Homemade Vegan Stew Recipe for your Dog!

Otis on my parents’ farm

Many of us awesome vegans choose to share our homes and lives with companion animals, and I am no exception. I have a 6 year old dog and a 9 year old cat–both rescues from local shelters.  My cat is still a carnivore, unfortunately, but my dog is now about 95% vegan (I say 95% because my family sometimes will feed him cheese or meat when I’m not looking).  Otis is a 20 lb Boston Terrier, and shortly after I went vegan, he started seriously contemplating making the same life change, eventually arriving at the same conclusion as me.  Okay, so maybe I started contemplating making him be a little vegan dog and eventually forced it on him?  That is probably more accurate.  (This was only after doing extensive research, of course,  and confirming that his health would not at all suffer by doing so.)  He is a pretty picky eater, but after trying out several different kinds of foods, we finally found some he liked.  For kibble, he likes Natural Balance Vegetarian Formula, and for canned food he will eat pretty much anything.

Recently, I decided to spice up his menu a little bit by making some homemade food that I could mix in with his kibble.  He LOVES this new development, and now wants to eat about twice as much as he used to.  He’s in great shape right now so I’m letting him eat lots of it, but might have to scale back if he starts gaining too much weight. I don’t envision that being a problem though.

For detailed information about dogs’ nutritional needs, check out this pamphlet. In case you’re worried that dogs can’t be vegetarians, let me share a short excerpt from this document (p. 12): “Though many dogs may prefer animal-based protein, they can thrive on a vegetarian diet.”  It goes on to say that a normal adult dog needs at least 10% of his diet to be from protein. As vegans know, this is absolutely no problem.

So, here’s the recipe:

Homemade Vegan Stew for Dogs

Yummy vegan stew for dogs

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked rice
• 2 vegan Italian sausage links (Field Roast or Tofurky)
• 1 medium sized broccoli stalk, chopped into small pieces
• 1 large carrot, chopped into small pieces
• 2 small red potatoes, chopped into small pieces
• 2 T Tofutti sour cream
• 1 T Earth balance vegan margarine

Instructions

1. Chop up all the vegetables and place in a pot of water. Boil and then simmer until vegetables are tender.  Drain & melt 1 T vegan margarine and 2 T sour cream over them (this is to add some fat and some flavor).
2. Meanwhile, chop up the sausages into little bite sized pieces.
3. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the cooked rice, the vegetables and the sausages.  Feed Fido or refrigerate until dinner time!  This makes 4 servings for my dog – I mix it in with his kibble though (about half and half).

According to my calculations, this recipe has the following nutritional breakdown per serving:

Calories:  365
Fat: 10g
Carbohydrates: 50g
Fiber:  6g
Protein: 18g

According to the study I referenced earlier, a 20 lb dog needs a minimum of 15g of protein a day and 8.5g of fat. This recipe exceeds both and Otis eats it up like he’s never seen food before!  If your dog is bored with his kibble, this is a good way to get him to eat it and like it.   You can switch this up by using different types of proteins or vegetables, but make sure you read this list first – it tells you what foods are toxic to dogs (and some might surprise you).

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