Make It Plant-Based! Filipino: 60+ Recipes for Vegan Soups, Stews, Noodles, Snacks, and Desserts

by Ria Elciario-McKeown, Mehreen Karim (contributor)

Discover the deliciousness of vegan versions of favorite Filipino foods—part of Workman’s new series of passionate plant-based cookbooks. 

Whether new to the world of plant-based cooking or already acquainted and looking for easy vegan versions of beloved dishes, Make It Plant-Based! Filipino shows how easy it is to make plants the star of the plate. Using store-bought pantry staples, fresh vegetables and fruit, and meat-free and dairy-free alternatives, it’s simple to make richly flavored dishes such  

*Spicy Curried Taro Leaves
*Sizzling Mushroom and Tofu Sisig
*Chickpea Lumpia
*No-Churn Ube Ice Cream
*Sweet Banana Spring Rolls
And much more!

Part of an exciting series including Make It Plant-Based! Indian, Make It Plant-Based! Mexican, and Make It Plant-Based! Southern, these colorfully packaged volumes highlight the endless possibilities available to home cooks to let them know it’s easier than ever to Make It Plant-Based!

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction

190 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 13, 2025

Reviews

[Seth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the recipes, made a few for a dinner party with my friends and everything was easy to make and delicious!

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Make It Plant-Based! Filipino is one of a new series of related kitchen guides with recipes, this one featuring plant based Mexican recipes developed and curated by Ria Elciario-McKeown. Due out 13th May 2025 from Hachette on their Workman Publishing imprint, it's 190 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

This is a good basic, well organized, vegan friendly Filipino fusion cookbook. The basics and well loved recipes are represented, and the instructions are easy to understand and follow. They are arranged in chapters, thematically: breakfast & brunch, salads starters & staples, stews & soups, dinners & mains, snacks, and sweets & treats.

Ingredients will mostly be available at any large/well stocked international market/grocery store in North America. Recipes include an introduction, background info, and yields. Ingredients are provided in a bullet list, followed by step by step preparation instructions. Measurements are given in imperial (American) units with metric in parentheses (yay)!. Nutritional info is not provided.

About 25% of the recipes include color photographs. The plated foods are professionally styled and serving suggestions are appetizing and appropriate. The author/publisher have also included pantry lists for convenience as well as a cross-referenced index.

Four stars. Simple, but effective. It would be a nice choice for public or school library acquisition (it's a set volume, so it's worth acquiring all the volumes which are graphically similar with different themed cuisines), as well as for home use and gift giving.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

This has a nice selection of 60 Filipino plant based recipes with good taste and fairly easy to cook recipes. There is no nutrition information given and there are a lot of oils and coconut products used, so definitely not for someone trying to lose weight or with metabolic issues. But most of the ingredients were easily sourced.

The book breaks down as follows: breakfast and brunch, salads/starters/staples, stews and soups, dinners and main, snacks, sweets and treats. There are images for only about a third of the recipes but there are nice tips throughout. Each recipe has a bold title, the Filipino dish it is based on, and a short paragraph description. Serving size is given in an orange font and ingredients are italicized on the left. The steps are chunky unnumbered paragraphs that can be cumbersome to get through. There are callouts and pages throughout going into more detail about Filipino food culture.

Recipes include: classic avocado smoothie, adobo recipes, golden coconut curd, squash and green bean coconut stew, Filipino wanton soup, stovetop steamed coconut and lemongrass rice, vegetable spring rolls, steamed mushroom buns, banana fritters, and many more.

In all, I'd probably eat these sparingly due to the high fat/oil/coconut content (there are several deep fry dishes). But the book delivers on what it promises, if not the healthiest choices. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great vegan cookbook if you’re looking for authentic style Filipino food. There are photos for about a third of the recipes. There were a few techniques and ideas that were new to me for vegan cooking, which is always a pleasant surprise. Most of the recipes are very high in sugar and carbs, low in protein (other than lots of tofu), heavy on wheat and white rice, and fried. These won’t work for my family but may for yours. No nutritional information is provided for the recipes.

I read a temporary digital copy of this book for review.

[Ruby L. (rubyjoyreads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended to those who are new to Filipino cuisine. Even I (a Filipino living in her own country her whole life) still managed to take some notes for some dishes that I want to learn to prepare one of these days.

[Tila Datta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written beautifully and with authenticity. The recipes are easy to follow and delicious. I'm not vegan but I make and effort to reduce my meat consumption and there's not a single recipe that I've tried so far that I wouldn't serve to my meat eating pals. 10s across the board!

[Anjana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the basis of this book. The author is not a vegan but married a Veg/ vegan man. This influence sets her book a little apart from some of the others because she doesn’t always rely on mock meats, even as she tries to replicate more established recipes.

Since I did not get a chance to try any of the recipes, I can’t talk much about the other aspects of the book but just reading some of the combinations of flavours felt interesting. I did take a few notes and hope to try something soon enough.

I would definitely recommend this for people who regularly or even infrequently try out vegan recipes in their kitchens.

I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.