To ask which vegetarian/meatless products are a hit/miss?

[MissContrary]

Especially at Tescos. Can you still cook things like the mince in the slow cooker?

My husband, the avid meat eater who regularly bemoans vegetarians (much to my annoyance) has been abducted by aliens and replaced with a husband who wants to eat less meat due to the environmental impact

I'm not a fan of jackfruit tbh.

Linda McCartney mozzarella burgers & fake scampi are good

Iceland no bull burgers are fab - they have just expanded their range to include no bull mince, meatballs, no porkies sausages and a chicken substitute.

Quorn nuggets are usually ok.

I need to expand my veggie repertoire- when I eat out the food is fab, so I know it can be done, but living with meat eaters this is the easiest way of managing cooking food for all.

Still searching for a decent recipe for buffalo cauliflower wings!

Quorn fillets are utterly tasteless alone, but if you marinade them all day in wine, oil, soy sauce, garlic, miso paste, anything else brown really, and then fry it up, it's delish.

@MissContrary he might tell you that about 70% of soy production is fed to livestock

Cauldron sausages and falafel are going.
Quite southern fries are quite nice as are the chicken chunks.
These are all good for speed but look for recipes without meat or substitutes if your looking for nice flavourful food.Lentils can also be used for mist recipes that call for mince and defiantly nicer than soya or quote.
I also think tofu should be given a very wide berth but pander is nice cut into chunks in a curry.

I don't use many of them - but of the quorn products I;d say the mince is OK, as are the burgers and sausages. I dislike all the Linda Mccartney stuff - find it very salty and weird in taste ane texture.

I tend to use puy lentils as a substitute for mince in any mince dish (it makes lovely shepherds pies, 'meat'loaf, etc) I use red lentils to make burgers and little sausage things.
I use tofu in stir fries - you really need to drain it well and marinade it, it takes up other flavours, but on it's own is tasteless. I always by firm tofu, I find the silken stuff a bit 'wet' - but you can use that in desserts or smoothies. I slice marinaded tofu, coat it in seasoned flour and shallow fry until golded - it's lovely and crispy.

Most pulses can be mashed and used to make burgers or some sort of loaf/roast. I also use nuts for that type of thing.

And I'm not vegan so I use vegetarian cheese and eggs to bind things, give flavour etc.
Halloumi is usually fine for vegetarians it's not generally made using rennet, and is good for vegetable kebabs, or again grilled and served with veg or salad, It's a good 'meaty' cheese, by which I mean it holds its shape and doesn't melt when you cook it.

notacooldad I can get tinned jackfruit from Sainsbury’s online. Get the young stuff, not ripe. And I disagree with people saying it’s not a good meat substitute – I’ve used it in place of pulled pork and my partner said he wouldn’t have known it wasn’t meat. It’s fairly flavourless and absorbs flavours well. I’ve used it in everything from fajitas to slow-cooker Thai curry. Trying it in gyros is next on my list!

Sains shroom dogs are lovely !

I haven't found any of the meat substitutes to be even close to pleasant (with the exception of Quorn Swedish style meatballs in a very strongly flavoured sauce). The Linda McCartney range tastes particularly horrible to me.

I prefer to use lentils and beans. I'm going to hunt down some jackfruit though . I used to make french fries with it but I haven't seen a fresh one for years.

I like quorn too and the best is the roast , if you cook it and cut it up for curry it's great . Much nicer than the frozen cubes ! I really like Linda McCartney mozzarella burgers too.
I don't miss meat at all .

I like vivera steaks.

A lot of people like “No Bull” burgers at Iceland and I like their “No Chick” Fillets.

Ps that’s fab about your husband! Mine started as veggie for the environment then went vegan for the animals

@PurpleTigerLove the point is it’s not actual meat? So better for environment for OPs husband or for vegans they like it because it’s not a dead animal.

I’ve heard good things about naturli mince available at sainsburys. Would second Macsween veggie haggis a PP mentioned.

@Igletpiglet re environmental impact of soy- given that 90% of it is fed to animals it may have played a part in his decision to eat less meat.

Macsween vegetarian haggis is now made with palm oil. Why FFS. I won't buy it now.

+1 for jackfruit - it’s really good in a pulled pork style dish or in a fish stew style dish.

If you want to see how amazing veggie / vegan food can be, have a meal at redemption in shoreditch.

Iceland has a great curry range with lots of vegetarian options. I forget the name (I’ve eaten all of the ones I had in the freezer) but you can get 4 things for a fiver. The kale bhajis, yellow lentil Dahl and potato and pea curry ones are my favourites.

I have just stuffed half a pack of quorn picnic eggs after work. Their vegetarian pepperoni is really nice too. I also rate the southern fried burgers and chicken pieces. Linda McCartney country style pies are good.

Gail's butter bean pie is a nice recipe from the vegetarian society if you Google it.

Cauldron are a good make (can't eat quorn myself)

Cauldron sausages (chilled cabinet, not frozen).

Falafel (Tesco sometimes do frozen Basics falafel, but Cauldron’s are nice , or DIY).

Quorn “chicken” pie.

I don’t really like other Quorn stuff. Meatballs are ok.

I use tinned green lentils in place of mince.

@lexer your article on the dangers of soy is based on research by someone who was former Vice President of the Vice President of the Weston A. Price Foundation. They are funded by the animal agriculture industry and actively push for more meat and dairy to be consumed so their anti soy stance is unsurprising.

There is lots of unbiased peer reviewed information out there showing that soy is perfectly safe.

That cauliflower goulash recipe looks lovely (and I'm not a real cauliflower fan).

And indeed other articles they use to support their claims don’t actually support them “Consuming foods containing soy protein or taking soy protein products is LIKELY SAFE.” www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-975/soy

Avoid vegan Quorn (unless you are vegan!) the Vegetarian version is much nicer. We use the mince in spag bol and chilli, and the chicken bits in fajitas.

Quorn burgers are nice (the fat quarter pounders are better than the thinner ones which dry up) as well as the chicken burgers (not that dissimilar to a McDonald's one). And the fat herby sausages.

I don't like their ham or mini chipolata substitutes as they are too salty, but love their scotch eggs!

I'm still experimenting with tofu, the best I've found so far is the Tofoo brand.

I like Tesco's spicy bean burgers, and nut cutlet burgers and I think it's Asda who do nice frozen mushroom, spinach and mozarella bakes. One of the supermarkets also does a nice moroccan tagine in a pie type thing too.

Now I'm really hungry!

I really don’t like Linda Mc burgers, particularly the mozerella ones.