Pre-note: When I mention “imitation products”, I mean a food item that is trying to exactly replicate a non vegan item. Something like a black bean burger is not an imitation production, it’s just an alternative.
I was bored so I started creating a tier list of vegan products and how closely they imitate non vegan products. I was trying to keep the list genericized with less emphasis on specific brands, but for some items the brand was really important.
What would you move around? What would you add? I only have a few items so far. I’ll update the list as comments come in.
S tier - practically indistinguishable
- Beef burgers (impossible, beyond)
- Breakfast sausages (impossible, beyond)
- Chicken nuggets/patties
- Mayo
A tier - you can tell it’s different but it’s just as good
- Queso dip (cashew based)
- Ground beef (impossible, beyond)
- Egg (just egg)
- Butter
- Milk
- Ice cream
B tier - you can tell it’s different and it’s a slight downgrade
- Deli cheese slices (some brands are C or F)
C tier - you can tell it’s different and it’s okay but a significant downgrade
- Cream cheese (most brands)
- Pizza
F tier - you can tell it’s different and it’s not good
- Beef jerky
C TIER?!?!?
Y’all making your pizza wrong. I totally agree that most of the frozen gardien pies are basically cardboard, but that is true for all frozen pizza.
Try making your own with Myokos mozzarella, or use this guys dupe. It’s flipping delicious!
Big disagree about burgers and jerky.
Those beyond/impossible meats are fine I guess, but they’re not good. Weird taste, long lingering aftertaste. Solid C+ in my opinion.
While I prefer vegan jerky actually. That super tough peppery gluten jerky (pleather brand is what I’ve been getting) is great, as are the softer soy or mushroom jerkies. They are different, so no shade if you don’t like them, but there’s no tier for ‘you can tell the difference, and they taste better’.
Nuggets idk much about, as I’m not really a fan. Same with mayo.
Milk is another one where oat milk is better tasting than dairy milk imo.
agree about cheese generally. I can’t have nuts, so I’ve never had cashew queso, but that queso you can make with potatoes and carrots, while sounding weird, is actually pretty great. Maybe A- tier imo.
Idk what kind it is but I used to get some jerky from loving hut and it was extremely good. You could tell it was different, but it was still amazing, like better than most beef jerky. When I was in college my non vegan friends loved it too, if I left it out I might not get very much 😆
There’s a vegan jerky made by the Grain Cafe which is like a vegan mexican Denny’s and the way the soy protein is pressed it comes out textured like strips of beef but it’s cut into usable sections that you can peel apart either in strips or layers, and more importantly it’s flavored better than beef jerky too. Corporate vegan jerky is just above trash in my book.
If y’all got any recommendations on brands, I wanna make a vegan buffalo chicken dip this weekend for a Superbowl/Valentines themed party and I’d love suggestions on which vegan cream cheeses, cheddar cheese and sour creams would work well.
