The World’s Largest Country Festival Tips Its Hat to Vegan Food

Known for cut-offs, cowboy boots, line-dancing, and beer, Stagecoach is the largest-grossing and most highly attended country music festival in the world. Each year, fans from around the world pile up in pick-up trucks and drive to the California desert to experience three days of headliners and up-and-coming country music stars. Unlike its sister festival, Coachella, the focus at Stagecoach has remained on the music—the food relegated to standard barbecue-and-brews fare—until now. We were thrilled to find dedicated vegan options other than beer and French fries as we triple-stepped and grapevined from stage to stage. Raise your overflowing red Solo cup to all the vegan eats at Stagecoach 2019!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Salt & Straw Ice Cream (@saltandstraw) on Mar 16, 2019 at 10:01pm PDT

1. Salt & Straw
After working up a sweat doing the ten-step, we mosied on over to Salt & Straw for a double scoop of its Roasted Strawberry Coconut and Freckled Min TCHO-colate Chip vegan ice cream! It whetted our whistle and soon we were back on the dance floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Vegan+Her (@aveganandher) on Apr 28, 2019 at 9:48am PDT

2. Tacos 1986
This up-and-coming Los Angeles street taco concept served vegan mushroom tacos, Tijuana-style. Over the three days, we definitely had our fill of these crispy mushroom, salsa, and guac-topped corn tortillas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Sweetfin (@sweetfin) on Dec 17, 2018 at 5:00pm PST

3. Sweetfin
We tried this at Coachella but had to go back for Sweetfin’s Veggie Poké Bowl. Made with sushi rice, seasoned sweet potato, avocado, carrots, cucumber, edamame, serrano chilies, and a drizzle of ponzu sauce, it was a refreshing break from the barbecue-heavy festival eats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Vegan+Her (@aveganandher) on Apr 27, 2019 at 3:49pm PDT

4. Barrel & Ashes
Even though we’re vegan, we still chowed down with the rest of the meaty crowd thanks to Barrel & Ashes’ vegan Impossible Burger. However, we needed a knife and fork to take it down! This monster of a sandwich featured an Impossible patty cooked medium-rare, lettuce, and a pile of seasoned black-eyed peas stacked on a fluffy, buttery roll. That’s good-eatin’!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Southern Lady Magazine (@southernladymag) on Sep 3, 2018 at 6:11am PDT

5. Bludso’s Bar & Que
In addition to some stellar new country artists, we were introduced to Texas Caviar. A creative name for a flavorful marinated corn and black-eyed peas salad, we can’t wait to recreate this at home!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by WOLF 🐺 (@wolfdiningla) on Nov 7, 2018 at 4:37pm PST

6. Wolf
Even cowboys and cowgirls crave a salad now and then. Wolf’s Baby Kale Salad with tender kale, sunflower seeds, citrus segments, beets, and apricots served as the perfect lunch fuel to last us well into the night. Granted, we also had a bite of the Veggie Burger; that vegan aji aioli was too good to pass up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Vegan+Her (@aveganandher) on Apr 27, 2019 at 10:56am PDT

7. Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse
We side-stepped the Pit Master demos and made a beeline for Flavortown! While others were watching meat grill at celebrity chef Guy Fieri’s popup Smokehouse (a Stagecoach institution), we chowed down on these spicy vegan Cauliflower Curry Nachos. Encore, please!

 

Tanya Flink is a Digital Editor at VegNews as well as a writer and fitness enthusiast living in Orange County, CA.