Tried It: Beyond Meat's The Beyond Burger

This was an impulse buy. I don't remember the price right now, but I do remember that it was about 2/3 the cost of a pair of beef patties at Whole Foods. My wife and children are vegetarian, which means most of the time I am too. Luckily, a lot of really good meat replacements have come on the market in recent years.

The best meat replacements, generally, are the ones that don't try to mimic meat. Black bean burgers are tasty all on their own. I like falafel, who doesn't like falafel? But at a BBQ, or for a quick meal, a straight-up burger can be what you want.

These are supposed to be special because they act and cook and taste more like ground beef than most veggie burgers. I'm colorblind, but you tell me, does that look like raw beef?



They have a lot of oil; more than beef burgers, actually. And as you can see in the video, they sizzle on the grill.

The taste is solid. They don't have much aroma, and the flavor isn't very strong. But it does feel like beef in your mouth, and it hits that meat taste, that umami. I had mine with cheese and hot sauce. My wife had it with ketchup, cheese, and mayo.

I didn't have hamburger buns. Also, my phone's camera sucks. Anyway, does this look like a normal burger to you?

The main ingredient in these is pea protein isolate, and you can taste the pea a little bit. It's well-seasoned and, for me, that component of the flavor isn't a problem.

Does it taste exactly like beef? No, but it tastes meaty. Similar to kebab in flavor. Does it have the mouthfeel of beef? Yes, they nailed it. If I snuck this onto a grill with beef burgers, 60:40 chance the person who got it wouldn't notice it isn't beef.

Easy to cook, tasty, filling, fun color-change technology. I would, and probably will, buy these again.