Carnival Cruise Line Vegan Dinner Menu
Carnival Cruise Line offers a separate vegan dinner menu in its main dining rooms, giving guests a complete plant-based meal rather than limiting them to a single vegetarian entrée. The Featured Vegan menu includes appetizers, salads, entrées and desserts, with plant-based versions of dishes such as shrimp cocktail, arancini and queso fundido.
Carnival currently confirms that a separate vegan menu is offered in the main dining room across its fleet, excluding ships sailing in Australia. The menu shown here was accessed through Carnival’s Your Time Dining section of the Carnival HUB app. Exact dishes can change, so guests should check the current menu during their sailing.
For more Carnival information, CruisePrism readers can also explore our Carnival Dining Menus, Carnival Drink Lists, and Carnival Onboard Guides for more information about restaurants, schedules and onboard activities.
Carnival Featured Vegan Appetizers
The Featured Vegan menu has an unusually large appetizer selection, with soups, salads and plant-based versions of dishes traditionally made with meat, seafood or dairy.
The appetizers shown on this menu are:
- Cream of Mushroom Bisque – Plant-based cream and sherry vinegar
- Beef Arancini – Plant-based beef and Parmesan, crispy risotto balls with marinara and pesto
- Southwestern Quinoa Baby Shrimp – Plant-based shrimp, butter lettuce, pinto beans, tomato, avocado, corn and smoky lime dressing
- Queso Fundido – Plant-based melted cheese with sautéed mushrooms and spinach tortilla chips
- Shrimp Cocktail – Chilled plant-based shrimp with creamy slaw and cocktail sauce
- Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho – Chilled soup with avocado, pistachios and mint
- Caesar Salad – Crisp romaine, croutons, plant-based Caesar dressing and Parmesan
- Mixed Greens – Fresh garden mix with a choice of Ranch, Balsamic, French, Italian, Caesar or Blue Cheese dressing
The menu is particularly notable for using plant-based substitutes in dishes such as Beef Arancini and Shrimp Cocktail rather than offering only vegetable-based starters.
Vegan Entrées on Carnival
The photographed menu includes four plant-based main courses.
The entrées are:
- Penne with Charred Cherry Tomato Sauce – Plant-based Parmesan cheese and tomato cream sauce
- Crispy Lemon Shrimp – Crisp-fried plant-based shrimp, pico de gallo and yuca fries
- Cauliflower Parmigiana – Layered with plant-based mozzarella, basil and crushed tomatoes
- Featured Indian Vegetarian – Potato and peas vegetable spiced yellow lentil stew with vegetable saffron rice
These choices provide a mix of pasta, plant-based seafood, Italian-inspired food and Indian cuisine rather than variations of a single vegetable dish.
Carnival has long featured an Indian vegetarian selection as part of its main dining room dinner menus, and the photographed vegan menu continues that option with a potato-and-peas vegetable dish, yellow lentil stew and saffron rice.
Penne with Charred Cherry Tomato Sauce
For guests looking for a familiar pasta dish, the menu offers penne with charred cherry tomato sauce.
The dish uses plant-based Parmesan and a tomato cream sauce, providing a dairy-free alternative to a traditional creamy pasta preparation.
Crispy Lemon Plant-Based Shrimp
One of the more unusual options is Crispy Lemon Shrimp.
Despite the name, the menu specifies that this dish uses crisp-fried plant-based shrimp rather than seafood. It is accompanied by pico de gallo and yuca fries.
Carnival also uses plant-based shrimp in its Southwestern Quinoa Baby Shrimp appetizer and Shrimp Cocktail, giving vegan guests several alternatives to seafood-based dishes.
Cauliflower Parmigiana
Cauliflower Parmigiana provides another plant-based take on a familiar dish.
Instead of traditional cheese, the menu describes the cauliflower as layered with plant-based mozzarella along with basil and crushed tomatoes.
For passengers who prefer something closer to traditional comfort food, this is one of the more recognizable entrées on the menu.
Featured Indian Vegetarian
The Featured Indian Vegetarian entrée consists of potato and peas vegetable, spiced yellow lentil stew and vegetable saffron rice.
Indian food has been a regular component of Carnival’s main dining room menus, and the cruise line continues to list a changing Indian vegetarian selection among its standard dinner offerings.
Because the specific Indian dish can vary, guests should check the Carnival HUB app or that evening’s dining room menu to see what is being served during their cruise.
Carnival Vegan Desserts
The Featured Vegan menu doesn’t stop with appetizers and entrées. Four desserts are shown:
- Cappuccino Crème de Pot – Finished with mocha crumble and cinnamon
- Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake
- Mango Sorbet
- Fresh Fruit Plate
The menu specifically states that all proteins and dairy used on this Featured Vegan menu are plant-based.
