to know what you’re looking for on a tapas menu.

This article focuses on helping you find vegetarian tapas so that wherever you are in Spain you’ll be able to find something to eat.

👧🏽 If you’re travelling with kids or with people who have a limited diet, my article on kid-friendly tapas will also come in handy.

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My story: Until moving to Spain in 2022, I ate mostly a plant-based diet (I didn’t refuse food that was put in front of me but I didn’t cook with meat and I almost never ordered it for myself). When we moved to Spain I felt overwhelmed by having to figure out how to live in a new culture, help my kids adapt to life in Spain and by basically starting all over again. I didn’t have the energy to pursue my plant-based diet in such a meat-focused place. I’m not proud of myself and this article is written to help consolidate my own learning as much as it is to help others looking for vegetarian options in Spain.

🍅 Spanish cuisine, including the tapas menu, is typically fairly meat heavy and can appear to be lacking in vegetables to the untrained eye.

🍅 It uses simple ingredients and everything tends to be fresh and beautifully prepared.

🍣 People who eat fish will find it easier to cope as there is typically a lot of fish on the menu in Spain, both as tapas and as platos principales (main meals).

So which tapas can a vegetarian eat?

Tapas are small plates of food, designed to be enjoyed together with friends or alone. Order a beer or a glass of wine and a couple of tapas plates whenever you sit down. If you love them, order more, if you don’t, move on to the next place.

➡️ In the Basque Country, you’ll find pintxos, which are similar to tapas but there tends to be more variation in the plates.

As a vegetarian, you do have a good few vegetarian options within Spanish food. The most common include:

Patatas bravas

🥔 These are delicious roast potatoes with a paprika spicy tomato sauce. 

🚫 Note that I have occasionally seen this most traditional of tapas plates arrive with chunks of ham on it so be sure to confirm it’s meat free when you order this plate.

🍟 It’s pretty much a guarantee that you’ll get fries everywhere too.

Espinacas con garbanzos

🥬 This traditional dish from Sevilla is a delight for visitors looking for something vegetarian. This plate consists of chickpeas (garbanzos) and spinach (espinacas) and is thought to be the only recipe that’s truly from Sevilla. It is known that it was eaten in Sevilla over 800 years ago in Jewish and Muslim communities. 

➡️ This photo was taken on the Devour Tours flamenco & tapas tour in Sevilla, which can cater to vegetarians.

Pimientos de Padrón

🫑 Padron peppers are a favourite with Spanish people and with good reason! Order a plate of these small, green peppers, and you’ll find yourself pounding through them and growling at anyone who even so much as considers trying to steal one from your plate. These are small green peppers that arrive slightly fried and covered in salt. Sometimes they’re hot (spicy hot) but generally they’re not. Even the meat eaters love these. 

Tortilla Española / Tortilla de patatas

🥚 Spanish tortilla is that most famous of all Spanish foods: the sliced potato and egg dish that’s cooked in plenty of olive oil. Every tortilla is different so if it’s a dish you enjoy, this is something you can always order. It even comes as a montadito – sandwich – as shown above.

Gazpacho / Salmorejo / Porra Antequerana / Zoque Malagueño

🍅 These 4 dishes are all variations on the famous cold tomato soup and it’s important to stress that you’re a vegetarian when you order this because once again, it can arrive with hard boiled egg or bits of ham on top.

You think you’ve got it sussed: Gazpacho is the famous cold tomato soup that you find all across Spain (but mainly in Andalucía) and then you realise that, of course there are regional differences in towns that you could visit within hours of each other.

🍅 Basically they’re all a cold, thick soup made with tomatoes, bread, olive oil, vinegar and salt and all are perfect for the hot summer days of Andalucía and southern Spain.

🥒Gazpacho is made without bread. Some gazpacho will also have a cucumber added. It often comes in a glass.

🫑Porra, from Antequera, has red peppers or green peppers added.

🍞 Salmorejo, originally from Córdoba, tends to have less bread than porra and it is generally served in a bowl.

🥕Zoque, from Malaga, may have carrots blended into it.

Champiñones al ajillo

🧄 Spanish garlic mushrooms are delicious at any time of year but if you’re a real mushroom fan I highly recommend heading to Antequera in Huelva Province between November – March as this is mushroom season in this deliciously mushroomy region of Andalucía.

Croquetas

Croquetas are traditionally made of puchero and leftover meats. It’s absolutely possible to find vegetarian versions, generally with mushrooms or spinach. 

Berenjenas fritas con miel

🍆 This delicious dish of eggplant (aubergine) cut finely,  covered in four, fried and drizzled with honey is kind of sweet and is an easy staple for a vegetarian looking for things to eat on the menu.

Pisto

Pisto is a regional dish most likely to be found in Extremadura, Castilla La Mancha or Murcia. It is made of tomatoes, onions, aubergine / courgettes, green and red peppers and olive oil.

Bean dishes

You will see bean dishes on tapas and main dishes – alubias and chicharos are my favourites BUT these dishes do often have giant chunks of meat in them so if you see beans on a menu, be warned the dish could well be a meat dish.

Ensaladas & Verduras

Salads

🥗 Salads can be hit and miss in many parts of Spain. Too often, for my liking, a salad will be some variation of a plate of iceberg lettuce, tinned tuna, & grated carrot. But then at other times salads will be exquisite dishes with goat’s cheese, figs, and all sorts of marvellous salad-y ingredients. The more upmarket your restaurant, the more likely the salad is to be top-notch.

⚠️ Be careful with ensaladilla Rusa because although it’s a salad, it does have tuna and sometimes prawns in it. 

And remember, of course, that gazpacho (and its variants) is basically a blended salad. 

Vegetables

🥦 It’s not that common to see vegetables on the menu or as an accompaniment to a regular dish. You may get a pepper or two, or some fries but a side of broccoli, for example, is not common. I asked my Spanish friends why this is and they explained to me that traditionally, people go out to eat meat, not vegetables. They can eat vegetables at home. 

Every now and again you’ll see “verduras asadas” on the menu, grab this plate of delicious grilled vegetables and revel in your luck.

➕ Alcochafas

Artichokes are fairly often found on tapas menus and are well worth ordering and gobbling up whenever you can.

Cheese plate

A tapas menu will generally have some form of cheese on it. And since it’s always possible to get bread (although it’s rarely free these days in Spanish restaurants), this is always an available option.

Queso de cabra – goat’s cheese (look out for a ‘rula de cabra con miel – goat’s cheese with honey)

Queso de oveja – sheep cheese

Queso fresco – fresh cheese

Queso curado – cured cheese