I am about to try plant based meats for the first time tomorrow.
I know that I have to try it myself in order to see if I like it or not personally. But I just want a slight second opinion from those who eat veggie/plant-based meats.
I am only trying to eat those types of meats because of dietary issues. See, I had weight loss surgery in April of this year and I still can’t have certain food just yet. Red meats and pork is one of those things.
So, until I can eat red meats again. I have to make due with plant-based meats.
What are your thoughts on this topic?
I understand that plant-based meats are not the same as real meats. Still, I need another alternative meat to eat other than chicken and turkey all the time. I do eat fish, but even that becomes boring after a while.
Any thoughts? Let me know the taste
I don’t care if you might not find it helpful or not, that is purely up to me and me alone.
i’m literally not kidding
back in 7th grade i used to eat plant based products for breakfast and it didn’t really taste like meat?? it tasted plantlike idk how yo describe it
Had veg/plant based meats a few times cause one of my best friends is vegetarian. Let’s just say I only tolerate it when I have to if there are absolutely no other options because WOW does it taste bad ;-; That’s really the only way I can describe it. Well, “bad” and “ew” but my vegetarian friends claim they taste quite nice
Veggie burgers don’t taste like burgers, but they’re good in a really different way. Like. The texture is surprisingly close, and the taste is sorta spiced?? Reminds me weirdly of cabbage rolls sometimes.
Veggie hot dogs scare me.
The best meat-free foods are the ones that never relied on meat to begin with. I like cooking, and substituting can get a bit iffy sometimes, so I’ll use recipes that never really involved meat. I cook a lot of mushrooms or paneer dishes.
I know you said no turkey/chicken/fish recommendations, but honestly, as someone who’s only stopped eating red meat in the last like 2 years, every base ingredient is extremely versatile, and you won’t get bored the way you’re expecting to. Also, when it comes to overly processed things like sausages or meatballs, you won’t notice the difference.
If you’re expecting your plant based meats to taste just like meats, you’ll be disappointed. Expect and understand the substitutes to be something close, but different. It’s like ice cream vs sorbet. Same general idea, but you’re not gonna mistake one for the other.
I was ovo-lacto for 5 years, still can’t eat red meat or pork. Morningstar veggie hotdogs taste better than any dirty water hotdog made from pigeon toes.
In general, it tastes like poor meat substitutes, a notch below bad cafeteria food, but for me it was close enough. The main difference is the texture, it’s much less sinewy than real meat. More squishy, less chewy.
Try beans, eggs, steel cut oatmeal, and soy-based products? Careful on tofu, it has phytoestrogens in them.
I’ll never eat a veggie burger ever again. It doesn’t taste anything even remotely like meat, but it doesn’t taste like veggies either. I don’t know how to describe it actually, except that it tastes terrible. (>▂<)
So have you had time to try it yourself yet? If so, what did you think? Don’t be swayed by what others think; maybe you’ll like it…? Lots of people do, for some unfathomable reason. ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
Quorn is the only good substitute that actually tastes like what it’s meant to be mimicking. Their chicken nuggets actually taste like chicken, and their mince isn’t actually a lousy substitute for real mince.
As for other brand sausages, some of those can be a bit too close to plant, and not meaty enough. Almost falafel-like, as opposed to “meaty”, but they’re harder to mimic.
Veggie burgers aren’t bad tasting, but not even close to meat, but the beetroot burgers aren’t bad if you cook them right and slather sauce on them. They can be a bit dry.
As I read these comments, I am even more afraid to try it.
Geez! I only have six months after my surgery which was in April of this year to try red meats again.
I honestly don’t remember the taste of meat. I haven’t had it since I was… 8? Grew up vegetarian in a vegan family due to my younger brother’s dietary restrictions - it just made it easier on the family if we all ate the same as him, you know? I was only vegetarian because it made it easier to eat over at friend’s houses. So I grew up with veggie meats more or less.
But one thing I do know, is that you don’t eat them expecting them to taste like meat. They’re their own thing.
A lot of fake meat products are made out of wheat gluten or textured vegetable protein, which are both relatively tasteless, and so spices are added to give them flavor. They taste like whatever the spices are, which are usually easy to find on the ingredients list (so if you like the spices, you’ll probably like the taste of the fake meat). Wheat gluten and TVP are both kinda spongy and springy in texture, and they can get dry VERY fast when you’re cooking them. The key with cooking veggie meats is to just warm them up. You don’t want to cook them up as much as you would normal meat, or you’re just going to have a dry chewy thing that’s not very appetizing. But if you pull them off as soon as they start getting hot, you’re good to go.
My favorite fake meats are:
Morning Star crumbles (I’ve been told that when it’s put into something very flavorful like chili or korean bbq, people can’t tell the difference between it and crumbled beef - but I wouldn’t be able to deny or confirm it since I haven’t had ground beef before), their breakfast sausages and chicken strips;
Most Gardein products (just not their veggie burgers or pork) especially the mandarin chick’n because the sauce is SO good. It’s like a orange lime sauce, and the fake chicken actually turns out crispy if you bake it (it sticks, so I like to put down aluminum foil and some PAM), and I actually have some of this in my freezer to make tonight lol.
Quorn chicken is really good, but I don’t care for their other products. I honestly don’t buy it often. I hear this tastes the closest to chicken, like Johnny said and when I cooked it for the first time, my dad actually asked me if I decided not to be a vegetarian because it smells exactly like chicken too. My dad did say that the texture is still far off, though. So if you want a fake meat that tastes very familiar to you, this is a decent choice.
Upton’s Seitan is good, too. (I think that’s the brand I buy, I can’t remember, it’s been a while since it’s rather expensive). They have a BBQ one that’s really good. If you don’t know what Seitan is, it’s literally just plain wheat gluten that’s heavily seasoned or sauced. It can be dense and very high in sodium, so definitely don’t eat it often, but I find it absolutely delicious and it’s probably my favorite fake meat type - though my friends growing up always found it super weird since it’s not something you could ever make visually appealing. It’ll always look like a brain and there’s nothing you can do about it. I rarely have been successful with getting friends to try it. My one friend who did loved it though.
The Burger King Impossible burger is… good. It’s not my favorite of the veggie burgers, but I think it’s a really good first try with fake meats, since the flavor will be very familiar, and supposedly the texture is close according to my meat-eating classmates. But the dryness of it is hit or miss, and is inevitably why I say it’s not my favorite. Some stores just cook the crap out of it lol.
Anyway, this is way too long xD
tldr; the best fake meat to start with will be the impossible burger (and honestly probably the morning star crumbles, too, since they kind of take on whatever the recipe needs of them. I’ve never had complaints making veg chili or korean bbq beef with it, and most people don’t realize it’s fake meat until I tell them). And yes, the texture will never be quite the same, so you have to go into it with an open mind.