That distinction is especially important for dishes such as the Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake, which is traditionally associated with Carnival’s main dining room. Guests ordering from this menu are receiving the vegan version offered as part of the Featured Vegan selection.
Is Carnival’s Vegan Menu Complimentary?
Carnival’s main dining room dinner is included in the cruise fare, with exceptions for separately priced optional items such as certain premium selections.
The Featured Vegan menu shown here is presented through Your Time Dining as an alternative main dining room menu rather than as a separate specialty restaurant.
This means vegan passengers can have a multi-course main dining room dinner without needing to rely exclusively on specialty restaurants for plant-based meals.
Which Carnival Ships Have the Vegan Menu?
Carnival currently states that its main dining rooms offer a separate vegan menu on all ships except those sailing in Australia.
That makes the vegan menu broadly available across Carnival’s U.S. and European cruise operations rather than limiting it to newer ships such as Carnival Celebration, Carnival Jubilee or Mardi Gras.
As with other cruise dining menus, however, specific dishes can change. The exact menu shown in these photos should therefore be used as a guide to the type of vegan food Carnival offers rather than a guarantee that every dish will appear on every sailing.
Vegan Dining with Your Time Dining
The screenshots show the Featured Vegan menu inside Carnival’s Your Time Dining section.
Your Time Dining is Carnival’s flexible main dining room option, allowing guests to dine without having the same fixed dinner time each evening.
Regardless of dining-time preference, guests with dietary requirements should communicate those requirements clearly to their dining team. Carnival also asks guests to inform their server about food allergies.
That is particularly important for passengers whose dietary restrictions involve allergies rather than personal dietary preferences.
Vegan vs. Vegetarian on Carnival
Vegan and vegetarian are not interchangeable on Carnival’s menus.
Carnival’s regular dinner menu includes a Featured Indian Vegetarian entrée, but vegetarian dishes can contain dairy or other animal-derived ingredients. The separate Featured Vegan menu is designed around plant-based alternatives.
The photographed menu specifically states that its proteins and dairy are plant-based.
Passengers following a strict vegan diet should therefore request the vegan menu rather than assuming that every item labeled vegetarian on another Carnival menu is also vegan.
Carnival Vegan Menu FAQ
Does Carnival Cruise Line have a vegan menu?
Yes. Carnival currently states that a separate vegan menu is available in the main dining room on all ships except those sailing in Australia.
Does Carnival have vegan entrées?
Yes. The photographed Featured Vegan menu includes Penne with Charred Cherry Tomato Sauce, Crispy Lemon Shrimp made with plant-based shrimp, Cauliflower Parmigiana and a Featured Indian Vegetarian selection.
Does Carnival have vegan appetizers?
Yes. This menu includes Cream of Mushroom Bisque, Beef Arancini made with plant-based beef, Southwestern Quinoa Baby Shrimp, Queso Fundido, plant-based Shrimp Cocktail, Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho, Caesar Salad and Mixed Greens.
Does Carnival have plant-based meat?
Yes. The photographed menu uses plant-based beef in the Beef Arancini and plant-based shrimp in several dishes.
Is Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake available vegan?
The Featured Vegan menu shown here lists Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake among its desserts. The menu also states that all proteins and dairy on the menu are plant-based.
Does Carnival have vegan cheese?
Yes. This menu specifically lists plant-based Parmesan and plant-based mozzarella, as well as plant-based melted cheese in the Queso Fundido.
Does Carnival have vegan desserts?
Yes. The pictured menu includes Cappuccino Crème de Pot, Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake, Mango Sorbet and a Fresh Fruit Plate.
Is the Indian dinner on Carnival vegan?
Carnival’s regular menus describe their rotating Indian selection as vegetarian, so passengers should not automatically assume every version is vegan. On the Featured Vegan menu pictured here, the Indian vegetarian selection appears within the dedicated vegan menu.
Is the vegan menu the same every night?
Passengers should check the current dinner menu in the Carnival HUB app or with the dining room because selections can change during a cruise and over time.
Final Thoughts on Carnival’s Featured Vegan Menu
Carnival’s Featured Vegan menu offers substantially more choice than simply adding one meat-free entrée to the regular dinner menu.
The menu shown here includes eight appetizers, four entrées and four desserts, ranging from plant-based Beef Arancini and Shrimp Cocktail to Crispy Lemon Shrimp, Cauliflower Parmigiana and Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake.
For vegan passengers planning a Carnival cruise, the biggest tip is simply to ask for the dedicated vegan menu in the main dining room and check the Carnival HUB app for the current selections. With appetizers, main courses and desserts designed around plant-based ingredients, it is possible to put together a complete vegan dinner rather than piecing together side dishes from the regular menu.
