Vegans of Color

Hannah Che on Tailoring Chinese Recipes for an American Audience

The 23-year-old recipe developer from Portland, Oregon shares her experiences + a recipe for scallion oil noodles

Image courtesy of Hannah Che.

Vegans of Color is a new series for Tenderly that will highlight chefs, activists, and content creators of color who are leading a vegan lifestyle. I was inspired to start this column when I started thinking about my own ethnic and cultural background (my mom is Japanese, my dad is white, and I was born and raised in America) and the ways in which identity intersects with food in my own life. Growing up, I noticed that some foods I ate at home — like sweet Japanese curry and white miso soup — were totally foreign to most of my peers. When I became vegan two years ago, the recipes I discovered from popular and mainstream sources were most often versions of traditional American foods. This series intends to shine a spotlight on vegans who bring something different to the table.

Hannah Che made the transition to a plant-based diet after learning harsh truths about the animal agriculture industry. “I felt like it’d be some sort of cognitive dissonance, knowing what I knew,” she says of her overnight switch. When she started posting vegan recipes on her Instagram page, Hannah…