The Marie Callender's Pies That Happen To Be Vegan-Friendly

You can make a superb vegan-friendly pie at home by whipping up a crust with vegetable shortening and subbing the milk in the filling for coconut milk and the eggs for silken tofu. However, store-bought is the ultimate savior when you don't want to get out those measuring cups. Luckily there are several Marie Callender's pies that happen to be vegan-friendly if you're craving a zero effort dessert with a fruity filling.

It goes without saying that we can easily rule out all of Marie Callender's savory pot pies because they either contain meat — like chicken, turkey or beef — or feature a sauce made with animal-based prodcuts, such as cheese or milk. This leaves us with the desserts. Again, the cream pies, including Key Lime and lemon meringue, are out because they contain cream and/or eggs. However, many of Marie Callender's fruit pies are vegan-friendly, which is surprising considering many store-bought pie crusts are made with non-vegan ingredients like butter.

Marie Callender's vegan-friendly pies include the two cobblers — apple crumb and peach — as well as the lattice pies available in apple, cherry, and peach. The blueberry, Razzleberry, and cherry crunch pies are also vegan. To finish, we have the Dutch apple pie and the strawberry rhubarb streusel pie too. Marie Callender's was the reigning champion in our ranking of seven frozen dessert pie brands, which means any of these fruit-filled pies will likely make a scrumptious choice when selecting a hassle-free vegan-friendly dessert.

A classic batch of pastry is made with flour, butter, and a binder such as cold water or milk (enriched pastries can include eggs or sugar too). However Marie Callender's pie crusts are made with a dry mixture of wheat flour, dextrose, and salt. The liquid element of the pastry, which brings the dry ingredients together, is a combination of water, soybean oil, and hydrogenated soybean oil. Soybean oil is used in commercial pastries because it has a neutral flavor, extended shelf life, and remains stable when exposed to high heat. While some may say that soybean oil is the ingredient that makes Marie Callender's pie crusts fall flat when compared to a classic butter-based pastry, its presence does make it suitable for vegans, which widens the brand's consumer appeal. Regardless of whether this was a happy accident or a planned move by the recipe developer's at Marie Callender, it's a boon for vegans who often have to forgo their pastry cravings or make their own vegan-friendly pies at home.

Bear in mind that Marie Callender's pumpkin pie and southern pecan pie aren't vegan friendly because they contains eggs. This ingredient helps the filling to set and thicken as well as lend it a silkier quality.