When I transitioned to a vegan diet back in 2015, in an effort to make tasty plant-based food that I could show off to my non-vegan mates and family, I ended up cooking some hilariously bad dishes. Think soggy wet vegan mac and cheese and shockingly bland tofu.
Thankfully, there were plenty of amazing online vegan cooking classes out there to help me learn to cook tasty plant-based meals! Let me share these courses with you.
My top picks
Discover all of the best online vegan cooking classes. Jump straight to a specific course here:
- Best value for money: Forks Over Knives
- Best subscription-based: Veecoco
- Best chef training: Rouxbe Plant-Based Pro
- Best intuitive cooking: The School of Natural Cookery
- Best vegan cheese: Brownble Melt
- Best desserts and pastry making: Rouxbe Essential Vegan Desserts
- Best for kids: Tiny Green Chef
- Best raw food: Food Future Institute
- Best social learning: Leiths
- Best free option: Wicked Kitchen
Here are the best online vegan cooking classes
It is time to grab your apron and your favourite mixing bowls because you are going to be cooking up a storm! Check out my favourite virtual cooking classes that are going to provide you with the best vegan cooking experience:
1. Forks Over Knives
- Includes: Knife skills, batch cooking, meal prepping, plant-based staples, flavour enhancing
- Access: Lifetime
- Cost: $39.99 to $249.99
- Gift option: Yes
You may recognise Forks Over Knives from their 2011 documentary. Since then they have been on a mission to make plant-based food more accessible. This cookery class tops my list of the best due to its wide range of plant-based cooking classes, cooking skills and vegan dishes to be learnt. You don’t need any prior cooking skills to get started as they will provide you with everything you need to know!
They have brought together world-renowned chefs to teach this 90-day online cooking course which shares 100+ recipes and teaches a whole range of skills from basic cooking techniques, to meal prepping and cooking without oil. You also get access to their online community and live Q&As.
I found their videos really easy to follow and the syllabus is extensive. So you really do get your money’s worth with their online vegan cooking classes! You can get started with their course at any time and you get access to all of the lessons and vegan recipes for life. Meaning you can take it at your own pace and come back to it to freshen up your skills at any time. Find out more about the course in my Forks Over Knives cooking course review.
2. Veecoco
- Includes: Sourdough making, world cuisines, pastry, raw food, fermented foods, & much more!
- Access: Monthly or yearly membership and lifetime access are available
- Cost: From $39.99 per month (get 77% off with code: EDIBLEETHICS)
- Gift option: Yes
Veecoco is a fully vegan online cooking school. They have a huge library of plant-based cooking courses taught by a wide range of professional chefs. They are my second favourite of all the vegan classes thanks to their really informative lessons and experienced chefs from around the world.
You can learn from a huge variety of cuisines, think vegan Korean, German, Italian, Thai, and Japanese (sushi and more), and hone in on your pastry and bread-making skills.
If you think this could be the perfect gift for the vegan foodie in your life, well, Veecoco actually offers digital gift cards which you can send to them. Learning vegan dishes from around the world makes for a pretty awesome gift – so take a look at their gift card offering here.
Unlike others, they provide their cooking class on a membership basis with access to everything, perfect for ongoing learning! Find out more about them in my full Veecoco review.
Personally, I love coming back to their online vegan cooking platform regularly to learn new cuisines. It has the largest range of cuisines available in all of the cooking courses, and the best bit, they are all taught by chefs from around the world. Plus they are regularly adding new content for you to learn!
Get 77% off your Veecoco membership with code: EDIBLEETHICS
3. Rouxbe plant-based pro certification
- Includes: Food safety, knife skills, seasoning, cooking methods, fermentation, pasta making
- Access: Lifetime access
- Cost: $1799.99
- Gift option: Yes
Rouxbe is an online chef school that brings culinary school to your kitchen worktop. And thankfully, they have a fully plant-based certification offering also. The best bit is that it is a certified course with international recognition, which will look great on your CV and LinkedIn profile!
I love how in-depth they go on all of the subjects you need to know a lot about in order to become a chef. There are whole sections about knife skills, including how to pick the right knives, how to sharpen your knives, and how to cut with your knives.
They also teach you about food safety and hygiene. Helping you to correctly label your food, read and collect fridge and freezer temperatures, and keep yourself clean. These are all essential things to know when becoming a vegan chef.
On top of this, you’ll learn how to plan menus, flavour food, batch cook, use vegan alternatives, and much, much more. Find out more in my full Rouxbe Plant Based Pro review.
All of this means you don’t need to attend catering college, where you have to learn how to cook with animal-based products. Plus, this vegan chef school is a fraction of the cost!
