Are Papa John’s Breadsticks Vegan?

In my mind, what separates a vegan friendly pizza chain, from one that’s not is the addition of vegan cheese to the menu. If you add a plant based meat, even better.

Papa John’s hasn’t done either yet, so for me, buying a pizza with just sauces and veggies doesn’t fire me up. But, what about their breadsticks?

Are Papa John’s Breadsticks Vegan?

In my opinion, the dough is the star of the show when it comes to a Papa John’s pizza anyway. Especially when that dough is dipped into their garlic sauce (vegan by the way!)

We did a deep dive into Papa John’s breadsticks to find the answer and it turns out Papa John’s Breadstick are vegan. So, go ahead and call up your local Papa John’s, order some breadsticks, get some Garlic Sauce and enjoy!

Now, if you’re someone who likes to know all the details, keep reading, we got you covered.

Papa John’s Breadsticks Ingredients

An ingredients list is always the first thing we like to go looking for when we start researching whether an item is vegan or not. Sometimes it’s not so easy to find one though and some places flat out won’t divulge the exact ingredients in their menu items to ‘protect the brand’.

Luckily, Papa John’s has convenient pages not only for their Ingredients List, but to their Allergen Page as well.

Not only are the breadsticks vegan, but we were pleasantly surprised when we saw how few ingredients there are:

• Unbleached enriched wheat flour
• Water
• Sugar
• Soybean oil
• Salt
• Yeast

Contains: Wheat

It’s easy to start to get numb to seeing the laundry list of ingredients in many fast food/fast casual menu items with a bunch of names that are hard to pronounce, let alone learn what they all are.

But, with Papa John’s Breadsticks, there are six ingredients that all look like, well, tangible items you can get at the grocery.

Are Papa John’s Garlic Knots Vegan?

Besides the Breadsticks, the Garlic Knots are the second most asked question that we get about Papa John’s and since they’re kind of close to breadsticks, we figured we’d go ahead and answer this one too.

Unfortunately, no, the Garlic Knots are not vegan. Unlike the Breadsticks, the Garlic Knots contain milk which stems from the addition of Parmesan cheese.

Unbleached, enriched wheat flour, water, sugar, soybean oil, salt, yeast, soybean oil, Parmesan cheese (pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), contains less than 2% of: vegetable mono & diglycerides, garlic, wheat starch, spices, natural flavors, onion, phosphoric acid, parsley, red bell pepper, soy lecithin, extractive of paprika, lactic acid, sodium benzoate (maintains freshness), calcium disodium EDTA (maintains freshness), citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene (color).

Contains: Milk, Wheat, Soy

Also, remember the praise we just gave the Breadsticks for the small amount of ingredients involved? Not so much for the Knots.

What Else is Vegan at Papa John’s

Now that we’ve established the breadsticks are vegan, is there anything else we can pair up with them?

Yes. For a complete list of everything vegan at Papa John’s, we suggest checking out our Papa John’s Vegan Guide, but here are a couple popular options.

First, if you’re looking for a dipping sauce for your breadsticks:

• Garlic Dipping Sauce
• Pizza Dipping Sauce
• BBQ Dipping Sauce
• Buffalo Dipping Sauce

Next, you can create your own pizza if you’re okay with no vegan cheese (maybe you add your own once it gets to the house – we’ve definitely done that before).

Go with the Original Crust and the regular Pizza Sauce then add your choice of veggies. Pro Tip: Find a special that allows you choose multiple toppings so you don’t have to pay for each one individually cause that can add up fast!

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