Hiya hungry friends, and welcome back to Cool Beans! As we all collectively lean into the start of grilling season, we spotted a glaring omission on our warm-weather menu: a taste test and deep dive into the best faux burgers. Americans eat around 50 billion burgers every year, and when the sun’s out the pace kicks into overdrive.
The emissions of all that meat-eatin’ are hard to ignore: A quarter-pound of ground beef has around 6 times the footprint of an alt-patty. But which faux-meat burger most closely stands up to its planet-warming counterpart? To find out, we put five of America’s most popular meatless offerings to the test. Our winner developed superb char, had a great bite and flavor, and deserves prime placement on your grill.
The plant-based hamburger throwdown
With so many plant-based patties on the market, it’s easier than ever for the meat-avoidant to BYO burger to a BBQ. As classic bean-based veggie patties have been around for decades, we focused our test on the newer class of meat alternatives designed to resemble what the carnivores typically eat. We gathered a group of tasters—among them one dyed-in-the-wool, meat-loving skeptic—to sample five plant-based patties (either preshaped or formed from faux ground meat) and one classic beef burger in a blind test. We seared each patty in a cast-iron skillet, and sampled them plain and then on buns—decked out with lettuce, tomato, onion, and ketchup. We rated each from 0–5 🍔s, with 5 being burger perfection. We evaluated them based on:
Taste. Is it “meaty”? Would you be fooled into thinking it was beef based on flavor alone? Did we detect any artificial notes or aftertaste? If there are any additional seasonings, did they boost the flavor?
Texture. Does it echo the tell-tale bite of ground meat: that nubby chew with tiny bits of cooked fat? Is it juicy? Does it develop a crispy char on the outside?
Appearance. Does it have the reddish-brown color of beef? Does it act like the real deal: shrinking, contracting, and thickening as it cooks? (An 80/20 beef burger loses around 20% of its weight when cooked.)
Here’s where we landed:
1st Place: Beyond Beef Burgers
Composed mainly of pea protein, brown rice protein, and avocado oil, the latest iteration of Beyond Beef has 21 grams of protein and 2 grams of saturated fat per quarter-pound serving. (Beef’s got 20 grams of protein and four times the saturated fat.) Because we’re being economical, we went for a 16-ounce “brick” of Beyond meat instead of a package of preformed patties, which ran us $9 at the local grocer. A 2-pack of patties runs about $5–$7 and an 8-pack is $16.
Taste. Beyond rose to the top of our rankings thanks to a nice exterior char and a lovely, extra-flavorful caramelization. It also tasted downright meaty: savory and deep in umami. It’s not exactly like beef, but once it’s on a bun and smothered in fixin’s it’s pretty hard to tell the difference.
Texture. None of our competitors nailed the exact chew and crumble of ground beef, but this came the closest. The crispy char on the outside was a big hit, as was the chewy, crumbly, and slightly fatty texture within.
Appearance. In the pan, the Beyond patties oozed fat and browned up beautifully. Like beef, they shrank up as they cooked, going from 4 ounces to 3.2. They were even a little pink in the middle, giving them a convincing, burger-like look.
Rating. 🍔🍔🍔🍔1/2
2nd Place: Impossible Ground Beef Burgers
Impossible’s faux meat is made from soy protein and sunflower and coconut oils, and fortified with B vitamins. A 4-ounce patty has 19 grams of protein and 6 grams of saturated fat. A 12-ounce brick runs about $7, and a pack of two 4-ounce patties is $6. They’re also available in a package of six patties, which will run you $13.
Taste. “This one tastes the most like cow,” said one carnivorous taster—and the rest of the group agreed. It has a slightly iron-like note that smacks of beef, and it’s well seasoned with salt. Even our token skeptic said, “OK, fine, I’d eat it.” (A rave!) Everyone noted a good char flavor, but agreed it lacked the caramelization the Beyond achieved.
Texture. Impossible patties brown up quite convincingly on the outside and stay juicy on the inside, which makes sense given that they’re the second fattiest ones we tried. The texture is softer and less dense than Beyond’s, which made it less beefy overall.
