- I thought that it would
be a nice time today
for us to talk about some of
my favorite vegan substitutions
in terms of not real
ingredients, kind of ingredients
but also brands as well.
I'm always using really
interesting brands on the channel.
Being vegan is becoming a lot easier
in terms of finding products in stores.
So I thought it might be kind of fun
to talk about my favorite products.
So these are my 20 favorite
vegan substitutions.
Hey guys, it Candice, The Edgy Veg
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Vegan cooking has become a
lot easier in the mainstream.
People are starting to learn that
it doesn't need to be
difficult and you don't have
to make everything from
scratch if you don't want to.
There's so many great
vegan brands out there now
that make vegan cooking and
vegan baking a lot easier.
If you want to have like
a quick, 15-minute meal
or like a 30-minute meal or you wanna just
buy a burger patty instead of making
black bean burgers at home.
There's so many great things.
I want to go through my list of 20
starting from egg substitutes
all the way to like milks and meats.
So the good thing about vegan cooking now
because all of the amazing
products that we have out there
you can literally just take your recipe
and swap out certain ingredients
for the vegan versions.
Let's start with egg substitutions.
Obviously we know about flax eggs
and chia eggs and aquafaba.
But there's also a lot of
really great egg products
that are out there on the market
that you can buy and it's
almost like one-for-one
in the substitution and
also vegan scrambled eggs
are a thing now too.
Just Egg is an amazing vegan alternative.
It is exactly like a scrambled egg.
It is a scrambled egg in a bottle
that you can squeeze out into a pan
and scramble just as you
would normal scrambled eggs.
I have made omelet tarts
filled with caramelized onion
and mushroom and tomato and it acts
the exact same way as a normal egg would.
And you can also use it in baking.
Another one of my favorite egg substitutes
is the Vegan Egg which is
very similar to Just Egg
in the way that you can use it.
So again, you can make vegan
scrambled eggs with it,
you can use it in baking.
They're two really great products
that are available in
Canada and in the U.S.
You want a scrambled
egg you can always make
tofu scrambled, it is
still one my favorite ways
to make a vegan alternative
to scrambled eggs
and it's really cheap too.
So you can stick with that if you can't
find those products where you are.
All right, let's talk
about meat substitutions.
There are so many good ones out there now.
Two of my favorite burgers
are the Impossible Burger
and the Beyond Meat burger.
They are, in terms of burgers,
like the closet you can get I believe
in tasting like a burger.
It has the same mouth-feel.
It has that kind of like
metallicy-meat taste.
It smells like a burger.
I've actually fed this to meat-eaters
and haven't told them and they
didn't know the difference.
Or, I've given it to my vegan friends
and they were just like, holy shit,
this tastes exactly like what a I remember
a burger tasting like.
So those are two really great products.
The thing with Beyond Meat is that
it's a lot more available
than the Impossible Burger is.
It's readily available
in Canada where I am
but also all across the States
and you can get it in grocery stores
whereas the Impossible Burger
you definitely have to go
to a chain or a restaurant to get it.
It's not for a consumer like I can't
go to a store and buy it.
In terms of like a
chicken-finger situation
or like a chicken tender,
I would definitely say
the Gardein chicken
tenders are my favorite.
They're really versatile as well.
You can like, if you want
a chicken burger, boom,
just take two to three, put it in a bun,
put on some vegan mayo and some lettuce,
you have yourself a chicken burger.
Or, just put them in the oven,
serve them with bum sauce,
voila, chicken fingers.
They're really close to the real thing
and they have a couple of
different flavors as well
which is great and you can toss them
in barbecue sauce or even
wing, like wing sauce,
like Frank's Red Hot.
And I would say in terms
of the closest thing
on the market right now,
Gardein is probably killing it.
Let's talk about like a
slow-roasted, like chicken strips,
chicken-style of substitution.
I like to use this substitution
in a chicken-salad sandwich.
