Summer Food [BBQ-Season & Wraps]

Summer means:

having great weather, getting a tan, being in a good mood….

and garden parties with barbecues!

colorful BBQ

I guess most vegetarians bring their own food when it comes to BBQ’s. Many grocery stores offer veggyburgers made of vegetables, mushrooms or tofu. But sometimes it’s easier and faster to barbecue corn on the cob and mushrooms. Especially filled mushrooms taste so delicious that even many people who eat meat consider them as an essential part of a BBQ.

Other Options

Especially in bigger cities you have a variety of fast food chains. This does not necessarily mean that you get a bigger choice of vegetarian meals. That is why I will continue to check the fast food menus for meatless options.

Since I wrote about McDonald’s in my last post, I want to start with its main rival Burger King. Many people do not even know that Burger King actually offers a vegetarian burger, their so-called Country Burger (519 calories). The Country Burger is very tasty and you can actually fill your stomach with only one of them. As a typical Burger restaurant Burger King offers French Fries as a side dish. The King Pommes (small 204 cal.; medium 319 cal.; large 391 cal.) have 30-80 calories less than the ones from Mc Donald’s (depending on the size of course) which surprised me a lot! The Burger restaurant also offers a normal Salad in two sizes. The Delight Salad ( 28 cal.) is about twice as big as the small Salad Bowl ( 20 cal.). This might be a great alternative to french fries for you! Although you should keep in mind that dressings are absolute calorie bombs. To prove my point: The small salad comes with either a herbal ( 7 cal.) or a yogurt 25 ml dressing ( 53 cal.) and the big one with either the yogurt ( 113 cal.) or a balsamic 75 ml dressing (73 cal.)- that is a lot of calories for eating a healthy salad!

I personally refuse to eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken because of the disturbing smell of fried chicken. And I was very surprised to find out that KFC actually offers something else for vegetarians besides french fries (small 254 cal.; medium 388 cal.; large 483 cal.). As an alternative to those you can eat corn on the cob (half  116 cal.; whole 232 cal.), a coleslaw salad (normal 284 cal.; large 568 cal.) or a Snack Salad (8 cal. without dressing). So you see that we are still talking about fast food, which is not very healthy!

So let’s look at another type of fast food restaurant! My personal favorite is the sandwich restaurant Subway. They offer two different vegetarian sandwiches, where you can choose the bread, cheese and ingredients. The Veggie Delite (6-inch 237 cal.) is a plain sandwich with cheese and veggies only, whereas the Veggie Patty (6-inch 403 cal.) is like the first one with a patty made of vegetables. These two sandwiches are absolutely delicious!

self-made fruit salad

I personally do not really understand why people buy fruit cups at fast food restaurants. It is so easy to make a fruit salad at home and just take it with you!

I like colorful fruit salads the most. That is why I try to use ingredients like black grapes, pears, plums and bananas. Of course you can slice pretty much any kind of fruit into your fruit salad! A little recommendation to those who like their salad very sweet and use sugar to sweeten it: just add a little shot of Amaretto instead! Even people who do not really like to eat fruit will probably change their mind after trying this little extra ingredient!