Appearance. On looks alone, you’d be hard pressed to tell this from a beef burger right out of the skillet. It achieved a strikingly similar look on the outside and was beefy pink within. It shrank up just a bit when cooked, going from 4 ounces to 3.7.
Rating. 🍔🍔🍔🍔
3rd Place: Morningstar Farms Grillers Prime Burgers
There are several varieties of Morningstar Farms Grillers—we chose the Prime Burgers. These patties were the thinnest of the lot, weighing 2.5 ounces apiece. Even so, the macros are good: They have 16 grams of protein and 1 gram of saturated fat. Made from wheat gluten, vegetable oil, and soy protein, they also contain egg whites, making them the only plant-based burger in our lineup that isn’t vegan. The 10-ounce 4-pack ran us $4.69.
Taste. While no testers noted any beef-like flavor in this patty, we all detected some spice, which may be the onion powder, garlic powder, and pepper listed in the ingredients—or something in the unnamed ”natural flavors.” The taste was appealing on its own, but nothing like meat. Unfortunately, once we put it on a bun and garnished it with toppings, it lost any appeal: “I’m getting more bun than whatever that patty is,” said one tester.
Texture. This thin, finely ground patty had a light coating on the outside (of what exactly we’re not sure), which made it crisp up nicely. The inside, though, was very dry and nothing like the texture of ground beef; it reminded us more of a very wide and dry chicken nugget.
Appearance. A slight, perfectly uniform disk, it looked somewhat skimpy, like a flat, amber-colored hash brown. In fact, eating a tater patty on bread might have been preferable here.
Rating. 🍔🍔1/2
4th Place: Gardein Ultimate Plant-Based Burger
Made from pea protein, wheat protein, and palm and coconut oils, each quarter-pound Gardein patty has 20 grams of protein and 10 (!) grams of saturated fat—no surprise given those oils. A 24-ounce bag of six burgers runs $11.
Taste. Dressed up in a bun, we could hardly taste these patties, save for a hint of char—and an aftertaste that’s hard to describe other than to say it smacks of something artificial. The blandness is odd because fat usually equals flavor. We also found them undersalted, which is equally strange: It’s got 450 milligrams of sodium per patty, the most of any burger we tried.
Texture. Chewy and dry, the mouthfeel was more like an overcooked turkey burger than a juicy beef patty.
Appearance. The exterior of the patty browned up well and had one of the most traditionally burger-like appearances of the bunch. It looked quite appetizing. But then we cut into it: The interior was a dull grayish-brown—again, like overdone turkey.
Rating. 🍔1/2
5th Place: Dr. Praeger’s Plant-Based Perfect Burger
Like Beyond beef, Dr. Praeger’s patties are made primarily from pea protein, along with canola and/or sunflower oil. Each 4-ounce patty has 20 grams of protein and more iron than any of the others—30% of the RDA—along with 1 gram of saturated fat. A 4-pack runs $5–$6.
Taste. This was the only burger we tried that had zero redeeming qualities for our tasters. When we took a bite of the patty on its own, most of us found it rather bland. Once we put it on a bun, however, we noticed a strange, metallic aftertaste that wasn’t ironlike, but something unappealing—maybe a tad like tarnish.
Texture. “Super-dry” and “cardboard” were a couple choice descriptions offered by our panel. There was an odd mix of textures, both smooth and chewy, that we assumed were meant to mimic meat, but, as one tester pointed out, “it’s just two different weird textures in your mouth.”
Appearance. Before biting in, this one looked more like a bean burger than a beef one: unnaturally uniform in shape, yet kind of nubby. On the inside, though, it resembled something akin to diner meatloaf that’s gone a little too heavy on the breadcrumbs: a dark beige mass of mystery “meat.”
Rating. 0
The final tasting notes
We were really torn between Beyond and Impossible burgers. Each brings something different to the picnic table. Ultimately, that delicious fond of caramelization that only the Beyond burger achieved is what earned it the top spot. But the Impossible meat was certainly right there with it in terms of beefy flavor. Either one is a satisfying substitute for ground beef, which is way (way) more than we can say for the other three patties on our plate. Happy grilling!