Let’s face facts. The trend toward a diet lower in red meat is here to stay. Partly this is a result of meat shortages brought on by worldwide population growth. Partly it’s because more and more people are moving toward healthful eating.
If you find these realities depressing, take heart. Manufacturers of “meatless” meat are getting better at their craft. Way back in 2017, we told you about “faux gras,” which our tasters approached with a healthy — but as it turns out unwarranted — dose of skepticism. The knock-off was pretty close to the real, and real decadent, thing.
Since that time, plant-based meat substitutes have upped their game. Nowadays, chances are pretty fair that when you taste something being billed as crumbled sausage, you’d swear you’re eating crumbled sausage.
That was our experience when we sampled two new meatless products put out by Veggies Made Great: Their Sausage & Pepper Frittata and their Sausage, Egg & Cheese Frittata. Both come frozen, ready to heat and eat, and both are made with Beyond Beef® Crumbles. (Yeah, go ahead and roll your eyes. We did too until we got down to the business of eating.)
But before getting to that, the logistics. The frittatas come individually wrapped in 12-ounce packages of six that sell for a suggested retail price of $5.99. Each frittata provides 90 or fewer calories and 5 or more grams of protein. Pretty good numbers.
We found both frittatas to be delightfully fluffy, savory, and satisfying. The Beyond Beef Crumbles did a first-rate job of mimicking the texture and flavor of Italian sausage.
The panel seemed to gravitate more toward the sausage and pepper variant of frittata, though we couldn’t put our finger on exactly why. The sausage and cheese variant was good — flecked with pockets of molten cheese — but it somehow just didn’t strike us as as good.
Veggies Made Great are available in the New York area at Harris Teeter and other select retailers. They can also be acquired online from the company website.
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