I cook a lot of vegetarian/vegan meat supplements and they almost always have the same hurdles you have to get over to make them really good.
For one, most need some kind of fat added during the cooking process. A lot of recipes that are traditionally meat based are relying on fats from the meat to bring the recipe together. Since most meat replacements are mainly just vegetables or bean based, they need a little extra oil in the sauce or when pan frying to make a well rounded dish.
Another issue is that a lot of them can be texturally homogeneous. To fix this, if the sausages are a little too soft or mushy, you really want to double cook them. I will usually air fry them with a little oil coating them, let them cool back down and then add them into my saute or sauce.
A simple recipe that I do at home with veggie sausage
Airfry sausage with a spray of oil
Slice up an onion and saute in a wok or pan with a neutral oil -high heat
Once onions are translucent and beginning to brown turn down heat to low/medium and add sauce mixture
Sauce mixture - amount differs with how much you plan on making
40ml soy sauce
200ml water
15ml sugar
15ml vinegar
15ml cornstarch
15ml sesame oil.
Once sauce thickens add in sausages
Add msg to taste.
Msg is a magical ingredient for vegetarian or vegan cooking because it mimics the umami protein found in meat. It’s especially great for cooking for people who still eat meat.
Where I’m from, we usually braise them with salt, sugar, soy sauce, and herbs. Or you can stir-fry slices with chilli and vegetables.
Sautee with some garlic, onions, ginger and tandoori curry paste, remove sausages, add tomato paste and stock or coconut milk. Cook until sauce thickens. Add salt and sugar to taste. Add sausages. Serve with fries. German Currywurst
I can taste the bland just looking at that.
That’s weird.
Usually meat substitutes are over-salted, and should at least taste salty if nothing else.
Try a different brand or a different product entirely.
There are plenty of vegetarian meat substitutes out there.
Otherwise, as others have said, you’re going to have to make up the lack of flavor with some kind of sauce.
Or just learn to enjoy how vegetarian food tastes different from meat products, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for your health.
I went through something of a ‘veggie sausage’ phase, but I later got to thinking that they’re probably nowhere near as healthy as they might seem. Not just because of the high salt content, but because they’re also highly-processed, and highly-processed food just isn’t that great nutrition-wise, in general.
These soy sausages are highly processed food and not healthy because of a few green flower logos.
Curried sausages is an Aussie rice dish that normally uses beef sausages. I reckon it could be adapted to these.
Edit: https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/curried-sausages-2/74f6bdac-9ca0-4a0a-b74d-7c29be47b0bd
The vegetarian the sausages were harvested from probably needs to move less so the fats can form.
I just smother bland, overcooked, or bitter vegetables with A1 so I can at least force myself to eat them.
Make a slurry of liquid/coconut aminos and a thickener to coat them in before cooking to intensify the “grilled meat” profile. Maybe add some maple syrup to the slurry if you’re doing a breakfast sausage. As a former resident of the American south I’d also be remiss if I didn’t suggest serving them with a white pan gravy over biscuits.
I’d suggest trying to cook them in something with plenty of spices. Soy is pretty flavorless on its own, but it usually takes on the flavor of whatever you’re cooking it in pretty well. I personally associate the flavors of fennel seed and sage with sausage, at least the kind of Italian sausage usually sold in the US, so you could try those in, for example, a pasta sauce, but otherwise I’d just suggest trying it in your favorite highly-spiced dish.
By buying proper sausages
Inflicting that shit on yourself is like going to a brothel for a cuddle
Hey that’s the only way I can visit my grandma.
I’ll say hi to her during my next visit
Oh you cuddle with her too?
I have to make her feel better after the things we do together
Aftercare still matters, even if the Alzheimer’s means that she won’t really remember it
It’s just the right thing to do
Really makes you wonder about the ethical implication of a sex worker with Alzheimer’s doesn’t it?
I’ll leave that to the philosophers
They seem to be dancing around the implications of having an orange shit-gibbon with dementia as well as pathological narcissism in the white house, to no avail
I would do a stir fry with something like these, slice them into coins, toss in a hot pan, add in some veggies like green beans or snow peas, and stir fry until tender. Then do some kind of flavorful stock or a seasoned soy sauce thickened with a bit of corn or potato starch. That’ll likely help with the blandness of the soy sausages.
Add more MSG?
Get a nice chili oil or some other kind of sauce. Try a mild dumpling sauce if you don’t like spicy foods.
Try frying them in bacon grease.
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