Almost like a stir fry like
you would use regular chicken
and that it the Tofurky
Slow Roasted Chick'n
but there's no 'i' honestly
it works and tastes
exactly like the real thing.
It's so good, it's so juicy, it's tender.
It is the perfect chicken substitution
if you're looking for something
to act like a shredded chicken breast
or a chopped chicken breast.
Let's talk about sausages.
Also a big fan of the sausage.
So if you want the most authentic sausage
you can get, definitely, definitely,
the Beyond Meat Sausage
are the closest thing.
I have had people come up to me
that have either outright
bought it themselves
or that I've given it too
that are like, holy shit,
this tastes exactly like the real thing.
Like it mimics the cooking and the flavor
and it acts the exact same way
that a normal sausage would.
But if you're looking for something
that's a lot more readily
available to more people,
the Field Roast sausages are so good,
the Italian is my favorite.
I used that guy for years before
the Beyond Meat stuff came out.
I like to cook it on a barbecue
or just like on a stove top.
Also really good crumbled in like pastas.
All right, let's talk
about chicken burgers.
I love chicken burgers.
You guys know this from me.
I mean I love all burgers.
I don't know, it's a
nostalgia thing for me.
So I have this memory of growing up.
We lived in the middle of the country
so are dentist was in a town over.
So when my mom would load up
her three daughters into a car
to take to the dentist in a town where,
it was a still a small town
but like where I grew up
there was nothing but in
this town there was fast food
and we didn't get to eat a
lot of fast food growing up.
My mom was super, super
healthy but after I got
my dental work done we would always go
to Burger King and get
the chicken sandwich.
And there is a weird notalgia
thing with that for me
so I'm obsessed with chicken burgers
and I definitely, like I rate vegan places
based on their chicken burger.
My favorite chicken burger still
is the Boca Spicy Chicken Burger.
It is so good, it's a little
bit of a thinner patty
so sometimes I do like to double up.
But it's just like perfectly-seasoned.
It's crispy, the actual protein part
of the chicken is so good.
I've eaten it as a chicken
burger which is so good
but also I've cut it up and thrown it
into a wrap with like some buffalo sauce
and then it's like buffalo chicken wrap.
I've cut it up and put
it on top of a vegan
Caesar salad, it's so
tasty, it's nice and spicy
without being overly spicy.
It's just, muah, if you haven't tried it
you definitely have to.
My favorite chicken nugget
is from Kings Vegetarian
which local here to Toronto
which I understand, most of
you guys won't have access to.
Something that is very comparable
is the Yves Chicken Nuggets.
I love them, they're so, so good.
You can buy them in most grocery stores,
they're super available
and you can use them
exactly like you would a chicken nugget.
Let's talk about some of my
favorite dairy substitutions.
My favorite milk to use is definitely
on a case-by-case basis.
For most things I do prefer soy.
So, especially with cooking,
soy milk is the best
because it has a super
high protein content.
It's very stable when you cook with it.
It acts the most like a normal milk would
in terms of like thickening and frothing.
Silk is probably my favorite soy milk.
It's just, you can get
unsweetened versions.
It's just like nice and thick and rich,
it just adds a little bit more.
It's higher in protein, it's fortified.
It just, it's very stable in cooking.
My favorite milk for coffee
is definitely oat milk.
Oatly is the top, the Oatly chocolate milk
is a gift from God.
It's really, really hard to get in Canada
but it is available in the States.
I've definitely driven
across the boarder for it.
And I think on Amazon
they were actually selling
for like hundreds of dollars a case
because they were sold out like everywhere
and people were using it, as currency.
Like it was ridiculous.
People were like selling them
for astronomical prices online.
Like this is how good Oatly is.
So if you can get your hands on Oatly,
either the chocolate
milk, which I could drink
an entire carton in one sitting,
or the regular stuff for coffee,
oh my god, it is everything.
In terms of almond milk,
my favorite almond milk
is probably Blue Diamond.
It's very nice, it's neutral,
it comes in a variety
of flavors, it's available everywhere.
