Is Mellow Mushroom Vegan? Vegan Options at Mellow Mushroom

Mellow Mushroom is one of the easier pizza chains for vegans: its menu has a Vegan section marked with a vegan icon, it uses Follow Your Heart Dairy-Free Cheese and offers tempeh, and its allergen data shows the crusts and Mellow Red Sauce as free of animal products. The vegan core is the Vegan Veg-Out, Vegan Cheese Pizza and Vegan Build Your Own Pizza, the Vegan Tempeh and Vegan Avocado hoagies, and the two Vegan salads with Balsamic Vinaigrette or Oil & Vinegar, while pesto, aioli, beer cheese, the tots and every dessert are off the list.

Vegan as served, per Mellow Mushroom's own sources: Vegan Build Your Own Pizza, Vegan Veg-Out, Vegan Cheese Pizza, Vegan Tempeh Hoagie, Vegan Avocado Hoagie, Vegan Keep It Greek Salad, Vegan Apple Harvest Salad, Tempeh, and 9 more in the table above. 10 more items are vegan with a change.

Order from the Vegan section: a Vegan Veg-Out or a Vegan Build Your Own Pizza with red sauce or the oil and garlic base, tempeh and any of the listed veggies, on regular, thin or (small only) gluten-free crust; these already leave off the butter and Parmesan finish. Add a Vegan Keep It Greek or Vegan Apple Harvest salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette or Oil & Vinegar. For a starter, order Pretzel Bites with No Butter and No Parmesan plus Mellow Red Sauce, and ask the store to leave off the beer cheese.

Yes, the dough itself is. Mellow Mushroom's allergen chart lists the regular crust, the thin crust and the Gluten-Free Crust as free of milk, eggs, fish and animal products. Standard pizzas get a garlic butter and Parmesan finish on the crust, so outside the Vegan section ask for No Butter No Parmesan; the Vegan pizzas leave that finish off.

Mellow Mushroom uses Follow Your Heart Dairy-Free Cheese and says you can substitute it for any regular cheese on its pizzas. It comes standard on the Vegan pizzas and Vegan hoagies, and the allergen chart lists it as free of milk and animal products.

The chain says it can make any of its vegetarian pizzas fully plant-based, and that Follow Your Heart Dairy-Free Cheese can replace any regular cheese. You still have to remove the toppings that carry dairy or egg (the pesto swirl, the roasted Mushroom Trio, the garlic aioli, feta and ricotta) plus the butter and Parmesan crust finish. Kosmic Karma and Great White work well this way; Holy Shiitake would lose its mushroom trio, both cheeses and the aioli.

Mellow Red Sauce, the olive oil and garlic base and the house-made BBQ sauce are free of animal products in the chain's allergen data. The pesto and pesto swirl contain milk, the Creamy Pesto contains milk and egg, the Vodka Sauce contains milk, and the garlic aioli contains egg. Watch the Vegan hoagies too: Pesto shows up in their add-on veggie list even though it contains milk.

Of the dressings in the allergen chart, only the Balsamic Vinaigrette and Oil & Vinegar are free of animal products. Greek Feta contains milk, Creamy Asian contains egg, Caesar contains milk, egg and fish, Esperanza contains egg and fish, and Ranch and Bleu Cheese contain milk and egg. The two Vegan salads come with Balsamic Vinaigrette by default.

Yes, tempeh. The chain's allergen data flags it for soy and wheat but not for milk, eggs or animal products. You can add it to the Vegan Build Your Own Pizza or a calzone, and it is the filling of the Vegan Tempeh Hoagie.

Not as served: they are tossed in garlic butter and Parmesan and come with a beer cheese that contains milk. The online menu lets you choose No Butter and No Parmesan and add Mellow Red Sauce, and the chain's plant-based page calls its pretzels vegan-friendly. The online form requires a beer cheese choice, so ask the store to leave it off.

No. The chain's allergen data flags both the side Tater Tots and the Kids Tots as containing animal products, even though they are not flagged for milk, egg or fish. It does not say which animal ingredient it is, so skip them.

No. The allergen chart flags every dessert for milk and eggs: Mary Jane's Triple Chocolate Brownie, the Peanut Butter Cookie, the Sugar Cookie, the Gluten-Free Brownie and the sundaes.

It does not promise to. Its gluten-free page says the kitchen offers products made with tree nuts, butter and eggs and that it cannot guarantee any of its products are safe for people with milk or egg allergies. Its allergen portal adds that any food may come into contact with surfaces or utensils that have touched dairy, fish or eggs.