No Government Chef Training

Even today in 2025 there is no government run official chef training or apprenticeship where you can train to be a vegan or vegetarian chef.  You just can’t get a certificate.

In this episode I talk about why I chose to offer the Vegan Chef Training and what gave me the impetus to do so.

After realising the world of vegetarian cheffing was not going to be for me, I soon got over it and went and trained to be a support worker for people with disabilities and then a school teacher and taught in schools and a juvenile detention centre for 13 years.

And in all that time I cooked in my spare time and treated friends and family to lavish dinners.

When I moved to the Northern Rivers of NSW in 2006 I was niggled with the thoughts of wanting to pursue my passion for cooking further. 

I looked into training to be a vegetarian chef and there was still no avenue. I was shocked.

I thought ,screw this, I am not going to be stopped this time, I will train myself.  And train myself I did.  I had a successful catering business for 13 years. I catered for retreats, weddings and events and loved it all. 

The Vegan Chef Training was born

Then with the introduction of social media and the rise of veganism, I saw that there were a whole lot of people really missing out on following their passion for training to cook for a living, due to their dietary and life choices. It reeked of exclusivity and the old patriarchal way.

You could do a chef course but in order to graduate, you had to show you could cut up an animal and present it on a plate for someone to eat. There was no other way. 

One of my recent graduates of the Vegan Chef Training went and did a chef course in Asian cuisine in Sydney and the instructors said she could create all vegan dishes but they would not be able to give her a certificate 

What the actual flying fox is that all about.

People choose to be vegetarian or vegan for the animals, for their health and also for their religion. This system is not at all inclusive.

You can change the world with an idea

In 2014 I just couldn’t let the idea go.  There needed to be somewhere for people to feel safe in order to learn to cook, so they could pursue their passion. I kept telling the idea to go away and then Penny, my best friend  from primary school, sent me the book, 

"What do you do with an idea" by Kobi Yamada

Do you know this book – it is wonderful.  

The main character has an idea and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

It keeps bugging him and he tries to get it to go away and no matter what he does it just won't go away, so he starts telling people about his idea and they laugh about it and say mean things about it. 

He doesn’t listen to them and nurtures his idea and then realises

what he can do with an idea. 

He can change the world. 

After reading that book, I knew I just had to roll with my idea of offering a Vegan Chef Training. 

My teaching skills came in handy

I knew I had the teaching skills – I was trained and good at teaching. I also knew how to write syllabi and had the skills to really make it the very best course I could think of, but it was quite frightening.

I had impostor syndrome completely – who was I to create such a course? 

But then, if I didn’t create a course, where would people learn in a safe environment. A lot of talent would be going to waste?

So I put my fears aside and went for it.

It was huge – I invested so much of my time, energy and all of my savings into the course. I worked like a crazy person, catering, to fund the chef training.

An Inclusive Course

You know I don’t know if things are different but in a traditional meat chef training, 

the kitchens are hot, they are fast paced places and the chefs are under the pump and they come from a patriarchal lineage where the new chefs are treated like crap. They get the worst jobs, they have to work 16-hour days with next to no breaks, they get little money and get shouted at. Customers very rarely go in and thank them for their meal and are quick to criticise. 

To put up with the insanely long hours chefs often resort to uppers to keep them going and as a result, the energy is full on.

Not all kitchens are like this, and I imagine it is changing, but it is an old paradigm of learning to cook that is still very much in place.

I really wanted to create a course where the food could be cooked with love and passion, that everyone working would feel good about what they were doing. A place where communication was key and fun was to be had.

Why People Train to be Vegan Chefs

I am so glad I created the Vegan Chef Training. With each and every graduate that has gone through this course, I feel so happy that I created it.

Everyone has their own story and everyone who has gone through the course has done so for a variety of reasons and have followed their passion for cooking.

In the beginning, most people joined the Vegan Chef Training because they really wanted to set up their own business.

Then people started to join as they wanted to fully immerse themselves in vegan food preparation for their loved ones.

Also people, like the lovely Tiki who was not actually vegan but had never been able to really eat out at a café or restaurant due to a anaphylactic nut, dairy and egg allergy, came along and trained and got to cook and eat food she had been watching people eat for years but not been able to eat herself.

She learned to make 

Doughnuts

French toast 

Burgers and buns 

Lamingtons 

Tortillas

Sausage rolls

Just to name a few. 

She really was able to relax and just cook and eat whatever she wanted and try brand new things.

Or Shelley, who just did the course so she could make whatever she wanted in a vegan version.

Or Andrew, who was training to be a yoga teacher and also wanted to ensure he could cook vegan food well, so he could help people understand how important it is to eat vegan food when following a spiritual path.

Then with the new wave of the Vegan Chef Training, which is being held online, there is a move towards learning to cook to help others cook and shop for themselves. People are attending to educate others on healthy and fun vegan food choices.

The path of being a vegan chef was one that people had to forget about, to put in the too hard basket. However, the Vegan Chef Training allows people to learn to become chefs or immerse themselves in the world of vegan cuisine in a safe and inclusive environment.

Not everyone who attends the Vegan Chef Training is vegan, as it is an inclusive training.

Now that the training is held online, it is even more accessible.

The online vegan chef training will be offered in a small group format this year.

3 participants meeting for 18 x 3 hour sessions, online with me live via Zoom.  There will be cooking tasks to be done in between the classes.  

We cover many types of cuisine and techniques of cooking. Cooking from scratch, using wholefood ingredients for the majority of the course. 

All dietary requirements are catered for, in fact there is a whole module on dietary requirements.

Since being a nutritionist, every step of the way in the Vegan Chef Training, I add in nutritional information, which adds another aspect to the training.

For more information on the Vegan Chef Training, click here or email me to set up a time to have a chat about it. 

Now it is time for the recipe, which was inspired by Susan who is presently doing the chef training, created for one of her tasks in the Vegan Chef Training. 

Recipe 

Tortilla with pumpkin puree, apple and cucumber salsa and cashew cream

Tortilla – you can buy them or make them with masa harina

¼ pumpkin peeled, steamed and put in the food processor to make a puree

½ cup cooked black or adzuki beans 

1 small onion and 2 cloves garlic cut small 

½ tsp smoked paprika 

Salt and chilli 

Salsa 

1 cucumber

1 apple small green 

½ avocado 

Lime juice 

Coriander

1. For the salsa, dice the cucumber, apple and avocado. Roughly chop the coriander, juice the lime and add all the ingredients together. 

2. Fry the onion and garlic in a saucepan with some olive oil until translucent. Add the smoked paprika, salt, chilli and the cooked beans and a splash of water. Cook for 5 minutes or so.

3. Place a cooked tortilla on a plate, add a layer of pumpkin, then some beans and top with the salsa.

FCT 

Keep your favourite recipes in a folder that you can easily access in alphabetical order.

Have a sensationally delicious week.

With gratitude Veet