Greggs’ new vegan bake is a sopping mess

In May, the menu masterminds at Greggs made a shocking and controversial adjustment to their vegan options. The Vegan Steak Bake, just recently returned to pastry cabinets across the kingdom, was being discontinued. Twitter users—usually renowned for being a calm and collected bunch—took to the platform to express devastation:

But this wasn’t a retreat from vegan pastries, which have helped catapult Greggs to new levels of success since the introduction of the Vegan Sausage Roll in 2019. Instead, Greggs was making room in the case for the Vegan Mexican Chicken-free Bake.

Introduced last year and then yanked—perhaps wisely—from the menu, the Vegan Mexican Chicken-free Bake is part of a whole line of poorly thought-out Mexican-themed summer menu items. Anyone who has seen Mexican week on Great British Bake Off knows that British chefs do not have the best track record with the cuisine, and the food scientists at Greggs are no exception.

The Vegan Mexican Chicken-free Bake is, at its core, a salsa pocket. Sorry, not salsa—“Mexican style tomato sauce,” according to the Greggs website. Whatever you call this particular substance, the bake is absolutely soaking in it. It’s a miracle that this rectangle stays together long enough for it to be delivered to customers—it’s really a testament to the Greggs pastry recipe that the Vegan Mexican Chicken-free Bake does not suffer from the dreaded “soggy bottom.”

Swimming in the salsa are soy-based faux chicken pieces, mixed vegetables (allegedly), and 57% of an average adult’s daily intake of saturates. I don’t think I tasted a single vegetable in my bake—it supposedly includes sweetcorn, green and red peppers, and, confusingly, broccoli—which feels antithetical to capturing the essence of Mexican cuisine. Instead, it tastes like a lukewarm chicken soup. Where are my beans? Aren’t the Brits supposed to love beans?

I can’t stress this enough: the insides of the Vegan Mexican Chicken-free Bake are so watery, I cannot recommend trying to eat this on the go. I worry about down-on-their-luck vegans thinking they can grab a quick bite at the train station before that big interview that’ll get their lives back on track only to end up with Mexican style sauce dripping down their pressed white shirts.

Is the Vegan Mexican Chicken-free Bake a worthy replacement for the Vegan Steak Bake? Absolutely not. While it certainly has its fans amongst those who have never actually tasted salsa before, it simply isn’t good enough to be the only vegan bake option on the Greggs menu. No word on how long this national nightmare will continue, but if I had to guess, I’d predict that we’ll be saying adios to the Vegan Mexican Chicken-free Bake at the end of summer in time for a new seasonal treat/burden. You can trust Night Water will be there for a taste.