Uzbek Food: What to Eat as a Vegetarian Traveller

Central Asia is renowned for its Silk Road architecture, mountains, and seemingly never-ending steppe; but it is not known for its food.

And I get it.

After spending two months backpacking through Central Asia, struggling to eat vegetarian, and getting two bouts of the most horrific food poisoning I’ve ever had, I really get it.

Eating vegetarian in this part of the world absolutely comes with challenges; there will be mistakes and you will inevitably be served meat at some point.

Uzbek food, however, was the simplest to navigate as a vegetarian. And while that accolade is more because Kazakh and Kyrgyz cuisine was really tough rather than Uzbek cuisine being easy, we did manage to find some pretty tasty options and vegetarian alternatives to classically meaty dishes.

So we have put together this guide to help you travel Uzbekistan as a vegetarian. It includes vegetarian dishes, tips for not being served meat accidentally, tips to avoid sickness, and general prep for you to know what to expect.

Yes, Uzbek food is not vegetarian-friendly, but the architecture, the nature, the history, the people, the adventure that Uzbekistan offers is more than enough reason to explore this fascinating country.

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Vegetarian Uzbek Food

Achichuk and Shakarap

Uzbekistan has plenty of delicious fresh fruit and vegetables, and these salads showcase the tomato.

This simple dish of thinly sliced tomato and red onion mixed with a little salt, and sometimes herbs and garlic adds a fresh element to the very rich and heavy Uzbek dishes.

Tomato and red onion salad with a little salt

Non

Proper Uzbek non is delicious and fluffy and chewy and beautiful!

But not all Uzbek non is created the same; some cheaper Uzbek non is very flat and cardboardy so try to take a look at it before you order to make sure you get the right stuff.

We found the tastiest Uzbek non was from Chorsu Bazaar in Tashkent!

Samsa or Somsa

These flaky pastry parcels most commonly have a meat filling, but there are sometimes veg options for fillings too, the most common being pumpkin.

Inside of Pumpkin Samsa, Uzbekistan Veg food

Manti

Again, commonly filled with meat, manti are a type of steamed/boiled dumpling. You’ll often find manti filled with pumpkin (and sometimes greens) and served with sour cream.

Tuxum Barak

We only found this dish in Khiva in the very west of Uzbekistan, and it’s not really much to write home about but, it is vegetarian. (Vegetarians can’t be choosers in Uzbekistan!)

This is another steamed/boiled dumpling/ravioli-style dish, but is filled with an almost scrambled egg looking mixture.

Grilled Veg

Not the most exciting dish, but it is usually an option in restaurants. Expect peppers, aubergine, corn, tomatoes.

Halva

Halva is a delicious sweet that has an almost fudgy consistency. Sugar, dried milk, flour, and butter are mixed with variations of nuts, seeds and sometimes cocoa.

This is a delicious sweet pick-me-up to pair with some green tea in the afternoon!

Fruit

The fruit and veg is tasty, fresh and juicy! Uzbekistan is known, in particular, for its melon. You’ll find the best and biggest abundance of fruit in September and October due to the harvest period.

Dried fruits and nuts in Uzbekistan are also really good – there are market stalls stacked high with these goods year round.

Tea

The tea culture in Uzbekistan is huge; green tea without milk or sugar is everywhere.

Even when we took a long eight-hour train journey, Uzbek passengers brought their own teapots on board! Boiling water was available for all passengers for free, and everyone was issued with a couple of teabags. It’s serious business here.

dinner with a view over Khiva from Terrassa restaurant

Savvy Traveller Pro Tips 🇺🇿

After exploring Uzbekistan for three weeks, these are our favourite booking tools that we couldn’t travel without!

Travel Insurance: our favourite budget-friendly insurance is SafetyWing – no question.
Flights: we book flights through Trip.com to earn loyalty points to use on our next flights.
Accommodation: for the best deals and to build up loyalty points, we use Booking.com.
Transport: book high-speed trains on 12Go
Tours: Viator has a great selection of experiences at an affordable price.
Taxi Apps: download Yandex Go.
Food Delivery: Wolt (Tashkent only) and Yandex Eats
SIM: Beeline has great coverage across the country.
ESIM: be connected from the second you arrive with Airalo.