4. The School of Natural Cookery
- Includes: Intuitive cooking, whole foods, living foods, kitchen setup, and chef courses
- Access: 9 – 18 months of access based on program choice
- Cost: $890+
- Gift option: Yes
If you are looking to learn lifelong skills that will help you to create your own dishes using healthy whole foods ingredients, then The School of Natural Cookery’s online course is for you. They have a different way of doing things, as they want you to learn how to cook intuitively. Meaning you’ll focus less on copying recipes, and more on learning how to create your own healthy recipes from scratch.
Included in their core essentials course are lessons on intuitive cooking, kitchen setup, cooking skills, nutrition, and making the most out of whole foods. On top of this, they have additional lessons which are included in their complete course (or you can purchase them individually) which take you through vegan proteins like tofu and tempeh, vegan desserts, living food, and bread making.
It is a very thorough vegan cookery school that will provide you with the know-how on stocking your kitchen with the right ingredients and cooking nutritious whole foods. If you are looking to take it one step further, they also have an online vegan chef course, but it is the most expensive one I’ve found so far.
Their courses are done through independent study but they do include a coaching session.
5. Brownble’s Melt
- Includes: Culturing, fermentation, ageing, easy vegan cheeses
- Access: Lifetime access
- Cost: $119
- Gift option: Yes
Brownble is an online vegan course platform led by Kim, a teacher, and Carlos, a medical doctor. They are both avid cooks and long-term vegans. Over the years they have built an enormous vegan recipe library on Brownble alongside a series of courses.
My favourite vegan cooking class of theirs is Melt, one of the most thorough vegan cheese courses. It has a large selection of plant-based cheese recipes, perfect for all the cheese lovers out there. Their videos are all beautifully shot and are some of the easiest to follow along with. They feel intuitive and fun.
I also love how easy it is to get in contact with the instructors. Throughout the videos, you can add your comments to the comments box and an instructor will get back to you. This is really useful, especially when it comes to difficult tasks like learning how to make vegan cheese!
Overall, I find their online vegan cheese course has a really good range of vegan cheeses to learn. It covers all the bases, including stretchy melty cheeses like mozzarella, and cheeses with a rind, like camembert.
6. Rouxbe essential vegan desserts course
- Includes: Pastry, mousse, bread, glazes, cakes
- Access: Lifetime access
- Cost: $499.99
- Gift option: Yes
Do you love baking? Are you interested in finding out how to veganise your favourite bakes? Or do you want to increase your vegan dessert repertoire? Then look no further than this fully dedicated plant-based dessert class. It is taught by a vegan pastry chef, Fran Costigan, who spent many years working in the pastry section in kitchens before publishing her own cookbooks and becoming an online vegan cooking instructor.
With Fran, you can learn how to replace egg and dairy, how to use gels and thickeners, and how to create pastry and dough from scratch. You will learn how to bake vegan cakes, cookies, tarts, mousses, and much more.
You also get access to instructors, for any support needs. And you get a certificate upon completion. Making it perfect for any vegan pastry chef wannabe. That being said, you don’t have to want to make vegan baking your career to do this course. You can get a lot from this course even if you just love to bake in your kitchen at home.
I love how it starts off by helping you set up your kitchen and to learn the essentials before covering key vegan baking ingredients and how they function. After this, you go on to baking delicious pastries, cakes, bread and more.
7. Tiny Green Chef
- Includes: Cooking skills, kitchen science experiments, printable guides, extra recipes, grocery lists
- Access: Lifetime access
- Cost: $99
- Gift option: No
If you are hoping to empower your children to make sustainable and healthy choices when it comes to their eating habits then you’ll really benefit from the courses created by Tiny Green Chef. Led by Azizi and her two kids Kaja and Kamilla, these classes are designed for you and your kids to follow along together.
Not only will it provide your children with lifelong cooking skills, but it will also teach them about the benefits of eating nutritious plant-based foods. Included within the course are 20 kitchen science experiments to ensure you can maintain the attention of your kids throughout!
On top of this, you’ll get access to their community support group which is full of like-minded parents providing their kids with essential learning.
8. Food Future Institute
- Includes: Raw food, pasta, smoking food, gluten-free, menu planning
- Access: Lifetime access
- Cost: From $300
- Gift option: No
Food Future Institute (FFI) is Matthew Kenney’s online plant-based cooking school. He is a world-renowned vegan chef with hundreds of plant-based restaurants scattered around the world. You may recognise him from the Netflix documentary Bad Vegan. His cooking style is fine dining with elements of raw food.
If you are lucky enough to have eaten in one of his vegan fine dining restaurants, like Adesse in London, then you’ll know just how delicious his food is. So it is very exciting that you can learn from this through his online vegan cooking course platform, Food Future Institute.
He offers two courses, one for home cooks and another for professionals. They are both chef-driven, so expect technical dishes and exciting plating opportunities. Like many of the other courses, they cover basic kitchen skills as well as learning to cook for dietary preferences like gluten-free. If online isn’t enough for you, Food Future Institute also has in-person courses in California.
