Vegetarian Cooking Classes in Chiang Mai

You Almost Certainly Do Not Need a Dedicated Class

Thai cooking adapts to vegetarian and vegan more easily than most cuisines, and nearly every school in Chiang Mai handles it routinely. Booking a standard class and noting the requirement is usually better than hunting for a specialist one, because the standard classes are the ones with thousands of reviews.

The searches for a dedicated vegetarian class considerably outrun the supply, which is worth knowing before you spend an evening looking for something that barely exists as a separate product.

The Two Ingredients to Flag

Shrimp paste (kapi). It is in most standard curry pastes and it is not obvious. Schools keep a vegetarian paste; you have to ask.

Fish sauce (nam pla). The default seasoning in almost everything. Soy sauce or a mushroom sauce replaces it, and the result is genuinely good rather than a compromise.

Between those two, most of the menu becomes vegan without much effort. Oyster sauce is the third to mention if you are strict.

What You Will Cook

Essentially the same menu:

• Green or red curry with tofu and vegetables, vegetarian paste
• Tom kha het — coconut soup with mushrooms instead of chicken
• Pad thai with tofu, no egg if you are vegan
• Som tam without the dried shrimp and fish sauce
• Mango sticky rice, which is vegan as standard

The khao soi on northern-Thai classes also adapts well, and is the dish worth choosing if it is offered.

Practical Booking Advice

• Say it at the time of booking, not on the morning. Schools shop at the market that day and the paste is often made in advance.
• Distinguish vegetarian from vegan in the note — the egg in pad thai and the fish sauce are different questions.
• Ask about the market walk if you would rather not spend twenty minutes at a meat and fish counter; some guides route around it if asked.
• Jay is the Thai term for strict vegan (no animal products, and often no garlic or onion). If that is your requirement, use the word — it is widely understood, particularly around the annual vegetarian festival.

Where to Book

Any of the classes on the main list will accommodate this. The market-and-farm class from $24 is the default recommendation, and farm schools in particular tend to have the produce on hand to make substitutions genuinely good rather than merely adequate.

See classes that adapt easily →