TROPICAL SUNDAY Vegan Cuban Cuisine
Cuban vegan spot features classics using meat alternatives like jackfruit and soy. Christmas boxes with vegan offerings are available this year
Cuban cuisine doesn’t have a reputation for featuring healthy food. We think of fried pork dripping with grease and so many other carnivorous delights. The ground beef, the fried shredded steak, strip steak, meat and potatoes, the Cuban frita, plus the many ways to make pork — including the Miami favorite, cooked in the caja china.
In truth, homemade Cuban food is not as unhealthy as we think. Still, it is difficult to be Cuban and vegan.
Luckily, Cuban entrepreneurs Liz Machado and Steven Rodríguez have found a way to provide the flavors of Cuban cuisine to the Miami palate using the same seasonings and ingredients — minus the meat — at their restaurant, Vegan Cuban Cuisine.
What began as a home-based catering business in 2018 later moved to a storefront, one of the many that closed during the pandemic. From that kitchen they began to prepare vegan Cuban dishes to sell from the small window while filling delivery orders. Later, they got the owner of the parking lot to allow them to put some tables outside. This is their dining area while they finish the buildout inside a neighboring storefront where next year they plan to open the restaurant.
IMPERIAL RICE, CUBAN SANDWICH AND VEGAN GROUND BEEF
The first vegan dish they tried to make was imperial rice that Steven’s mom brought to a family party. A Cuban favorite, imperial rice has several layers of chicken, rice, cheese and mayonnaise. To make it, they replaced the chicken with grilled tofu, made a cheese substitute with potatoes and used soy mayonnaise, says Machado, who started a plant-based diet because it was the only thing that eased the pains in her joints.
The Cuban sandwich, made with jackfruit and potato Swiss cheese, holds its own against the best sandwich in Miami, Tampa or anywhere else. It’s so good that you won’t miss the pork or ham.
“First we make a typical Cuban mojo with lemon, orange, seasonings, and we use it to marinate, instead of pork, the jackfruit,” says Machado, an FIU graduate. Jackfruit is cooked over low heat for about two or three hours, which is one of the secrets to how they were able to create the Cuban sandwich recipe, said Machado. Then they add a ham made of soy, potato cheese, soy mayonnaise, mustard and pickle, which tricks you into believing you are eating a Cuban sandwich with all the fixings.
VEGAN SECRETS
Slow cooking is also the key to another of the restaurant’s dishes, the soy