Bangladesh is blessed with thousands of nutritious traditionally vegan recipes. Having a tropical monsoon climate with six seasonal variations, warm climate and high humidity, Bangladesh is enriched with abundant fresh fruits and vegetables all year round.

I remember my family used to have at least one vegan dish per meal (not just salad) and in one particular days of the week, we ate only vegan dishes (to be honest, that wasn’t my favorite day as a kid). Unlike the western society, we do not have to search or improvise recipes to make it vegan, because guess what, there already a hundreds of traditional vegan dishes being cooked in all Bangladeshi households everyday! Well, as a kid I was not very fond of veggies, but when I myself start cooking, I had newfound love for food! However, I started thinking more and more about Bangladeshi vegan cuisines when I started cooking for my vegetarian friends abroad. That’s why I am ever grateful to my friends I met in Sweden because without them I would never have otherwise thought about Bangladeshi vegan dishes and realized the richness of my culture!

Vegan Bangla is mainly a platform to introduce traditionally vegan Bangladeshi recipes to the world. Besides, as I live abroad, I always think about the Bangladeshi descended kids, who may want to learn and cook the recipes from roots. That is why I am developing this inventory in English, and where possible, adding name of recipes both in Bangla and phonetically.

I have designed the vegan cuisine of Bangladesh in five categories: Traditional, Sweets and Dessert, Snacks and Street Food, Drinks and Inspired Improvised. Traditional means the original, everyday vegan recipes that are cooked in Bangladeshi households and that is same for Sweets and Desserts. Snacks and Street Food means the most common vegan snacks and street foods found in Bangladeshi streets and homesteads. There are also many vegan drinks (not just fruit juice) made in Bangladeshi households. By Inspired Improvised, what I meant is taking non-traditional ingredients that are usually not found in Bangladesh to cook Bangladeshi style meal! Since I do not live there now, I guess I will cook a lots of Inspired Improvised vegan recipes using new ingredients. You will see how they turn out!

A kind Note: I am not a vegan, I do not know if I ever will be. However I do respect very much those people who decided to be vegan or plant based eater to stop animal cruelty and save the earth from pollution. I hope this project can be seen as a way to pay respect to them and also contribute to the worldwide sustainable living movement. I am also a very proud Bengali and Bangladeshi, therefore I decided to go for the traditional dishes that I know, feel and most importantly, treasure of. Therefore, the recipes I put here, they are and will be Bangladeshi Recipe, NOT from other countries. My mission is to promote Bangladeshi traditional vegan recipes and show the differences between taste and way of cooking to the world. Due to shared geography and history, there are lots of similarities among the recipes from our neighboring countries but it does have difference in taste, look and in cooking method. So if you find it similar to something that you cook in your country (which I am sure there will be), I appreciate it very much and would like to know about it! You are free to improvise the recipes in your own special way of how you enjoy, because that is the ultimate purpose of cooking, right? Happy Cooking!