Plant-Based Meats: Hearty, High-Protein Recipes for Vegans, Flexitarians, and Curious Carnivores

I am a flexitarian who likes to cook most everything I can from scratch to avoid preservatives as much as possible. I am loving this new vegan "meat" cookbook. So far I have made 2 recipes {Kansas Style Ribs and Hot dogs) and have been extremely happy and satisfied. Although it is vegan it is geared more towards people who want their vegan "meat" to look like the meat it mimics. I wasn't really expecting that, nor do I really care about it-just a curiosity to me. Anyway, I have been making homemade vegan "burgers, Italian sausage, breakfast sausage and lunch meat" for a while now. Some I have created the recipes for and others I edited the original recipe to make them my own. I just got to a place I wanted a more experienced vegan teacher (although it is not a training manual or anything-its a straight up cookbook) for vegan "meats" and I found exactly what I was looking for here. Main base ingredients are the usual- tofu/vital wheat Gluten/TVP/Beans/Grains/veggies etc. It definitely helps if you have a well stocked spice and herb selection at home but nothing in the cookbook seems too extreme, difficult or expensive to acquire. The flavor blends seem really good so far and the texture is great too! Can't wait to make some vegan salami, pepperoni and pastrami-all meats I like but do not eat anymore. I miss the flavors and the things I can create with them. Other things to note: there are not photos of every recipe, but there are plenty of recipes with color photos. The recipe directions are clear and understandable to me. It's a great cookbook and I highly recommend it!

Was hard to wait for this one to come! Couldn’t wait to ck it out & see what all I could make myself! So much variety. Instructions are clear & plenty of great pictures so you know what it’ll look like. There’s recipes for things like adding a “skin-look” on some of the plant meats such as chicken if you want to add that touch. Not everything is made from tofu & wheat gluten, but many are if that’s a concern. I don’t have a problem w/ wheat gluten, but I’ll be using a chickpea recipe for faux firm & extra firm tofu substitutes instead as well as using plant yogurt in place of soft tofu (ck out soy substitutions online & you can find plenty of easy ways around soy in recipes). Can’t wait to try all these recipes out! I don’t get the processed fake meats from stores or restaurants because I don’t think some of the chemicals & things used in them are healthy to be eating. This book is a game changer! No unknown ingredients from a science lab! Some great things I put on my indoor grill too. Tells storage methods (cupboard, fridge, or freezer & for how long). Great cookbook & one I’ll use constantly!

I have been a vegetarian for over 17 years, but only recently took an interest in the so called 'mock meats'. I wanted to buy a book that goes beyond seitan, one that doesn't just present 2-3 basic meats master recipes and then throws that product into different recipes. This cookbook delivers it! Lunch meats, burgers, roasts, ribs and jerky- you name it. Using a variety of flours and vegetables, wheat gluten including.Robin Asbell is a talented and creative cook! Clear instructions, no lengthy list of ingredients, and quite flexible. Love the photography!Will definitely check out other books written by Robin.

I was hesitant to purchase this book because I never had luck in the past with plant based meats. I am Flexitarian and still eat meat but trying to cut back more. The recipes in this book are going to make that possible.I am working my way through this book and have enjoyed all the recipes I've made. They are not difficult - actually pretty easy and best of all VERY tasty. Even my hubby enjoys them, and he is a carnivore.Yes you may need to purchase a few extra ingredients but I think you will be happy you did.This book is well designed and the recipes are delicious yummy. I just might become a vegan with this book.Do yourself a favor and add this book to your collection.

I have prepared various meat alternatives over the years, using gluten and the things in this book. I use nine meat recipes giving me 1oz to 1-1/2oz per serve together with 40 others with no meat. I use these for economy and also taste. I don't miss eating meat in a no meat week, and don't crave it either. These recipes look fairly complicated and I may have trouble finding one or two ingredients but I think most of them will be well worth trying. I think it was a good buy.

Made the bologna so far and really liked it! I will try more out of this book for sure!

Great addition for any new vegetarians or vegans.

The cookbook looks good and probably is, if the ingredients work. The vital wheat gluten is an ingredient that does not work for me. I am giving three stars, because for those who are not affected by the above, the recipes look good.

As I bought it for a few seitan sausage recipes, I can't complain all that much. However, there is a severe lack of variety regarding the ingredients used, so much so it could be called 101 way to use seitan, tofu and coconut oil. But it was really cheap and served its purpose.For the regular retail price, however, I would have appreciated a book equally focused in teaching the background of plant based meat alternatives, the variety of ingredients that can be used and how they can be combined, as to be able to explore and try your own recipes using more of the ingredients at hand and less of what you need to order from a specialty store.For example: If you don't care about a red burger patty, must you use beet powder? Can you make seitan with other flavor than beef? Must you buy expensive vital gluten flour, or can you extract gluten from regular all-purpose flour by washing it?These and so many more find no answer in here. I really think they should, in such a book.

We've made several batches of seitan from recipes in this book and used it for Mongolian "beef", small BBQ "pork" cubes for filling in home-baked Chinese buns, luncheon "meat" and "chicken" stir-fry. We found the book well written, easy to follow and full of tips for making meat substitutes. There are many approaches in this book for making alternatives to meat, and in time we will be trying them out. Highly recommend.