Vegetarian options in Cologne and Munich

On Happycow you will find full and partly Vegetarian and Vegan options. Just click on town you look for.

Just as info: Yorma's is a typical train station food shop, not really specialised. Same for budget bakery Backwerk. Dean & David is a chain, OK for your plan.

At German restaurants and cafés I would get cautious because often they use animal fat (e.g. concentrated butter) for cooking.

MarkK, If you have time, can you sort of elaborate on what animal fat/concentrated butter is? I know that lard is animal fat, and of course I know what butter is, but is there some sort of weird combination that they tend to use that involves the fat from animals?

You may be surprised. About 20% of Germans are vegetarian or vegan. Every restaurant will have both options. Have yet to go in one that doesn't. You will find veggie burgers and vegan burgers everywhere. Mushroom dishes are popular, and all kinds of cheese dishes. Go for the Käse spätzle which is the German version of mac & cheese.

Butter is a no-no if you are vegan, but frying in butter is something you only use if you are making schnitzels, due to the expense. For other frying, restaurants use vegetable shortening like any place in the US would. They aren't using lard or beef fat. Asian will use peanut oil.

Yormas are just in train stations and only have sandwiches, fruits, drinks, and baked goods. Backwerk are cheap, mass produced bakeries. Frittenwerk are serving up Canadian Poutine, but you can also get the fries with guacamole, etc. We found them to be a poor excuse for a decent meal and won't go there again after trying them twice. Dean & David are a bit pricey, but their salads, etc. are decent. Hans im Gluck has pretty good food and excellent fries including sweet potato fries. They have an extra menu on the table that lists every ingredient in every dish. Great for those with any kind of allergy.

Seriously, I wouldn't worry about trying to find a special place to go. Read the menu outside of any restaurant. Vegetarian and Vegan will have a separate listing.

Alternative - use the vegetarian filter on Trip Advisor on their restaurant listings. You may be surprised at all of the vegetarian and vegan places there are in both cities.

Sorry for confusing. German kitchen rarely works with lard more often with "Butterschmalz" - I just give you the German word to look it up. Maybe I used the wrong translated word - clarified butter is used on Wikipedia. We use it also at home for cooking meat, even for non-German dishes. It gives meat a little butter taste; it is made from butter, so milk base which is an animal product. Butterschmalz is better to cook at temps over 180C - this is when olive oil and butter mostly "give up" and get a burned own taste added to the cooked food.

Paradise for your daughters is likely Berlin. We have also some pro sports people who move for that reason to Berlin which has more vegetarian and vegan food places than Norway - even a fully vegan Christmas market for a weekend.

I looked up Frittenwerk - they use oil (of plants) for making the fries.

Hope that helps :-)

My daughter had an easier time in Munich than most places we visited in a month long European adventure. Sometimes it meant ordering all sides, but that was fine for her and quite often she did run into vegetarian entrees.

Thank you to everyone who took time out of their day to reply. :o)

Ms. Jo, thank you for the helpful tips about these restaurants:
"Yormas are just in train stations and only have sandwiches, fruits, drinks, and baked goods. Backwerk are cheap, mass produced bakeries. Frittenwerk are serving up Canadian Poutine, but you can also get the fries with guacamole, etc. We found them to be a poor excuse for a decent meal and won't go there again after trying them twice. Dean & David are a bit pricey, but their salads, etc. are decent. Hans im Gluck has pretty good food and excellent fries including sweet potato fries. They have an extra menu on the table that lists every ingredient in every dish. Great for those with any kind of allergy."

I'll just add that on my trip to Germany I found many of the servers were either vegetarian or vegan. I had my little translation card (I am vegan) and when I told the server I was vegan or showed them the card and then pointed to something on the menu they would often look, think, shake their heads and say - "I will bring you what I eat here". Um, ok, I'd say and got really delicious food.

So...if anyone offers to do that for your daughters, have them say yes! It may or may not be listed on the menu!

Pam, that's awesome! I hope that happens to us, because it would be so cool! :o)

Vegetarianism/Veganism is quite trendy in Germany - which it wasn't 8 years ago when I arrived.

Very traditional restaurants may have only one or possibly two courses that are entirely meat free, but more modern restaurants will have more options. This is also a good time to look into international food. Germany has large populations of people with origins in Turkey, Italy, Greece, especially, but also the middle east and Asia. All these types of restaurants will often have tastier veg options than traditional German restaurants.

Cologne and Munich are very cosmopolitan and cater to all types so I really doubt you will have an issue in either city! My recommendations for veg food in those places are all non-German but if you're interested specifically please feel free to send me a direct message!