I’ve only ever cooked the store bought beyond burgers and prefer grilling them. minor adjustments in cooking technique can produce both red-in-the-middle and well done versions. I don’t care for the pan fryed version as it crusts and sometimes burns a little if left on one side too long.
We’ve been making pan-fried Beyond Meat burgers at home recently and they taste better than the beef burgers we used to make. They don’t work as well on a grill as they tend to stick to the grill and are easy to dry out, but pan-frying works well.
I really wonder if there are special cooking instructions to make them that might be causing so many restaurants to pull them off the menu.
I've tried several Beyond burgers at various restaurants, and all of them were the worst burgers I've ever had. Dry, tasteless, and chewy - absolutely nothing like real meat. Do a degree that I question if they're all being prepared wrong.
The Beyond Beef burgers that my local burger chain (Grill’d) sell are pretty good, too. They’re a little drier than a good beef patty and a bit sweeter, but if you told me it was beef I think I would believe you, albeit not cooked perfectly.
My understanding is that popular opinion says Impossible is even closer, though I haven’t tried it personally.
I've cooked the Beyond burger for family (who normally hate the veggie burgers I thrust upon them) and they all really liked it. Not quite meat, but they were open to eating it regularly as an alternative. I've had better beyond burgers than Impossible burgers, but that may depend on the restaurant and it's style.
I actually much prefer the Beyond Burger. Maybe it was cooked wrong, but the Impossible Burger I tried tasted a lot like a Morningstar Farm's Griller's Prime to me. Not a bad flavor mind you, just not worth the $3 surcharge.
Veggie burgers can be quite delicious with all the traditional burger toppings, and I'm a pretty big traditional burger fan. The beyond ones always taste kind of dry to me.
i tried (ed: strike impossible) beyond burgers recently. they were... ok. but i did notice that i felt extremely sluggish after eating them. (like having to lay down)
the thickness of the oil exuded onto the griddle and the difficulty i had cleaning it off was a bit frightening as well... but i don't prepare meat so maybe the real deal is worse?
The way they're cooked matters a lot, at least for the Impossible Burger.
A well prepared veggie burger is a very different experience from one that's just been thrown on a grill and taken off when it's hot. I've noticed some huge gaps in quality at different restaurants.
Also will add my vote that Impossible is doing a way better job imitating meat than Beyond is, just in general.
Agreed, I think the way its prepared definitely matters.
For me, I think the Impossible Burger seems "better" because I've only had it prepared by restaurants whereas the Beyond Burger I've mostly made myself from the grocery store.
I try hard to avoid red meat for reasons but I do like a burger. I tried the Beyond when it was new and I was really impressed. I thought it tasted great and held together as a patty in a way that a lot of "traditional" bean and veg patties fail to do.
Unfortunately after I had cooked a bunch of them I realized what the smell of uncooked Beyond reminded me of: wet cat food. Now I can't get that association out of my head and the smell of the uncooked patties is so revolting I can't really enjoy them any more :(
Beyond burger or what was the one that was hyped 3 years ago was really good in my opinion. Especially on a burger with some sauce and other taste things.
The only thing you really shouldn't do is mix real meat and fake meat. A natural thing to do is order two burgers, and compare them. Whatever you eat first will taste fine, whatever you eat second is extremely gross.
So is that comparing against plain red meat with no salt added? Because if so that’s not really a fair comparison because you generally add a decent amount of salt to burger whereas you don’t really need to for beyond
Less taste? That's not a complaint I've heard nor experienced. I've always found Beyond burgers to be a bit strange, sure, kinda like the uncanny valley of hamburger patties, but I certainly never found them to be bland.
Impossible is also easier to cook with (for me). It can be difficult for either to cook burgers with if you don’t buy pre-formed patties. But Beyond seemed just a little more difficult. And gross. Uncooked Beyond was a little more gooey than Impossible.
Just from that regard, I could see Impossible performing better because it is easier to integrate into existing recipes. Don’t discount the contribution of cooks in this equation.
reply