Wow, wow, wow. This review may go pretty fast. I don’t have many if any negatives about this faux-meat grounds blend. Before the Butcher® UNCUT Taco Grounds® is somewhere between fantastic and amazing. This award-winning plant-based product will blow you away. I can see why Before the Butcher UNCUT Taco Grounds won a FABI award. Let’s break it down.
Product Ingredients
The product ingredients include Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Spice blend, Lime juice powder, Turmeric, Extractive Natural Flavors, Canola Oil, Coconut Oil, Soy flour, Isolate Soy Protein and 2% or less of other ingredients as stated on their website.
Faux-meat.com Evaluation
Visual appeal – This plant-based product is packaged to look like a square package of traditional ground meat. It is deep red in color indicating what might be considered a seasoned, regular 80/20 ground of meat. I thawed the grounds in water before opening and placing them in the skillet. The grounds held together well.
Tactile dimension – The grounds are not sticky at all. They do feel like ground meat. Different size textures, a bit lumpy like fresh ground beef.
Preparation/cooking – It was Taco Tuesday in our house so only did one test of this product, taco meat for our favorite sweet kale salad mix taco salad. Taco grounds can go on or in anything Tex Mex – tostadas, burritos, flautas, and more. I was more interested in how they cooked up.
To start, I heated a teaspoon or so of avocado oil in a cast iron skillet and added the grounds. Using a wooden spoon, I separated the grounds just as I would a beef ground product. While browning, they separated nicely.
The grounds cooked very well, browned but did not stick, and did not caramelize on the bottom of the skillet. They scooted across the skillet bottom just fine without steaming or wallowing in extra fat like some beef grounds. No straining on paper towels is required. Five stars for that!
Taste. The grounds tasted just like taco meat without all the extra fat. A perfect blend of spices. Not too hot. Well-rounded. Nothing too loud or obtrusive to the taste. What more should I say?
Texture – Bingo. This product is as real as it gets. The Before the Butcher® UNCUT Taco Grounds® have different pieces of texture. Some are light colored and some are darker which makes the product look like beef grounds. It was nice and chewy with that ground animal crumble feel. You get the message in your head that you are eating some kind of meat in your prior non-vegan life.
My Nutritional expectations:
≥ 14 grams of Protein
≤ 500 milligrams of Sodium
≤ 9 grams of Fat
Any fiber is a bonus!
2 ounces of the Before the Butcher® UNCUT Taco Grounds® have:
Protein – 9 g Sodium – 470 mg
Total Fat – 6 g Fiber – 4 grams
Cholesterol – 0 mg Calories – 100
Additionally, I appreciate it when products keep the sodium level below 500 mg as a serving. Honestly, we ate more than 2 ounces of the product it was so good!
Last Comments
I have tasted a lot of grounds and had some personal favorites. These are impressive. You cannot go wrong with these grounds as a way to add protein to your dish or recreate a past non-vegan favorite into your new favorite dish. I can see nachos, taco soup, beef huevos rancheros, a super-fast chili, and more using these wonderful plant-based grounds. Finally, as stated on their website, Before the Butcher® is definitely “making a difference in what you eat and where you live.”
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