Five Sharp

Dairy-free Sunday dinners

Most Sunday dinners are dairy-free until the last five minutes, when the butter goes into the sauce and the cream into the mash. The plans here were checked at that level — every component, every finishing step — and a plan appears only when nothing dairy is in it anywhere. Cuisines that cook in oil and coconut milk rather than butter and cream do most of the work: Vietnamese, Thai, Japanese, much of the Mediterranean. Almost-fits are listed below with the one dish that keeps them off the page.

What counts: No milk, cream, butter, cheese, yogurt or ghee in any component. Coconut, oat and nut milks and plant butters are fine, and so are eggs.

47 plans in the Sunday Gallery.

What dairy-free plans look like

Most common mains

  • chicken12
  • fish11
  • beef7
  • pork7
  • shellfish6

How they're cooked

  • Grilled12
  • Stir-fried10
  • Pan-seared6
  • Curry5
  • Baked3

Cuisines

  • Japanese7
  • Chinese6
  • Korean6
  • Thai5
  • Caribbean3

Diets they fit

  • Dairy-free47
  • Nut-free39
  • Pescatarian11
  • Gluten-free10
  • No pork, no alcohol4

The plans

Almost fits

These plans fit everywhere except one dish. The reason is shown so you can decide. They are not counted above.

Showing the 24 most recent of 63.

Cooking methods common in dairy-free plans

Want a plan like these for your Sunday?

Five Sharp builds the whole dinner — recipes, timeline and shopping list — around what your household actually eats.