I was surprised to see that this meatless turkey option from QUORN is non-vegan, as it includes egg whites and dairy products in the ingredients. But what surprised me first was seeing this product at all … I thought it was only available in the UK or Australia. Found this at a USA grocery store (Whole Foods in Brookside, Kansas City Missouri).
The Quorn was on sale for about six dollars per roast, so I bought two of them. I has been in a hurry at the store as they were about to close and had not read the ingredient label. When I brought them home, yes, it turns out these are vegetarian roasts, but not vegan ones.
Upon reflection, I believe the main goal for these is to prevent turkeys from being harmed in the future. Certainly, if people were to go for a Quorn roast instead of actual turkey meat, it would do the job!
I get it, some people would say, “Yes, I want to help turkeys but not at the expense of chickens and dairy cows!”
Sure, that may be an issue for vegans or other people who absolutely do not eat any dairy products or chicken eggs. However, for the other 98% of us, I doubt that’s a problem. Why? Because I very much doubt that the amount of egg white and dairy product that is in a Quorn roast would significantly increase our chicken egg and dairy product consumption over what it currently is today.
Therefore, I don’t think that any chickens or dairy cows would get thrown under the bus because of people eating Quorn vegetarian meatless turkey instead of actual turkey meat. That’s just my hunch; folks out there, as always, you are free to offer differing opinions.
Always feel free to speak up if you see that something is incorrect here at Veganish Dot World. We, the authors, are putting our ideas out there, but we can be wrong about anything and everything. With discussion and counterpoints, that’s how we learn.
At the Whole Foods in Brookside, Kansas City Missouri USA, it turns out there were lots of different options for meatless Thanksgiving roasts, I think all of them were made with wheat, soy and/or nuts possibly. So if you are allergic to any of those or Celiac, you may have been mostly out of luck, finding an easy, ready to cook meatless roast. Nonetheless, I think that the Quorn may have been soy free, nut tree and gluten-free?
If that’s the case, it’s even more important that an option like Quorn be there, for people who want to show support for the turkeys and who cannot eat the other fully vegan options which were there, due to medical restrictions or food allergies.
That being said, Quorn products are made with a special processed fungus thing, to which some people have a negative reaction. As a result, some people are essentially allergic to Quorn also.
As they say, variety is the spice of life. I am all for having more options so that more people’s needs can be covered.
Now that we got all of that preamble out of the way … That was some serious blah blah blah 😅 .., let’s get down it it !!! Although I personally had bought the Quorn roasts by mistake, now that I had them, I was very excited to try them.
Thankfully, the preparation is very easy. Simply puncture holes in the plastic casing and put it on a foil lined baking sheet. Pop it in the oven for about an hour. I see why they mentioned that it needs to be on a foil lined baking sheet because the juices flowed out of the roast and made a puffy baked mess! No problem, because of the foil. 💓
While the roasts were baking, I was going in and out of the house, taking care of things. I came back in and was struck by the aroma permeating the house. Perhaps a diehard vegetarian or vegan wouldn’t like it, but yes, it was like a real turkey was baking in the oven!
For me, that gave me a very comforting, holiday feeling, especially knowing that no turkeys were harmed for this.
I saved the foil and wrapped the roasts in that, and then I put the roasts in a toaster oven on low heat (still in the casings) when I arrived at the family Thanksgiving event in Kansas. Kept the roasts warm in the toaster oven until it was time to eat.
So how did the roast, turn out? Actually, I was impressed with the texture on these! Hot out of the oven, the texture was flaky and stringy, similar to meat, with steam coming out. It looked really good! The flavor was mild, very similar to turkey meat. It was dry, as turkey meat often is. Definitely for me, it needed some gravy.
Thankfully I brought the mushroom gravy from the field roast brand celebration roast. That is a powder, and you have to add water to it and mix it vigorously, while you are heating it up. It was good!
Ideally, I think I would’ve preferred more of a creamy style vegan brown gravy with this Quorn roast. That’s what I would make for it if I were planning this out as a Thanksgiving meal at home, versus an impromptu, popping in at a family Thanksgiving dinner last minute sort of thing.
Come to think of it, they did have a very nice cream style gravy that was exactly the type that would be perfect with this, on the Thanksgiving table. That gravy was made with turkey drippings and dairy milk, I’m sure. I could’ve put some of that on there, just to see what it was like in the meatless Quorn roast, and no turkeys would’ve been harmed by my decision. Obviously, the turkey was already killed for the whole family to eat, and it had nothing to do with me being there.
I didn’t end up trying any of the Turkey cream gravy, not because I thought I was saving any turkeys or dairy cows by not having the turkey gravy … It was just that I already had my mushroom gravy on there and I was already full from my one gigantic plate of food. Perhaps if I had had room in my belly to go back for seconds, I would have tried a bit of that turkey cream gravy on my Quorn roast. As someone who is not vegan or vegetarian, I can do that! 💓
Oh! And for the people out there who think this. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it if it were true, but in my case, I wouldn’t have been trying the turkey cream gravy because I’m so desperate to eat some turkey flavored gravy! Ha ha.
No, it’s just that the turkey cream gravy was what was available, not a vegan cream gravy. Therefore, that’s what I would have had if I was trying to see what some cream gravy would have tasted like on the Quorn roast. That’s the whole deal. 👍
As far as a product review, I would give this QUORN turkey roast two thumbs up!!!
It’s easy to prepare, not too expensive, very nutritious, doesn’t require any harm to turkeys, smells great cooking in the oven, and is a very nice turkey substitute in terms of taste and texture.
Also, for people who would prefer to have just plain “meatless meat,” and not a turkey meat substitute that is stuffed with something else, like cranberries and stuffing mix and so on, this is one of the few meatless roasts, which fits the bill for that.
Since I know I know that the Quorn roast is not vegan, would I buy it again? It depends. If I were cooking for someone who was Celiac or allergic to soy, for sure.
Cooking for myself, I would simply evaluate it based on how it performs in comparison to the other fully vegan meatless roasts which might be available. I might have it if it was the best option available, in terms of price, nutrition, ease of preparation, and whatever other factors that might be important to me at the time.
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