What makes a sandwich, burger, hot dog, or party spread? Condiments. It’s the secret sauce, the sour cream, and the ranch dressing that truly make your taste buds sing and tempt you to go back for another bite.
While these traditional dips, dressings, and spreads often contain sneaky animal ingredients, we’ve found exceptional vegan store-bought options.
Vegan condiments to try right now
From the original Vegenaise to fish-free peanut sauce, here are 19 fantastic vegan condiments that are better than the real thing.
Follow Your Heart
1 Follow Your Heart Vegenaise
Vegans have the self-proclaimed hippie founders of Follow Your Heart Café to thank for creating the original vegan condiment: Vegenaise. Developed in 1970 for the café’s Avocado, Tomato, and Sprouts Sandwich, this plant-based rendition of mayonnaise hooked customers who soon demanded it by the jar. While other brands have produced their own vegan mayo in the 50 years since its inception, Follow Your Heart’s Vegenaise is still the beloved original.
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Fly by Jing
2Fly by Jing Sichuan Chili Crisp
Crafted in Chengdu, China, this Sichuan Chili Crisp is everything you could ask for in a condiment—it’s spicy, crispy, savory, and bright. Incredibly versatile, chili crisp can be used as a topper in a variety of dishes, from savory noodles to vanilla ice cream scoops.
Mellody
3Mellody Hot Honey
This spicy-sweet condiment is on trend. Popularized by the fried chicken craze, hot honey was soon taken up by the pizzaiolos to accentuate spicy pepperoni pies. And while vegan honey has found its way into grocery store aisles, plant-based hot honey is more of a recent innovation. Mellody’s hot honey gets its fiery kick from habanero peppers, so be sure to test the spice level as you go.
Kite Hill
4Kite Hill Tzatziki
Hard to spell, easy to veganize. This thin, zesty yogurt sauce is made with almond milk, cucumbers, garlic, dill, and lemon juice. Try it drizzled over pita sandwiches, falafel, and Mediterranean-style grazing plates.
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House Party
5 House Party Cheesy Dip
Even good dairy-based queso is hard to find, but House Part nails this addictive cheese dip, and it does so with humble potatoes. Don’t ask how, just enjoy. Get your vegan nachos, tacos, and tortilla chips at the ready!
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Basil Bandwagon Natural Market/Facebook
6 Bachan’s Original Japanese Barbecue Sauce
Depending on where you grew up and where you live now, you likely have an attachment to a certain style of barbecue sauce. Many store-bought versions are accidentally vegan, and there’s a good chance the brand you love is animal-free, but some sauces do contain non-vegan Worcester sauce and/or honey. Check the label of your favorite brand or try out this balanced blend from Bachan.
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Follow Your Heart
7 Follow Your Heart Honey Mustard Dressing
Given the vegan chicken boom, it’s only appropriate to keep a bottle of vegan honey mustard on hand. This dressing is perfectly balanced with just the right amount of sweetness and kick. Dunk your favorite vegan chicken nuggets, drizzle over home-baked oven fries, enjoy with crunchy pretzels, or pour onto a massive salad for that iconic honey mustard taste.
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Trader Joe’s
8 Trader Joe’s Vegan Kale, Cashew, & Basil Pesto
Pesto should be vegan, but omnivore brands and chefs often can’t help but put parmesan where it doesn’t belong. This TJ’s pesto version is a safe, plant-based go-to whenever you don’t feel like getting out the food processor to make your own. For us, that’s most days.
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Forager Project
9 Forager Plant Based Sour Cream
Sour cream is like country music—people have very strong opinions about it. It’s a love it or hate it kind of condiment, but if you’re Team Sour Cream, this vegan product gets it just right. Rather buy it in store? Forager makes an excellent dairy-free rendition of this thick-and-tangy dip.
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Violife
10Violife French Onion Dip
If you’re using anything other than ruffled potato chips to scoop up this spread, you’re doing French onion dip wrong. The fried, ruffled variety is the only chip strong enough to stand up to this robustly rich and thick dip. No chips? Sturdy, raw vegetables and vegan wings are adequate vessels to transfer this onion-spiked dip from tub to mouth. We can’t get enough of Violife’s dips, and the French Onion is divine. Bring on the snacking!
