What’s better than a high-quality meal at a top-notch restaurant? A superior, restaurant-quality meal in the comforts of your home, courtesy of the magnificent folks at Rooted Vegan Cuisine!
What began as a humble, pop-up shop operation serving hot food, turned frozen food manufacturer, delivering flavor-packed, plant-powered meals to the San Antonio communities, and servicing grocery store and food service establishments with wholesale orders, has now evolved into a nationwide frozen food delivery business on a mission to prove that healthy, plant-based meals come at NO cost when it comes to taste.
Inspired by her love for Italian food, and informed by the culinary wisdom of seasoned chefs and her travels across Italy, self-taught home-chef, entrepreneur, founder, and co-owner of Rooted Vegan Cuisine, Naomi Hendrix Oyegoke, is elevating San Antonio’s vegan scene with its first-ever Italian cuisine Test Kitchen concept! She graciously chatted with the VEGWORLD team about her exciting journey to where she currently is, and the adventures yet to come.
VW: What sparked your interest in cooking?
NHO: I’ve been a passionate home chef my entire life. I even remember pretending to host my own food show as a little kid! My mom and I would enjoy pulling out different recipes from cookbooks and driving around The Hill neighborhood in St. Louis, where there is a prominent Italian population and plenty of small, family-owned Italian restaurants. We would eat our way through The Hill and it wasn’t long before I developed a deep love for Italian food, especially pasta. My travels took me around Italy, where I experienced some of my favorite cuisine in its motherland. Italian food has always had a special place in my heart and I’ve been committed to staying true to the essence of the cuisine while sharing my celebration of this culinary culture with my community!
VW: Given your love for celebrating diverse culinary experiences, how did going plant-based align with your passion for food?
NHO: During my early adulthood, I was briefly plant-based for personal health reasons. That was when I learned how to recreate plant-based versions of my childhood favorites. Those skills came in handy when I committed to becoming vegan for the ethics behind the lifestyle, and my family and I have never looked back! Along my journey to veganism, my dear family friend Yvette (IG: @vegan_in_san_antonio) opened my eyes to the ethics underlying veganism, while championing the food I’d prepare for her. Once I viewed being vegan as more than just for myself, but for the well-being of others, the writing on the wall was clear. My ventures in the kitchen proved that I could deliver high-quality, tasty meals without needing animal products. It was a beautiful, organic process in perfect alignment with my inner foodie!
VW: How did your journey inspire the founding of Rooted Vegan Cuisine with your business partner and husband?
NHO: Feeding people is my way of showing love. It brings me indescribable joy when I can deliver delicious, plant-based food to folks and see the look of amazement on their faces. My friend Yvette encouraged me to serve my food at local markets and pop-ups…the love I received from customers blew me away! My menus would vary, from soul food to Italian eats and beyond. But once the pandemic hit, we had to go back to the drawing board and reevaluate our strategy. Thankfully, our customer’s voices spoke! They continued to request my food–especially the lasagna–and we decided that we would drive around to deliver local food orders.
I began to curate my menu based on the most popular menu items that included lasagna, mozzarella sticks, and broccoli cheddar soup. We needed to adapt to creating a line of freezable foods that we would batch prepare and would maintain their integrity when it’s meal time. The Italian dishes we made successfully survived the freeze-thaw process and I found my answer to adapt our business to the current necessity. What started as a humble operation grew into a flexible Rooted Vegan Cuisine Test Kitchen concept where the customer’s taste buds guide our culinary creations!
VW: Can you tell us what customers can expect from the Italian meals you are currently offering?
NHO: They are in for a treat! Customers can get their hands on my plant-powered take on the Zuppa Toscana, pesto sauce, bolognese sauce, alfredo sauce, minestrone, spinach and cheese manicotti, our famous mozzarella sticks, lasagna, and more! We also have a sampler for 2 where patrons can taste a wide variety of our classics as well as lots of dishes from our new Test Kitchen menu. Our offerings will change based on consumer demand as we are also dedicated to a zero-food waste business ethos, by composting all our food waste along with a vast majority of our paper products. We deliver nationwide, so folks all across the United States can enjoy a high-quality, plant-fueled Italian feast!
VW: How has the local business community responded to your work?
NHO: They have been incredibly supportive! From day one, local vegan businesses have offered cooking spaces, collaborated with me for “kitchen takeover” events, and have carried Rooted Vegan’s products in their stores. I’m eternally grateful for the collaborative spirit in the San Antonio vegan community. Sure, competition in the market is inevitable, but I appreciate how my peers don’t let that get in the way of uplifting one another. At the end of the day, we are here to create a kind, compassionate, just world for all!
VW: Are there any sneaky details about future plans that you’re willing to share with us?
NHO: I believe in going with the flow and our current business model is easily adaptable to pivot to market and palate changes. Regardless, we will always remain committed to bringing delicious, healthy, plant-powered eats to the masses. So, our future is filled with busting the myths that tasty plant-based foods are boring, expensive, or inaccessible. We want to show that it’s the way for us, the animals, and the planet to thrive!
As a business, we deliver restaurant-quality frozen foods that are Rooted in Culture, Rooted in Plants, Rooted in Love. I will remain dedicated to respecting cuisines outside of my culture and pay homage to the ever-evolving nature of food. Naomi Hendrix Oyegoke
Co-Founder, Rooted Vegan Cuisine
We at VEGWORLD can guarantee that the food Chef Naomi makes will leave you speechless in the best way possible! Wait no more and shop for all the indulgent (yet healthy) and comforting goods on Rooted Vegan Cuisine’s website. Your taste buds will thank you and have you rushing back for thirds!
