This Popular California Pizza Chain Is A Vegan Foodie's Paradise

Nevada may be the state with the most vegans per capita, but California isn't far behind. And one California pizza chain that's a vegan foodie's paradise is Fresh Brothers Pizza, with locations in LA, San Diego, Orange County, and The Valley. As the name implies, Fresh Brothers has a focus on freshly made dough, sauce made from locally harvested tomatoes, and a variety of high-quality toppings and cheeses. The company originally opened pizzerias under a different name in Chicago, and continues to offer the Chicago-style tavern pizza with its thin, square-cut crust. Vegan pizza styles also include a California-style deep-dish pizza and a regular, triangular-cut thin-crust.

Fresh Brothers sources its cheese and plant-based sausage from Field Roast, a plant-based meat brand that we hold in high esteem. The vegan mozzarella from Field Roast melts beautifully, as customers on Reddit and Facebook have claimed, with pictures to prove it. Not only do they offer vegan cheese, sausage, and pepperoni, but vegan pizzas also come with vegan Ranch for dipping. One Redditor raved, "Their vegan mozz is delicious and the pizzas are customizable so you can get what you like." One Facebook review deemed the vegan pizza "the best vegan pizza I have ever had!" In addition to a crispy conventional crust, Fresh Brothers also offers a gluten-free crust that happens to be vegan. Made with rice flour, potatoes, and seasonings, the gluten-free pizza crust has the same crispy yet chewy texture as its flour-based counterpart.

Fresh Brothers is a regional chain that the rest of the country is certainly missing out on. So, if you're not lucky enough to live in Southern California, ordering a vegan pizza might be tough. That said, it's not impossible to order a vegan pizza from your local pizzeria. Most pizzerias, from fast food to neighborhood slice shops, don't offer vegan cheese. So you'll need to order a cheeseless pizza for it to be vegan-friendly. And the key to the tastiest vegan pizza is getting extra sauce because, without cheese, sauce is likely to dry out in a high-temperature pizza oven. Just as you're doubling up on sauce, you should also load up on toppings to compensate for the heartiness and decadence of cheese.

You can always order a cheeseless pizza for takeout or delivery, and reheat it at home after sprinkling your favorite brand of plant-based cheese shreds over it. Even a generous sprinkling of nutritional yeast will impart a strong Parmesan flavor while also packing a serious punch of protein. Finish your pizza with a drizzle of balsamic reduction or vegan pesto for yet another layer of flavor. You can also pick up a vegan pizza in the frozen section at the grocery store. Vegan options are amongst the line of pizzas from Trader Joe's, for example. But our favorite vegan pizza brand is Sweet Earth.