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Miyoko’s Creamery
11 Miyoko’s Plant Milk Cream Cheese
For plant-based cream cheese so thick and velvety it gets stuck to your teeth, reach for a tub of Miyoko’s. This cashew-based spread is for those who measure thickness by the centimeter, or dare we say half-inch? It’s for those who lick the knife after the spread, expertly avoiding the serrated edge while gleaning every last bit of cream cheese from the utensil. The brand makes a flavor for everyone including Classic Plain, Savory Scallion, Everything, and Cinnamon Raisin.
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Hidden Valley
12Hidden Valley Plant Powered Ranch
Whether you drizzle it over vegan pizza or exclusively reserve it for salads, this herbaceous condiment is a vegan triumph. There are countless iterations of quality vegan ranch dressings and dips, but we have to highlight the brand that got us addicted in the first place: Hidden Valley. Yes, they make a vegan ranch now. It’s 2024, after all.
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WildbrineWildbrine
13 Wildbrine Korean Kimchi
Known for its krauts and gut-friendly products, Wildbrine shows off its prowess in fermentation. The brand makes three different types of kimchi, but this Korean style is the most true to the fish sauce-laced pickled napa cabbage we grew to love in the pre-vegan days. Horseradish lovers, pick up the Miso Horseradish Kimchi—just be prepared, one bite will clear your sinuses.
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Earth Balance
14 Earth Balance Butter
With the exception of our failed homemade attempt, there has never been a vegan butter we haven’t loved. There are a plethora of options—salted and unsalted, palm oil-free, cashew-based, and oat-based—but when it comes to the everyday butter we know we can find at virtually any grocery store, it’s Earth Balance. No matter what brand you reach for, slather it on thick, because it’s bound to be good.
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Noble Made
15 Noble Made Buffalo Sauce
When it comes to our vegan chicken wings, what matters most is not what the wings are actually made of, but the sauce they’re smothered in. Give an omnivore fried-and-battered tofu or a store-bought vegan chicken wing drenched in fiery, tangy buffalo sauce, and none will be the wiser.
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Mother Raw
16 Mother Raw Organic Caesar Dressing & Marinade
Once you know traditional Caesar dressing is made with blended whole anchovies, it’s hard to enjoy it, even if you’re not vegan. Liquified fish is just a little too off-putting for most. Fortunately, a variety of vegan brands have nailed the creamy, umami essence of this popular dressing—no fish-blending required. Brands like Mother Raw replicate that salty flavor with capers and nail the creaminess with an emulsion of olive oil, lemon juice, and apple cider vinegar. For more vegan Caesar dressings you can buy in store, check out our guide here.
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Primal Kitchen
17Primal Kitchen Organic Steak Sauce
Despite its namesake, this classic marinade is free of animal ingredients and adds a punch of flavor to veggies. Whether you’re whipping up grilled tofu skewers or trying out Gordon Ramsay’s eggplant steak recipe, don’t forget the power of the sauce.
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HLTHPUNK
18 HLTHPUNK’s Vegan UFO Burger Sauce (Secret Sauce)
Spoiler alert: that oh-so-secret sauce that’s so good you’d lick it off your forearm as it cascades down? It’s not a secret at all. It’s basically Thousand Island dressing with pickle juice and sweeteners. It’s possible to make your own, but in a pinch, we reach for this store-bought tube of awesomeness every single burger night.
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Watcharee
19 Watcharee’s Thai Peanut Sauce
Let’s clarify one thing: peanut sauce is not thinned-down peanut butter. The best peanut sauces are complex. They’re nutty, salty, citrusy, sweet, and contain a whisper of umami. Most bottled varieties achieve this flavor profile with honey and fish sauce, but Watcharee’s does it differently. The flavor is built with peanut butter, coconut milk, lime juice, tamarind, coconut sugar, curry paste, and a medley of other spices for a peanut sauce that rivals any animal-based contender.
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Tanya Flink is a Digital Editor at VegNews as well as a writer and runner living in Orange County, CA.