Vegetarian Versions of Meaty Classics

Vegetarian Plov

The Uzbek national dish is plov and it is serious business. There are plov centres all over the country that cook this rice dish up in HUGE quantities and sell all of it in a few hours over lunch.

Even if you don’t want to eat the meaty version, it’s still quite an experience to see visit a plov centre and watch the huge vats of rice being cooked up.

Plov is a dish of rice, mutton, mutton fat, carrots, onions, and some versions also come with dried fruit, chickpeas, and hard-boiled quail eggs. But you can also get veg versions that are just cooked without the meat and in regular oil instead of mutton fat!

Be aware that plov is usually only available to order over lunch time; it’s not a dish served for dinner.

Vegetarian Shivit Oshi

Shivit oshi is a noodle dish from Khiva; we didn’t find it anywhere else in Uzbekistan.

Noodles are made with herbs, mainly dill, which gives them a bright green colour.

They are served with a beef stew and a big dollop of sour cream, but we found several restaurants that served the noodles with a veg stew, so keep an eye out!

Vegetarian Lagman

With influence from the Uyghur and Dungan from West China, this dish definitely has more spicing than any other dish we found in Uzbekistan.

(You can also find some tasty Dungan-influenced dishes in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan which is probably where you will find Central Asia’s tastiest food!)

We found two types of lagman in Uzbekistan: noodle soup and fried noodles.

The fried version is by far the tastier one because the flavours aren’t watered down in the broth. Noodles are fried with spices, tomato, onion, and other veg.

Traditionally, they are served with meat mixed in, but some places have a veg option. Sometimes served with a fried egg on top, this is tasty stuff!

South Korean Food

I know you’re looking at this like, ‘what?!’. Yep, I was surprised too. During the Japanese colonisation of Korea, many Koreans fled to what was then the Soviet Union and settled modern-day Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan and South Korea have strong connections to this day, which has resulted in many Korean restaurants in the larger Uzbek cities. And the food is delicious, to the extent where we actually looked at adding South Korea into our travels until we realised how expensive it was!

Tofu, crunchy seaweed salads, kimbap, tteokbokki, bibimbap.

Is alcohol available in Uzbekistan?

Yes, but it’s not overly advertised. Most shops and restaurants will sell at least beer, but they won’t have it in the fridge or on the menu.

If you ask for beer, they will likely have it hidden in a back room and will serve it to you. Ask for ‘pivo’ (beer in Uzbek and Russian) or ‘Sarbast’ (the most popular beer brand).

It is not frowned upon to drink alcohol, but drinking too much or drinking in the street is not accepted.

I have recently discovered that Uzbekistan has wineries and I am pretty upset that I didn’t know about this while we were there! So, if you get a chance, try out an Uzbek wine tasting at an Uzbek winery.

Tips to Avoid Being Served Meat

The terms ‘vegetarian’ or ‘vegan’ aren’t necessarily fully understood, so instead, be very specific what you do not eat. Translate the words ‘meat’, ‘chicken’ (often chicken isn’t deemed meat), ‘animal fat’ etc.
Use Happy Cow to help with guidance on restaurants catering to vegetarians.
Try to be flexible. I know from experience, it’s not easy. If you are accidentally served meat, sending the dish back will mean that the food is wasted.

Tips to Avoid Getting Sick

Getting sick in Central Asia is almost a rite of passage! Most travellers we met in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan had also had stomach issues at some point, so how is best to avoid it?

Avoid Western food. It may seem like a safe default for vegetarians to go to a Western restaurant and order something that you know does not contain meat. However, this is exactly where I got sick. I ordered an egg breakfast dish at a French restaurant and then I was knocked out for a good 10 days. Go local if you can!
Choose cooked dishes over uncooked. The tap water in Central Asia is not potable, and so veg washed in this water that isn’t then cooked can make you sick.
Go where the locals go! You want to go to the restaurants that are popular and have a fast turnover of food.

Plan more of your trip with these:

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