I've also work with them
because I, like I use them
so often, their chocolate
milk is also very, very tasty.
Okay let's talk a little
bit about cheeses.
Now that we've talked a about milk
we have to talk about cheeses.
And then butter, we'll get to butter.
There's a lot of vegan
cheese out there right now.
I'm going to try and stick to brands
that are available to most people.
So Follow Your Heart does
some of the best vegan cheese
that's kind of just available to everyone.
They're starting to be in
a lot of grocery stores
which is amazing,
especially here in Canada.
The make the best smoked Gouda ever.
They also make a really,
really nice neutral Provolone.
So if you want something
that melts evenly,
really great for sandwiches.
Those are two of my absolute favorite.
If you're looking for a
vegan parm, Follow Your Heart
is also amazing for like a shredded parm.
If you're looking for more of a,
you know that like
sawdusty-looking Parmesan cheese,
the like cheap stuff you can
get in the grocery store.
Veg Cheese does a really
nice one for that.
It's a little bit saltier
than the Follow Your Heart
but they can both be used in any recipe
that you need Parmesan for.
But on spaghetti, it is
just, it is everything.
In terms of vegan cheddar,
I'm definitely obsessed
with Emborg right now.
Emborg and Violife are pretty close for me
in terms of, ah, the dog
just snuggled me, hello.
They're pretty like
neck-to-neck in terms of
used case, taste, melts really good
in grilled-cheese sandwiches.
Like if you're looking for that
American style cheddar, really great,
in a grilled-cheese sandwich,
both of those work really,
really, really well.
Vegan butter, again, I'm going to tell you
about two different brands because
one is local to me and I'm hoping
that they like expand to you guys too.
But in Canada, we have a
company called Culcherd
and they're actually made not too far away
from where I live in Toronto.
And it is honestly like the butter
that I remember growing up with.
Like I used to like eat
spoonfuls of butter.
I would make like little
curls with a knife
and like eat, oh my good it was so good.
I would spread butter
on like banana bread,
oh my god, it's so good.
So they make the best vegan butter
but a more-readily available option
to most of you guys is probably Miyoko.
She makes some of the best vegan cheese
that I've had as well.
But the butter, definitely stands out.
You can use it the same way
you would use any other butter.
You can cook with it, you
can spread it on your toast,
you can eat it with a spoon.
It's so good and they're both salted
and they're just so delicious.
And cultured also has
multiple different flavors.
They have like a garlic one
and they have a cinnamon one
which is really about waffles.
All right, on my 20th favorite
brand is a vegan mayonnaise.
Actually I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you
two different options.
Brand that I've been using
since I started to go vegan is Vegenaise.
That's also made by Follow Your Heart,
the same company that makes the cheeses
that I really like as well.
It's more like a Miracle Whip
style so it's like a dressing.
It's really, really good on burgers.
I like to mix things in with it to make
like a ranch dressing,
with like herbs and spices
and that sort of thing.
A really great base for a
bunch of different sauces.
But Hellmann's also
came out with vegan mayo
and it's more of like the
traditional mayonnaise style
and it's also very, very, very, very good.
And it's a little bit cheaper
than the Follow Your Heart
because they're a larger company.
So depending on what your budget is like
you can use either one of those.
All right guys, there
are may favorite vegan
products and substitutions.
I gave you some where
are cost-effective brands
and then some that are
a little bit higher-end
so that you can kind of pick and choose
and just be aware of them.
And it's really nice to support
the vegan brands that are up and coming
because they need us to help them
get out into the world so
that more people realize
that it's not, or it doesn't have to be
that difficult to go vegan.
Let me know in the comment section below
what your favorite vegan brands are.
What are your favorite vegan products.
Are there any that you want
me to taste test on camera.
I'd be very happy to do that for you.
And if you like these
types of me talking to you,
we have a conversation-type videos,
definitely hit that thumbs up
so that I know to make more
and I'll see you next time, bye.
