I found the Sausage-less Italian Sausage at Trader Joe’s and wanted to know if it was as good as the meatless Italian Sausage from Beyond Meat. We love the Beyond Meat products but they are a bit expensive so the more affordable trader Joe option had me excited.
Let’s take a closer look at these links!
Nutrition and Ingredients
Here is what you get in a pack of sausage.
Nutrition Facts
You get four links of sausage per 12 ounce package. One 3 ounce sausage is a single serving.
The nutritional facts for a single serving are:
- Calories: 150
- Fat: 8g (10% DV)
- Cholesterol: 0mg (0% DV)
- Sodium: 720mg (31% DV)
- Carbohydrates: 7g (3% DV)
- Protein: 13g
The sausage is relatively low in calories and fat, has no cholesterol and is high is protein. Looking good so far!
Ingredient List
The Meatless Sausage has the following ingredients:
- Water
- Soy protein
- Soybean oil
- Egg whites
- Dried vegetables
- Potato starch
- Wheat gluten
- Cellulose gum
- Salt
- Yeast extract
- Tapioca starch
- Barley malt extract
- “Spices”
- Cane syrup
- Calcium phosphate
While these sausages are meatless they are not Vegan or Gluten Free.
Heating and Serving the Sausage
Here is how I heated the sausages before I threw them on some buns!
Heating Instructions
The heating instructions for this product are pretty vague.
Seriously, the package basically just says to heat them up but not to overcook. This is not exactly helpful.
I ended up putting them in a medium-hot cast iron skillet with a touch of olive oil. I turned the sausages over and rolled them around every now and then to try to heat them through evenly.
I cooked them for about 10 minutes until they reached an internal temperature of 160F and had browned up a little on the skin.
Taste Test!
I will give these sausages a 6 out of 10 as far as taste is concerned. They were okay but not nearly as good as the Beyond Meat Italian Sausages or the full meat Italian sausages at Costco.
The texture of the sausage was pleasing and there were plenty of seasoning that gave it an acceptable “Italian Sausage” flavor profile.
When I tasted plain slices of the sausage I was getting a strange and unpleasant aftertaste. When I put the sausage on a bun along with some yellow mustard (which is how God wants us to eat sausage) the tangy mustard completely cancelled out the funky aftertaste.
Another way of trying to quantify the flavor of these sausages is:
- I ate all of my sausage on the bun with mustard.
- My wife ate two thirds of her sausage on a bun.
- We gave the plain sliced sausages to our pups.
- Everyone was okay with their lunch.
Here is the kicker…this package of sausage only cost $2.99 which means each sausage only cost $0.75! While these were not the best vegetarian sausages I have ever had they are good enough for lunch and are a great bargain.
I do not know if I will buy these again or not.
