There is an increasing demand for menus which serve a variety of dietary requirements, including vegan, gluten free and lower levels of salt, sugar and calories. While some dishes cater naturally to these requirements, there is often a need to adapt dishes in order to make them suitable for certain restrictions with ingredients, or to fit within nutritional guidelines. At Classic Cuisine, we are experts at making dishes suitable for all, using a range of techniques, alternative ingredients and creative cooking in our development kitchen.
Making vegan options
The growing range of plant based free-from ingredients means that almost any sweet or savoury dish can now be recreated in a way that is suitable for vegans. Vegan butters, creams, eggs and cheeses are getting better all the time, meaning more dishes can now be made vegan friendly.
This includes dishes like lemon meringue pie. Following months of development, we’ve recently launched a delicious vegan and gluten free alternative to the classic dish, which tastes just as delicious.
Going gluten-free
Removing gluten from dishes often means finding alternatives for flour and cereals, as well as carefully replacing any ingredients that may contain hidden gluten, like some sauces. The gluten-free range of ingredients continues to grow, meaning more options for us to experiment with and use.
Some gluten-free flours and other ingredients react to cooking differently, and can taste different in the final dish. We carefully develop, test and improve our recipes to ensure dishes remain just as good to eat whether they are free-from gluten or not.
Lowering sugar, salt and calories
Many people now want dishes that offer higher nutritional value with lower levels of sugar, salt and calories. It’s possible to change these levels using alternative ingredients. Coconut sugar for example has lower levels of sugar than traditional cane sugar, but it does create a slightly different final taste.
Experimenting using different volumes of ingredients, portion sizing even cooking methods can have an impact on calories and nutritional levels. By understanding your requirements, we can create a dish that caters to all dietary requirements and other needs like costs, appearance, fitting the rest of your menu and preparation required on-site.