9. Leiths
- Includes: Plant-based brunch, roast dinner, street food, Italian food, and healthy dishes
- Access: For 6 months
- Cost: £295
- Gift option: No
Leiths is something of an institution in the UK. Many great chefs started out in their cookery school in London. In more recent years they have developed their online learning platform which is one of the cleanest and most intuitive I’ve seen yet!
It is worth noting though, that Leiths is not a vegan cooking school, but they do have a very well-designed plant-based cookery course that will allow you to tap into the knowledge of these experienced chefs.
Their course is somewhat different to many of the other ones I have included in this article, that is because it is more of a one-off learning experience. They have split it across 6 weeks with 3 hours of cooking time each week. You will have virtual classmates and one-on-one support from a Leiths chef. You will still be able to access the course content for another 6 months though. Meaning you can come back and refresh your knowledge in that time.
There are no classes spent learning specific skills, meaning you can get straight into cooking. This includes lessons on plant-based brunch, street food, and roast dinners. Giving you all the basic knowledge of cooking your favourite foods, but vegan, as well as learning new cuisines.
10. Wicked Kitchen
- Includes: Party food, kids cooking classes, and healthy meals
- Access: Lifetime
- Cost: Free
- Gift option: No
Now this isn’t a course as such, but it is a good way of dipping your toes in before making any purchases. That is because these video lessons hosted on YouTube will get you practising your cooking skills and learning through your phone/laptop/tablet.
If the style suits you, then you’ll be certain that the other vegan cooking classes mentioned here will be for you!
Wicked Kitchen’s lessons are quite limited but do offer a nice variety of food to try out. For instance, you can learn how to make mushroom ‘steaks’ and other types of fake meat. As well as some easier lessons for your kids to follow along with.
Unlike online cookery schools, there is no online guidance, community support, course progression, or certificates available on Wicked Kitchen. But if you are just after a few video recipes to get you cooking more then you’ll enjoy these!
Course comparison
Use this handy table to compare all of the best online vegan cooking classes mentioned in this article.
Course | Who | Access | Cost | Enrol |
---|---|---|---|---|
Forks Over Knives | Home cooks & beginners | Lifetime | $39.99 to $249.99 | Buy here |
Veecoco | World cuisines | Monthly membership | $39.99 pm | Buy here |
Rouxbe | Budding chefs | Lifetime | $1799.99 | Buy here |
School of Natural Cookery | Intuitive cooking | 9-18 months | $890+ | Buy here |
Brownble – Melt | Vegan cheese lovers | Lifetime | $119 | Buy here |
Rouxbe desserts | Dessert lovers | Lifetime | $499.99 | Buy here |
Tiny Green Chef | Kids | Lifetime | $99 | Buy here |
Food Future Institute | Raw food | Lifetime | $300+ | Buy here |
Leiths | Social learning | 6 months | £295 | Buy here |
Wicked Kitchen | Free learning | Lifetime | Free | Access here |
Frequently asked questions
Here are my answers to all of your FAQs.
Why learn to cook online?
There are many reasons why you may want to enrol in an online vegan cooking class. With an online cooking class, you can do all of the learning in your own kitchen and at your own pace. This is particularly useful for any nervous and beginner cooks. And the best bit, if you don’t understand something at first you can replay it over and over again until you do.
Personally, I enjoy being able to expand my cooking repertoire and learn from incredible vegan chefs from around the globe. For others, these courses can be really useful in providing much-needed cooking inspiration as well as knowledge for those who may be quite new to cooking vegan food, or just cooking in general.
Many courses, like Forks Over Knives, also offer lifetime access so you can revisit and repolish your skills. Some are on an affordable monthly membership subscription, like Veecoco, so you can pay as you learn.
How did I become a vegan chef?
I was always a keen cook but when I finally decided to take my passion for plant-based food to the next level and become a professional vegan chef I knew I had some learning to do!
I could follow recipes and occasionally conjure up some new creations based on what I already knew, but I had no clue about the fundamentals of cooking. Including everything from knife skills and pantry stocking to stock making and flavour balancing.
I couldn’t go back to school and undertake a catering course because that would have required me to cook animal-based foods, which I really wasn’t prepared to do. Thankfully, there were quite a few places where I could learn to cook to a professional level with purely vegan food, and these options are still around for you to enrol in today.
To start, I signed up for an in-person vegan diploma course held by Demuths in Bath, UK. To further my learning I also signed up for an online plant-based accredited cooking course by Rouxbe which I was able to get lifetime access to. This was particularly helpful when I wanted to revisit areas of my learning while on the job!
After all my learning, I went on to get a job as a chef in a plant-based kitchen nearby and began climbing the ranks. The rest is history!
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