Meatless Farm Co Plant Based Burgers Review

Absolutely nails the burger patty experience on every dimension - beautiful savoury flavour, more-ish meaty texture, and sears perfectly in the pan or on the grill.

Meatless Farm Co are a plant-based food alternative food company of UK origin. Their product line focusses on British meat classics like sausages, mince, and burgers made from pea protein. They believe that ‘meat-free doesn’t mean taste-free’, and recently refreshed their product line by adding hot-dogs and updating their recipes. Read on for our impressions of the new recipe and the product as a whole!

First impressions

Whilst we were very familiar with Meatless Farm Co’s range of delicious meat alternatives, we hadn’t gotten our hands on the products since they updated the recipes. What were the changes exactly? Well, it’s not totally clear, but based on what it says on the website, the recipe update purpose was to remove an allergen. Our best guess is soy, as they are now advertised as soy-free.

The plant-based burgers come in packs of two. Whilst we love getting as much for our money as possible, the Meatless Farm burgers are quite thick and offer a satisfying volume per pack. A larger pack of 4 plant-based burgers would be nice, especially for a BBQ when we’re finally treated to some sun, but we won’t hold it against you Meatless Farm Co!

To cook our Meatless Farm Co burgers, we chose the classic route - proper burger buns, vegan mayo from Inspired Vegan, Iceberg lettuce, tomato, caramelised onions, a gherkin, and some tomato sauce to top it off. Keep reading for our full thoughts on the product.

Taste

What can we say… they absolutely nailed it. The burgers taste perfect. A juicy, salt and black pepper flavour with a smoky undertone. There’s a hint of something caramelised in there too, which all together rounds off the classic burger-patty taste. It’s almost hard to describe - that kind of savoury, right-off-the-barbecue charred aroma that you might recognise from your meat-eating days.

We used minimal seasoning when frying the burgers in a lightly-oiled pan, adding only some sea salt and black pepper. You could add paprika, onion powder, or garlic powder to heighten the flavour intensity, but they work well as is.

Because of the flavour profile, their use is pretty limited in scope - if you’re buying Meatless Farm Co plant-based burgers, you better put them in a burger! They perfectly complement the tastes of classic burger fillings, however, if you’re feeling adventurous, you could maybe cut them up and use them in a pasta dish or a salad. If you do, definitely make sure to let us know how that goes.

Texture

Looking at the patties straight out of the package and uncooked, you will definitely see the resemblance to real beef. They have a reddish hue that originates from their use of Beetroot, though of course the burger does not ‘bleed’ (which, in our opinion, is a good thing).

We cooked them for about 6 minutes on each side, lightly drizzling olive oil if they started to appear dry. The patties took on a really pleasing brown colour as they cooked, which would look even better if you used a lined-grill. We managed to get the patties to the point where the outside was lightly charred, and the inside was piping hot and juicy.

The burgers were soft to bite through but provided some satisfying chewy resistance on the inside, just like real meat. When you bite into it, the patties release their delicious smoky juices and the flavour really begins to shine. Overall, the texture is basically indistinguishable from real meat, or so we’re told. Speaking of which, read on to find out our resident non-vegan’s impression of the burgers.

Non-vegan impression

As is tradition, we got our token non-vegan to taste the burgers in all their glory, to get a thorough evaluation of their quality from the valuable perspective of a real meat-eater.

Here’s what they had to say:

“They are very delicious! I did mine in the pan and had them on their own. They browned up on the outside really nicely, although they did stick to the pan a bit. I’ll probably use more oil next time. The taste and texture is great though, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between these and the real thing in a blind taste-test”.

There we have it.

Nutritional profile

As we mentioned, Meatless Farm Co burgers are a pea-protein based meat alternative. This makes them perfect for people with soy allergens but still very high protein. They are also gluten free, which is fantastic for celiacs or those avoiding gluten. They boast 17.1 grams of protein per 100 grams in a 200 gram pack, so it’s 17.1 grams of protein per-patty.

Here is the full list of ingredients and nutritional breakdown:

Water, pea protein (19%), rapeseed oil, shea oil, Thickener: methyl cellulose, coconut oil, rice protein, pea fibre, yeast extracts, caramelised carrot concentrate, fruit and vegetable extracts (beetroot, radish, tomato), natural flavourings, potato fibre, potato starch, salt, ground black pepper, carrot concentrate, smoked water, Acidity Regulator: ascorbic acid.

(per 100g)

Energy kcal 230

Fat 14.8g

of which saturates 4.7g

Carbohydrate 5.3g

of which sugars 0.3g

Fibre 3.7g

Protein 17.1g

Salt 1.49g

Conclusion

We don’t want to be overly dramatic, but this is what burger perfection looks and tastes like. They have managed to produce a realistic vegan beef burger from pea protein that tastes exactly the same as the real thing. It’s what every ‘future food’ company should aspire to - familiar to the general consumer, does not require the suffering of animals, and much healthier than the animal product alternative.

And as for taste? They absolutely nail the burger patty experience on every dimension - beautiful savoury flavour, more-ish meaty texture, and sears perfectly in the pan or on the grill.

They’re kosher, soy-free, gluten-free, and 100% vegan. That’s usually limiting for food brands, but that couldn’t be less true with this offering. We should have expected as much based on the rest of the Meatless Farm Co product range.

For convenience only, it would be nice if they offered a four-pack version, but they are at a price-point where that’s not a huge concern. For our money, this is the best vegan burger product on the UK market right now.

Like the sound of that? We loved Meatless Farm Co plant-based burgers so much we put them in one of our hampers - The Vegan Meatfeast, an assortment of meat imitation products including burgers, bacon, steak, and jerky to satisfy those meat cravings and keep your incisors sharp ;)

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