Eating Vegetarian and Vegan in Thailand: Jay Food and How to Order

Thailand can look like a difficult place to be vegetarian. Fish sauce seasons almost everything, shrimp paste hides in curry pastes and chilli dips, and soups are often made with pork or chicken stock. Yet the country also has one of the oldest and most organised vegetarian food traditions in Southeast Asia, with its own name, its own flag and its own festival.

Knowing a few words and a few habits makes it entirely possible to eat well, and to eat fully plant-based food, across most of the country.

Jay food and the yellow flags

Jay (also written jae) is the Thai word for a style of food that comes from Chinese Buddhist and Taoist practice and came to Thailand largely through the Thai-Chinese community. Jay food contains no meat, fish, seafood or other animal products, including eggs and dairy, which makes it vegan in practice. It also leaves out strong-smelling plants such as garlic, onions, shallots and chives, which are believed to disturb the body and mind.

Restaurants and stalls that sell jay food hang a yellow flag or sign marked with the character for jay in red, written in Thai as เจ and often in Chinese as well. The yellow-and-red sign is the single most useful thing a vegetarian in Thailand can learn to spot. Some jay shops are open all year. Many more appear during the Vegetarian Festival.

The Vegetarian Festival

The Vegetarian Festival, known in Thai as thetsakan gin jay, takes place during the first nine days of the ninth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which usually falls in September or October. During those days, many Thai-Chinese people, and many other Thais too, eat only jay food, avoid alcohol and keep themselves and their homes clean, as a way of making merit and purifying the body.

The festival is observed across the country, with yellow flags appearing over markets, food courts and supermarket stalls, and Bangkok's Chinatown along Yaowarat Road is especially busy. Phuket's celebration is the best known. It is centred on the island's Chinese shrines and includes street processions in which devotees perform acts of self-mortification, such as piercing their cheeks, which are believed to be carried out under the protection of the gods. Trang and other southern towns hold similar events.

For anyone looking for vegan food, the festival is the easiest time of year to visit. Even convenience stores and ordinary rice shops add jay dishes to their range.

Mangsawirat and jay are not the same

Thai has two words that are often translated as vegetarian, and the difference matters:

Jay: no animal products of any kind, and no garlic, onions or other pungent plants. Effectively vegan, with extra restrictions.
Mangsawirat: vegetarian in the broader sense, meaning no meat or fish. Depending on the cook, it may include eggs and dairy, and garlic and onions are usually used freely.

In everyday use the line can blur. A cook asked for mangsawirat food may still reach for fish sauce or oyster sauce without thinking of them as meat, so it is worth being specific. For vegans, asking for jay is usually the clearest request.

Where animal products hide

Even dishes that look vegetable-only often contain animal ingredients. The most common are:

Fish sauce (nam pla), used as the main salty seasoning in stir-fries, soups, salads and dipping sauces.
Shrimp paste (kapi), pounded into most curry pastes, including green, red and sour curries, and into many chilli dips.
Oyster sauce, used in many stir-fried vegetable dishes.
Dried shrimp, often added to som tam and some stir-fries.
Meat stock, used as the base for many soups and noodle broths.
Egg, in fried rice, pad Thai and many noodle dishes, and often fried and placed on top of rice dishes.

Ready-made curry pastes are a particular problem, because a stall rarely makes a separate paste for a single order. Look for jay restaurants, which use their own pastes, or choose dishes that do not rely on a paste at all.

How to order

A few Thai phrases go a long way. Polite speakers add khrap at the end if they are male and kha if they are female.

Gin jay: I eat jay food. Phom gin jay (male speaker) or chan gin jay (female speaker).
Gin mangsawirat: I eat vegetarian food.
Mai gin neua sat: I do not eat meat.
Mai sai nam pla: no fish sauce.
Mai sai kapi: no shrimp paste.
Mai sai nam man hoy: no oyster sauce.
Mai sai kung haeng: no dried shrimp.
Mai sai khai: no egg.
Sai see-ew: use soy sauce.
Mee ahan jay mai: do you have jay food?

Writing your needs in Thai on a card or a phone screen helps, particularly at busy stalls. Be prepared for the occasional misunderstanding, and choose places where the cook is making your dish to order rather than serving from a pot that is already prepared.

Dishes that adapt well

Many Thai dishes are easy to make without animal products when cooked to order with soy sauce in place of fish sauce. Good choices include pad pak ruam (stir-fried mixed vegetables), pad pak bung (stir-fried morning glory), pad kra pao with tofu or mushrooms, khao pad (fried rice) without egg, pad see ew and pad Thai with tofu and no egg, and tom kha with mushrooms in a vegetable broth. Som tam can be made with soy sauce and without dried shrimp. Jay restaurants also make wide use of tofu, mushrooms, wheat gluten and soy-based mock meats.

Fresh fruit is excellent and everywhere, and many Thai sweets made from coconut, rice flour, palm sugar and beans contain no animal products, although some use egg.

A note on temple food

Visitors sometimes assume that Thai Buddhist monks are vegetarian. In the Theravada tradition followed by most Thais, monks eat what is offered to them on the alms round, and that often includes meat and fish. Vegetarianism is a personal choice for some monks and lay Buddhists rather than a general rule.

The strict vegetarian tradition in Thailand comes mainly from Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, which is why jay food is so closely tied to Chinese shrines, Chinese temples and the Vegetarian Festival. Some Thai Buddhists also eat vegetarian on holy days or for a period of time as a way of making merit. Whatever the reason, the result is a cuisine with a long history of cooking without meat, and plenty of cooks who know exactly how to do it.