With such a wide variety of imitation chicken and other meats available on supermarket shelves, never has there been a better opportunity to become a vegetarian or vegan.
There are so many fake meat products available, and sometimes, it can be difficult to tell the difference between the real meat and the vegan products. This is great news for those who wish to become vegan, but feel they could never give up on meat.
In this article, we will look into vegan chicken, and what it is made out of. We will also answer (honestly) whether vegan chicken tastes like real chicken, and whether its flavor will satisfy your craving for real meat.
So, let’s get into it.
Does Vegan Chicken Taste Like Real Chicken?
If you have either recently become a vegan, or you’re debating whether to become a vegan or vegetarian, you may be struggling with the fact that you’ll have to leave your favorite food behind.
Following this, you may be wondering if vegan meat even tastes like meat at all.
Well, it depends.
There are many different types of vegan meat, including vegan chicken, and some of them don’t taste like meat at all. However, when it comes to fake meat, it is not always the flavor that matters.
After all, think about KFC: is it the chicken that you love the flavor of, or is it the 11 secret herbs and spices used to coat the chicken that you’re in love with?
Ultimately, flavor is not the issue with fake meat. More often than not, it is the texture that matters. You can use seasonings to flavor these products, but if the texture isn’t right, you’re not going to feel like you are eating ‘real meat’.
So, to answer a question that you may not have asked (‘Does vegan chicken feel like real chicken?’)… again, it really depends.
A lot of vegan chicken products do not have the same texture as real chicken, but some do a really great job at recreating the consistency.
Therefore, ultimately, the flavor and texture will all depend on what product and/or brand you are purchasing. We will dig a little deeper into this later on in this article.
The Typical Ingredients Found In Vegan Meat
If you examine the list of ingredients of your subsequent transaction of meat substitutes, you might notice a handful of often used substances because of the wide variety.
Vegan beef, vegan pork, and vegan chicken will all be prepared differently, but they will all typically contain a few of the same components.
A few of these common ingredients found in vegan meat are:
- Soy
- Seitan
- Tofu
- Wheat
- Mycoprotein
- Quinoa
- Hemp
- Sodium
What Is Vegan Chicken?
Depending on where you acquire your vegan chicken, you may find that different ingredients have been used to create it. Subsequently, you will find that there are many different types of ‘vegan chicken’.
Below, we have listed four of the most common types of vegan chicken.
Quorn
Quorn is arguably the most popular chicken substitute for vegans and vegetarians alike. It is produced from a fungus that is fed the necessary essential nutrients to assist its development and is grown in large containers.
After that, it is collected to make mycoprotein.
The mycoprotein is then boiled for a very lengthy moment when making vegetarian meats. It then gets refrigerated, giving it a harder consistency.
The result is a product without much flavor, but with a fairly similar consistency to real chicken, which is why it is so popular.
Vegan Chicken Seitan
Seitan is the foundation of several commonly produced vegan products. Its texture is rich and spongy like bread, and it typically has soy sauce or tamari, which itself is soy sauce devoid of wheat, as a flavoring.
By washing the starch out of the wheat dough, seitan is created. It can be made manually only whole wheat flour or vital wheat gluten. For vegans who miss the flavor of chicken, seitan can taste very close to actual chicken when prepared properly.
Soy Chicken
There are a few various ways to prepare soy chicken, such as nuggets and tenders. Since soy typically doesn’t have much flavor within itself, anything you prepare it in typically imparts flavor to it.
Because of the substantial moisture content, the consistency and appearance of the soy protein composition resemble chicken.
Soy chicken is made by extracting the protein from soy flour. Water and protein are mixed, heated, and then expelled via an extrusion cylinder.
Tempah Chicken
A classic soy food from Indonesia, tempeh frequently includes beans like soybeans. An organic culturing and regulated fermentation process is used to bond the soybeans into a cake-like consistency.
Typically, tempeh is steamed, mixed with a vegan spice mixture like chicken, and then deep-fried in oil until the exterior is crunchy.
Final Thoughts
In a nutshell, there are many types of vegan meat, with the most popular option being Quorn. Most of these products are made with similar ingredients, such as soy, seitan, tofu, and mycoprotein.
If you’re a huge fan of chicken, but you want to become vegan, you will want to find a meat substitute that not only tastes very similar to chicken, but also has a similar consistency.
Trust us when we say that, when it comes to vegan meat, texture is way more important than flavor.
We hope you found this article helpful.
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Calories is not a dirty word. If you remove emotion from it, it is simply a unit of energy.
We need calories to live and thrive, and knowing how many to consume is important to ensure that you’re living a healthy lifestyle.
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