Eggless Nogs, Why Not

By The Hairpin November 30, 2011

by Jessica Misener and Nadia Chaudhury

Eggnog is great. Or, it’s gross, because it’s brimming (sort of) with raw eggs, but it’s also totally tasty. So, you vegans or ovophobes, what to do? Well, you might want to try making one of these four egg-free eggnog recipes that we dug up from the dusty crevasses of the Internet and tried out. One thing helped universally: Bacardi.

1. Carrot Nog — (recipe)

We started with the carrot nog because it seemed like it would blend the easiest, and be the prettiest. Oooh:

“It looks like vomit,” a friend offered.

We gave it a sniff. It smelled like pumpkin pie. Daintily, we sipped. It tasted like pumpkin pie!

RATE THE NOG: B+. It was spicy! The rum helped a lot. We’d actually make it again.

2. Avocado nog — (recipe)

Wait, avocado? This just got REAL. We’d heard, though, of people making brownies and chocolate pudding with avocados and things turning out not terrible, so we were hoping it wouldn’t be like a Christmas-Guacamole-shake up in there. Chrimolshake!

Depitting the avocado. Who says we never cook?

When we put the avocado in with the coconut milk and other accoutrements, it looked … not great:

But after you blend it, it all swirls into a lovely, Shamrock Shake-esque shade of green:

RATE THE NOG: A. This was actually delicious. You can’t taste the avocado, which is a plus, obviously, but it does provide a nice, creamy texture. In other words, it’s the most milk-mustache-y.

3. Tofu nog, courtesy Vegetarian Times — (recipe)

OMG, WE CAN STILL TASTE THIS ONE.

So we sliced up the tofu in its tofu container and scraped it out into the blender, where it plopped in its lovely tofu way with a sickening plash.

It got worse. Here is the tofu sprinkled with nutmeg.

We pushed “blend.” The tofu tested the limits of our cheap Duane Reade blender.

RATE THE NOG: F. No one wanted to try it, but when we did, It tasted like chalky Play-Doh with a death wish. We like tofu. But tofu as eggnog? More like no tofucking way.

4. Pudding nog — (recipe)

This one had the most “normal” ingredients, so we were stoked to cleanse our tofog-scarred palates. It’s also the only non-vegan recipe, since we used cream (although you could substitute non-dairy whipping cream).

It got the frothiest:

But it just tasted like soy milk.

RATE THE NOG: B. Eh.

Finally, although we were a wee bit nogged out, we decided to mix the remnants of all nogs together to see what one large nog panoply would taste like. Would it be nog-overload? The Wu-Tang Clan of nogs? The word “nog” is starting to sound weird.

Carvocadofuddingnog:

RATE THE NOG: A-. Combining all of our weird concoctions actually made for a pretty decent beverage. The thickness of the avocado balanced out the thinness of the other nogs. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to totally mask the flavor of the tofu. *shudder*

And finally, all you slothful vegans, here’s the lazy version: Carton of Silk Nog.