The Best Ways to Cook With Plant-Based Meat

For the sake of my own well-being—and the well-being of the planet—I’ve been trying, like many people I know, to eat a whole lot less meat, and a whole lot less beef in particular. So far my approach to getting to “less” has been a flexible and strategic one. Total abstinence can feel like a bitter pill to swallow, so I try my best to buy high-quality, humanely raised animal products and less of them, thinking of meat as a special treat rather than a given, and rounding out my meals with plenty of fresh vegetables. It’s easier said than done, but I try.

As someone who dabbled with vegetarianism as a teenager, I was never too keen on the idea of trying to “replace” meat with plant-based alternatives (though I tried plenty). Back in the early aughts, the products on the market were mediocre at best, bizarre at worst—if you don’t know what TVP stands for, count yourself lucky—and as a result I’ve been of the opinion that if I’m craving the real thing, no substitute will do.

Find the Impossible Burger impossible to understand? Don't know where exactly Beyond Beef is going to take you? Now that these plant-based meats are finally available in grocery stores, it's time to ask (and answer) some questions.

But things have changed! We are currently living in the Golden Age of Fake Meat. Plant-based protein is big business, and a couple of well-funded start-ups—including Beyond and Impossible—have pushed the ball further down the field than anyone thought possible. The ground beef-esque products that these companies have brought to market don’t just purport to be “like” meat—they are meat, just meat made from plants. I’d sampled both a few times at restaurants, but I figured it was high time I brought some home and put them through their paces in my own kitchen.

I tried both side by side in a number of applications—a griddled smash burger; a grilled steakhouse-style burger; as meatballs in sauce; in an otherwise classic chili—and came away with a few insights about cooking technique in this brave new world. Before you start cooking with plant-based meat, read on.

How they're like beef

Right out of the package, these products certainly look a lot like ground beef. Both are sold in frozen blocks, and after they’ve thawed overnight in the fridge, they’re quite convincing, flecked with bits of white fat just like good ol’ fashioned 80/20 ground chuck. (Speaking of fat, these products are definitely no one's idea of health food; their relatively high levels of saturated fat are part of what makes them so convincingly meatlike.)

Impossible is an appealingly bright stop-sign red, while Beyond is a purple-pink-gray that calls to mind slightly oxidized meat, but nevertheless they both look the part. I will say that I’m perplexed by the fact that while Beyond sells in tidy one-pound portions, Impossible comes in 12-ounce units, which presents some recipe-related challenges.

As much as they both look like ground beef, these two products feel completely unlike ground beef in equal measure—handling them raw, they’re both wetter, pastier, and stickier than the genuine article, a reality that could understandably be a turnoff to omnivores and vegetarians alike.

Performance-wise, though, the key advantages that separate these products from other meat alternatives are largely the same. The most impressive thing about both Beyond and Impossible, at least to me, was how well they take on a crispy, crunchy, mahogany-toned sear when cooked with direct heat. Whether they were squished against a hot griddle for smash burgers, grilled over smoldering charcoal, or crisped in an oiled skillet, these products browned like a charm, almost more readily than real-deal ground beef.

This is critically important because browning meat (whether it’s animal- or plant-derived) creates the kinds of savory, complex flavors and umami-packed compounds that make meat-focused dishes so satisfying and craveable. To my mind, this is the principal thing that puts these products head and shoulders above the competition of yesteryear.

It also means that with Impossible and Beyond, the more sear, the better. I enjoyed the flavor of the thin, crispy-griddled diner-style burgers I made with them much more than the bigger, thicker versions that I grilled. I also loved the way both products performed when they were crumbled and generously browned in a skillet for chili, and less so when they were formed into big meatballs and browned on all sides before being finished in tomato sauce. (It’s also worth noting that it was very hard to get the meatballs to stay spherical, probably because of how much wetter these products are than real beef—in the finished dish, they were more like meat cubes.) For me, the more the ratio of browned to not-browned meat was tilted in favor of the browned meat, the more I enjoyed the preparation.

How they're different

Having cooked and eaten a number of dishes made with Impossible and Beyond side by side, I can confidently say that the differences between the two products are subtle but not insignificant. And while they are similar in a lot of ways, I think that the things that separate the two may actually determine who will be most excited to cook with and eat each one. Simply put, to my palate, Impossible mimics ground beef in texture and flavor more authentically than Beyond does—which may endear it to omnivores like myself more readily than it would to vegetarians and vegans.

When cooked, Impossible is extremely juicy, with a minerally, almost liver-like flavor that I tend to associate with dry-aged beef. It has a lingering aftertaste that, after several days, I finally realized reminded me of Snap Pea Crisps. And the texture is a dead-ringer for finely-ground beef, tender and ever-so-slightly grainy, with a subtle chew. By contrast, Beyond is rich but slightly less so—whenever I cooked the two side by side, much more fat rendered out of the Beyond meat than the Impossible, meaning a burger patty made with the former retained less richness than the latter. The flavor was complex and satisfying, to be sure, but was distinctly less bovine and more generically vegetal, with more texture than Impossible—it was firmer and more textured, chewier and less uniform, calling to mind (not unpleasantly) veggie-based burgers of yesteryear. To be clear: Neither tasted like the most superlative ground beef specimen I’ve ever had in my life, but they certainly didn’t taste like the worst, either.

In my trials, a lot of these finer distinctions melted away when strong flavors or textures were introduced into a dish—how much beef do we really taste in chili, anyway? The big takeaway? Impossible might be the best bet for omnivores looking for a convincing ground beef substitute, while Beyond might be the move for vegetarians looking for a tasty and versatile protein option.

What plant-based meat is best for

After cooking with both products, I came to realize that the applications that these alternatives are best suited to are those in which the texture, richness, and satisfaction that beef brings to the table are more important than the actual flavor. Crispy burger patties. Chopped cheese sandwiches. Chili. Nacho meat. Empanada filling. Dishes where sear and/or seasoning are the name of the game rather than pure bovine flavor. Not because I don’t like the flavor of Impossible or Beyond per se, but simply because these are the kinds of dishes where a well-intentioned cook might be less inclined to spring for spendy, high-quality beef that you really want to taste, the kind that would be a shame to adulterate.

And after all of these trials, I think that is exactly how I intend to incorporate plant-based meat into this omnivore’s journey towards eating less meat. Would I take an Impossible fast food burger over a version made with suspect, feed-lot sourced mystery meat? Gladly! A quick breakfast sandwich made with Beyond? Sign me up! There are so many instances where I eat meat—and not meat I’m proud of, either—compulsively, not because I’m excited to savor its flavor and appreciate its unique pleasures, but because it offers a familiar sort of culinary comfort. And when that’s the case, I’m grateful and excited to know that I’ve got a few very good options at my disposal.

Originally Appeared on Epicurious