Cooking with Plant-Based Meat: 75 Satisfying Recipes Using Next-Generation Meat Alternatives

by America's Test Kitchen

This must-have guide to cooking with today's new plant-based meats includes all the satisfying, sustainable recipes you actually want to eat.

Available everywhere from grocery stores to fast food chains, today's meat alternatives like Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat impressively replicate the taste and texture of meat. Now, the recipe experts at America's Test Kitchen show how to cook successfully with these modern meat mimickers—producing juicy, savory, meaty flavor—and transform them into a broad array of mouthwatering dishes that make sustainable meat-free eating feel luxurious.

We've tested our way through the plethora of meat alternatives so we could guide you to the tastiest and most reliable. Learn how to use them in 75 exciting dishes,


Ever wondered how can you tell when plant-based meat has reached ideal doneness, or how to cope with sticking? You'll find the answers here to these questions and many more. And you'll discover cooking techniques that will keep you inspired long-term.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction

182 pages, Hardcover

First published March 29, 2022

About the author

America's Test Kitchen, based in a brand new state-of-the-art 60,000 sq. ft. facility with over 15,000 sq. ft. of test kitchens and studio space, in Boston's Seaport District, is dedicated to finding the very best recipes for home cooks. Over 50 full-time (admittedly obsessive) test cooks spend their days testing recipes 30, 40, up to 100 times, tweaking every variable until they understand how and why recipes work. They also test cookware and supermarket ingredients so viewers can bypass marketing hype and buy the best quality products. As the home of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines, and publisher of more than one dozen cookbooks each year, America's Test Kitchen has earned the respect of the publishing industry, the culinary world, and millions of home cooks. America's Test Kitchen the television show launched in 2001, and the company added a second television program, Cook's Country, in 2008.

Discover, learn, and expand your cooking repertoire with Julia Collin Davison, Bridget Lancaster, Jack Bishop, Dan Souza, Lisa McManus, Tucker Shaw, Bryan Roof, and our fabulous team of test cooks!

Learn more at https://www.americastestkitchen.com/.

Reviews

[Karel Baloun · Rating 4 out of 5]

America’s Test Kitchen is a brilliant resource, and this cookbook feels like enough to start a vegan restaurant! And I wish someone would open one near me, as I’d patronize it every other day!

Love that each recipe leads with a full “why this works” section which teaches countless important details and nuances. Among with the mouth watering photography, the meticulous instructions are inspiring.

Love how the meal choices were designed to include over a dozen culinary traditions spanning the world. The concept leans heavily on Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat innovations, and i feel simultaneously grateful they exist, and deeply concerned that those basic materials are not exactly healthy. They do provide simple nutritional information, in a very professional data table at the end.

I took off one star due to my prejudice that these recipes could take a lot of effort, and that few shortcuts are offered. The criticism in other reviews that this doesn’t include seitan or tofu isn’t fair, as the authors specify them as out of scope in the introduction.

Solid addition to any kitchen library, though I did feel that many of these would be a lot of work, even for an experienced chef in a stocked kitchen. Does seem like they try to contain the spice rack they’s like you to collect. The nacho cheese dip looks astonishing and that’s the first thing I’d love to make.

[Alexa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would much rather read a vegan cookbook geared towards simple easy vegan recipes. Time tested 30 minute meals.

I am omnivorous or paleo or flexitarian or whatever trending title people are labeling themselves with to say “I’m not a picky B****”

I like a good chickpea curry or lentil dish as much as anyone but the fake meat homemade, fast food, grocery store or otherwise is nasty

All people should nix the high processed junk and make homemade meals with pronounceable ingredients. If you want meat, eat meat not some science project turned food.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice dive into the world of commercial fake meat. It's pretty amazing how realistic it looks and the few I've tasted were decent. I'm not a big fan of them though, some of them are not healthy, they have lots of sodium and fat and I'm not the target market. Are these for recovering meatatarians who are trying to eat more plants? Sneaky vegetarians? There are whole cultures who have delightful meatless diets that stand on their own as delicious food and are less expensive and better for the planet.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to plant based meat with down to earth recipes.

[Andrea Bearman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, I'd love to see a veganbook with out meat replacements.

[Aasinathena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it !

[Jeanette Durkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic cookbook book with lots of recipes! I'll definitely be trying some of these recipes!

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you’ve NEVER tried cooking with meat alternatives, you might find this an easy intro. And if you’re used to American Cooking (this book is created by America’s Test Kitchen) then you won’t be “surprised” by any “strange” ingredients besides non-meat. However, as someone who has been a vegetarian for 20 years, and really likes different cuisines of the world, this was NOT the book for me.

The intro does discuss the difference in cooking times and seasonings, but the recipes are just dull. Entire chapter on just different burger toppings and another chapter on tacos. Snoozefest.

Also, I don’t recall seeing any recipes with tofu, tempeh, or seitan. All the recipes called for burger patties, ground round (TVP), or already-manufactured meat replacements like Beyond Sausages.

[Dray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was wondering when such a book would come out. This is an amazing time for vegetarians, when many long given up recipes come back within reach with the invention of viable plant based alternatives. test kitchen does a great job of rounding up a good collection of recipes using available faux beef, chicken and other plant based meats. And they stay fairly well in the mainstream. I can't wait for the creative stuff to begin showing up in cookbooks.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think this is a book well-suited to people who have been vegetarians for a while. The "plant-based meats" used are pretty much all beef replacements or similar, and largely chosen for their ability to mimic real meats. But personally, as a vegetarian of >15 years, I'm no longer really interested in ground beef as a concept and I don't miss it in my diet, so there's very little for me here.

[Aja Marsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

it is what it says it is so I shouldn't be frustrated that most of the recipes in here were using beyond or impossible. i like those some of the time, but they aren't a regular staple in my kitchen, so I'm not really the intended audience. there were a few recipes using tofu or jackfruit.

[Rosie Meadows · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very disappointed. This is one book I wish I had looked at more closely before bringing it home. However, I did learn some things (not good) I did not know about fake meat.