Soya mince

[speedymama]

I saw this in Holland & Barrett and decided to buy it as I want to reduce the number of meat based meals that we eat in the evening. That was two weeks ago and the packet is still unopen.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to do with it and I don't know what it tastes like so if anyone can provide tips on how to use it, edible recipes that they would eat themselves, it will be much appreciated.

TIA

What sort of soya mince do you have? Some are nicer than others. Best way I eat it is like so...Fry onion and garlic in a pan (always a good start to any meal I find), add tin kidney beans, tin chopped tomatoes, vegemince, add a little water as the mince soaks up liquid (I sometimes add a stock cube), and lots of cumin. I eat this in taco shells with rice and home made guacomole (sp?). Quite nice, and I am not really a mince fan.

basically use it as youd use mince.as a replacment.my children and myself are veggie but dh isnt so i feed him this so he can pretend to eat mince!

I'd make a sort of spag bol - onions, carrots, tin of toms etc. Quite quick to do.

You could also put that kind of mixture into a stuffed pepper.

Does it actually taste like mince and would a confirmed carnivore be able to distinguish it from the real thing?

i think it does but cant realy remember what meat tastes like,have been veggie for 16 years.dh cant tell its not meat if i dont tell him,but if i say its veggie he swears it tastes funny!it depends on what type/make you got too?

Don't overcook it though, it only really needs heating through, much quicker than meat (not that I've ever cooked real meat mince!)

if you add a can of toms to it remebr to reduce ammount of liquid you add to it

I don't know if it would pass for real mince, so don't expect it to, iyswim. Just take it as a nice tasty meal in itself.

You can use it as you would normally, in cottage pie, spag bol, chilli con carne, pie fillings etc, just make sure it's seasoned well and has lots of flavoursome ingredients added, as one of the worst things about it is it can be a bit bland.

Also, as it has no fat in it, it can stick to the frying pan, so unless your pan is considerably better than mine, it does need some olive oil and lots of stirring to save it sticking.

And as people have said, it doesn't need as much cooking as real mince, you just fry onion and garlic, chuck in the mince and stir it til the ice crystals have melted all over it, then chuck in your other ingredients and cooking liquids, chopped tomatoes/gravy/chilli, whatever and cook as usual.

If you're looking for non meat dinner ideas, quorn meatballs are delicious, my carnivore dp loves them with tomato and basil sauce and pasta. Also quorn southern fried "chicken style" burgers are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Fake hotdogs are great because as real hotdogs have such a low actual meat content they're easy to replicate (just make sure you boil them, don't microwave)

Quorn sausages are very low fat and great when you're dieting because they're also very filling. You can also get chicken or beef style pieces for curries etc, and allsorts of other things in supermarkets.

The only thing you need to avoid is the fake bacon. It's not realistic at all, not tasty. At best it's limp strips of soggy ham flavoured cardboard, at worst it's dry bacon flavoured crisp type strips which snap when you eat them. Avoid.

Thanks all. Like the sound of meatballs. I make tuna meatballs with tomato sauce and DH loves that so will give soya mince a go.

I suppose the seasonings that I should use to disguise the blandness include salt, pepper, herbs, chilli?

Also, do you think I could make a meatloaf equivalent with it? DH likes that too as well as the old favourites like cottage pie, spag bol etc.

I don't know what type of soya mince it is but I bought it from Holland & Barrett so it should be good quality.

Is it the chilled one by Redwood, the frozen one by Realeat or the dried one?

It is the dried one. I took it from one of their shelves.

I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole, tbh
there are plenty of pulse based dishes that are full of protein that don't need "blag meat" as one of my Scourse clients used to call it.

I have used red lentils disguised in soups etc but brown lentils are more difficult to disguise. Tried making a cottage pie with it and DH was unimpressed as were 3yo DTS.

I thought something like soya mince might be a useful stop gap in the conversion process.

Dried in a packet, is it? I have no experience of using that, apart from the odd emergency packet of beanfeast. I was talking about frozen quorn mince. imho, quorn is generally superior to other fake meat brands, but realeat is pretty good.

Yes it is dried and in a packet. Beginning to regret buying this now....

yes, brown lentils just don't mush down enough to go with the mashed potatoes

what about Mexican or Latin American cooking? A panolply of pulses abounds

I have a Mexican book but the only pulses it covers are black beans for black bean rice.

I need a rethink.

I have to admit dried soya mince isn't my first choice but, imho, it's tasteless rather than offensive iyswim. In a nice tasting, robust sauce it's OK.

The dried one can be a little bland. Why don't you go back and buy the chilled Redwood one if it's there? It is very good, no hydrogenated oils and contains omega 3s and 6s.