It's Faux Meat Friday and we're starting early this morning with breakfast patties. Most of us know Beyond Meat from their burgers that are popping up on restaurant menus around the country, but they do more than beef, they've been expanding into recreating the pork experience as well. Let's look at the Beyond Meat breakfast sausage patties in the regular flavor. They also have spicy as an option in the world, but my store didn't.
Find these at Target, Publix, Walmart, Ingles, and other larger grocery retailers. It doesn't look like many regional chains are on the Beyond train.
My first reaction was... underwhelmed. I'm not one for overly packaging products, but I didn't expect to see these just hanging loose in the cardboard packaging. But they were. I carried on because I was about to apply heat to these, which would kill any rogue whatever that could have gotten through the cardboard. But if you're at the store, examine the boxes thoroughly to make sure there are no tears or perforations in the box, now that you also know they are just loose in there.
Because I need more for a weekend breakfast than just two sausage patties, I paired these with frozen potatoes o'brien. The potatoes aren't going back on my shopping list, that's for sure. If I want good hash browns, it's worth doing the chopping myself.
Beyond Meat Breakfast Sausage Patties
Brand: Beyond Meat
Meat Type: Pork
Taste: A little overly fennel-y, but not bad. No weird aftertaste or unexpected flavors.
Texture: I thought the texture was a bit too knobbly but Patrick said it was very closely resembling breakfast sausage texture. The warmer it is, of course, the softer it is, which may have helped my assessment. That being said, the texture is not gross or unappealing at all, like some fake meats can be.
Realisticness: ⅘
Rating: ♥♥♥ (⅗)
If you like well-flavored sausage, you're in for a treat. I would definitely not eat these on their own, but definitely pair it with potatoes, or in a biscuit, or maybe even crumble some up to make a vegetarian red eye gravy?! Maybe on a biscuit with a fried egg and cheese melted on top. Either way, these sausages are pretty good but they need friends to make them more interesting. And if you find the spicy flavor, you might find them even more exciting than the plain ones!
Read about other meat alternatives next.