One of the many substitutes for traditional burgers I’ve tried is the Beyond Burger. Let me preface this by saying that there are many issues with eating even fake burgers on my current diet, because I’m trying to avoid useless carbohydrates, and the expectation of eating a burger is that it comes with a bun. But I’ve started finding those high fiber / low carb tiny tortilla things as an alternative to hamburger buns. I kind of like the ever growing amount of net zero tortillas out there, which try to match the grams of carbohydrates to the games of fiber. At least to me that seems easier than hunting down bibb lettuce or something like that which also has a very quick shelf life. But I digress.
So I work in a restaurant, which means no matter what my life holds, I never get to escape being around real hamburgers. But I dragged a package of Beyond Burgers to work in the hopes that putting them in that environment would force me to eat them sometimes. Here you see what a Beyond Burger looks like on the grill next to a normal hamburger and some steaks. This nearly made me cry, knowing I was about to eat the fake meat, and highly amused some coworkers.
In this case I’d started grilling my Beyond Burger before some customer orders came in, which is how the other meats got there, and they’re not far along, but trust that in time everything there would have pretty grill marks. The Beyond Burger seeks to imitate real meat, and actually grill marks pretty easily as you can see. As I cooked it, a little moisture even bubbled out kind of like a real burger does. I’ll say this for the texture, it is better than a normal garden burger/veggie burger, in that it doesn’t try to crumble apart either.
Overall though, I see myself eating these only infrequently because I’m still not fooling myself. But what matters most is what you do with the Beyond Burger after you cook it. What toppings go on it to make it viable. I wouldn’t be trying to eat these if I thought bacon was a choice, or mounds of cheese, otherwise those would be great on it. I’d likely not even care that I was eating fake meat. Which leaves some condiments and vegetables as the best topping options. So my recommendation is if you’re about to undergo trying these, consider your burger toppings in advance because they are what will make or break the experience.
Update: I decided to try to make this more palatable and blackened a Beyond Burger. It helped, a lot. All you need is any generic blackening seasoning or dry pepper mix, some olive oil, and a flat top or griddle to sear it on. The texture from the blackened crust on it is another perk of cooking it this way.
