We Tried All The Plant-Based Meat Alternatives—These Are The Best

You've definitely seen plant-based meat alternatives like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers in restaurants or at your local meat counter. But as an avid carnivore, I had never really tried any of them. So I did what any great reporter does and went to my local grocery store and spent almost $100 on all of the options I could find. I got plant-based bacon, breakfast sausage, burgers, chicken nuggets and more so I could try them out and see which ones are the best based on how close they taste to actual meat products.

Here's what I learned: It comes down to texture! You can add all the spices in the world to a blend of soy and seitan, but if the texture is too smooth, too lumpy, too soft, too squishy, too grainy, or too hard, it is going to completely throw off the eater (aka me!). These are the products that nail the flavor and the texture almost too well. Some of them were so good that if I did a blind taste test, I would think they were the real thing.

I judged each selection on texture, flavor, and appearance, and this is how they stacked up.

Best breakfast sausage alternative: Beyond Breakfast Sausage

Best burger alternative: Impossible Burger

Best ground beef alternative: Beyond Burger

Best chicken nugget alternative: The Alpha Nugget Chik'n

Best sausage alternative: Beyond Sausage Hot Italian