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Have you been in the vegetarian section of the frozen food aisle recently? It’s changed a lot. With Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat leading the charge, there’s been a proliferation of vegetarian foods that aim to replicate the taste, texture, and appearance of meat. Plant-based burgers and vegetarian chicken nuggets are exciting developments, but there are times when we don’t want our vegetarian meals to resemble meat. After all, we like vegetables too.
Fortunately, there are plenty of veggie burgers made with beans, vegetables, and grains. They come in a huge variety of styles. Some are labeled “California,” a vague description long used for veggie burgers. Others tout specific ingredients or similarities to other foods: “super greens,” adzuki beans, falafel, and mushroom risotto. One new company advertises “thick cut” burgers with big pieces of vegetables. How do all of these options stack up? We purchased 12 frozen veggie burgers including those from top-selling national brands (as identified by IRI OmniMarket Integrated Fresh, a Chicago-based market research firm) and some from intriguing smaller companies. Our goal? To find several satisfying, flavorful options.
The History of Veggie Burgers
Vegetarian burgers continue to evolve, but they aren’t new. When tracing the history, people often point to a natural-foods advocate in London named Gregory Sams. In 1982, he created a powdered mix called the Vegeburger. Made of wheat gluten, sesame, soy, and oats, it had to be rehydrated and formed into patties before cooking. But, as Carol J. Adams makes clear in Burger (2018), many other veggie burger mixes and preformed patties came before it.
Seventh Day Adventists, with their commitment to vegetarianism, drove the development of meatless products as early as the 1890s. Adams points to “Nuttose,” a canned peanut-based product launched in 1896 that “could be sliced into patties, fried, and served.” Meat rationing during World War II brought soy-based burgers into supermarkets and fast food chains. Interest in tofu- and tempeh-based veggie burgers continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Meanwhile, Adams explains, cookbooks and coverage in major newspapers brought veggie burgers to a wider audience.
The Many Styles of Veggie Burgers
So how do the veggie burgers available today stack up? The ones we purchased contain a huge range of ingredients (though peanut-based products seem to have fallen out of favor). There are no strict distinctions between categories. Many contain a grain such as rice, bulgur wheat, or quinoa. With some, you have to squint to see evidence of a vegetable. Others look like someone scooped up a pile of greens or a handful of mixed vegetables and pressed it into a patty.
All of the veggie burgers cooked in a few minutes on the stovetop, making them a convenient option for a quick meal. We were impressed that they all developed some browning, providing a really satisfying crunch. It was clear that some manufacturers have been trying a new approach regarding size. Veggie burgers are often fairly small—about 2.75 ounces and around ¼ or ⅛ inch thick—but several in our lineup were taller and weighed about 3.5 ounces. It’s enough to make a difference; those bigger burgers felt more substantial. Particularly with the more vegetable-heavy burgers, we noticed that some were softer and more likely to break apart as we ate them. However, we didn’t consider that to be a deal breaker for anything we tried.
Our Side-By-Side Taste Test
Some of the veggie burgers were more successful than others. As fans of falafel and chickpeas, we were optimistic about the two that were made from a base of chickpeas. But one version was so dense and uniform that the veggie burgers came across as “pasty” and slightly “stodgy” instead of creamy and tender. Another had a more varied texture but was peppered with hard, dry whole chickpeas and had a strange flavor we couldn’t identify.
We quickly learned that veggie burgers made from beans and those made from grains were not completely distinct categories; there was quite a bit of overlap in their ingredients lists. We liked a lot of them. One bean burger was flecked with kernels of corn and bits of red pepper. It was tender without being crumbly and had a pleasantly crisp exterior. The other top scorer was a “mushroom risotto” burger. Risotto traditionally retains a bit of chew, but the rice in this veggie burger was quite soft. Most of us didn’t mind. Tasters commented on the earthy, mushroomy flavor and could tell by look and taste that the burger also contained peas.
With most of the other veggie burgers, leafy greens or pieces of vegetables were front and center. One spinach- and kale-packed veggie burger drew comparisons to kimchi pancakes and Persian sabzi patties. Some tasters loved them; others found the mineral flavor of the greens too strong. Two of the biggest and thickest burgers were made by the same brand. Each had big pieces of vegetables—one a mix of orange vegetables, the other a mix of green vegetables—and really looked homemade. As one taster noted of the orange burger, “the carrots and corn and red bell pepper taste like themselves.” They would have been even better with a bit more salt or a little acid, but we’re optimistic about the direction veggie burgers seem to be moving.
The Best Veggie Burgers: We Couldn’t Pick Just One
It turns out that picking the best veggie burger is a lot like picking the best vegetable. The answer depends on the person and what they’re in the mood for that day. Only two of them earned low enough marks to fall into the Recommended with Reservations category; one was too soft, while the other was too dry. Of the ones we liked, we’ve named winners in a variety of styles. MorningStar Farms Spicy Black Bean Burgers, which has a mix of corn and beans with a little kick and pleasant crisp-chewy texture, is our favorite bean-based veggie burger. For veggie burgers with earthy, savory flavor, we recommend Dr. Praeger’s Mushroom Risotto Veggie Burgers. They’re quite soft inside but cooked up with an ultracrispy crust. Finally, if you want hefty burgers with pieces of vegetables that are so big and prominent that they could pass for homemade, we suggest The Actual Orange Burgers. These big, substantial burgers are chock-full of sweet potatoes, carrots, and red bell pepper, among other vegetables and beans.
- Sample plain
- Compare nutritional information per 71-gram serving (which corresponds to roughly one small veggie burger or about three-quarters of a large veggie burger)
- Tastes and looks like they were made with big pieces of vegetables and beans
- Crispy exterior with slightly coarse or irregular interior
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