We’ve decided to write this post to share our best vegan ground beef recipes for meatless meals. Shortlisting a handful of our favourite dishes that use store-bought plant-based protein in place of meat, because there are alternatives to lentils flavoured with soy sauce to get some vegetable protein into your diet.
That being said, we did make a great vegan Shepherd’s pie using lentils stewed in tomato sauce. But minced lamb naturally has a more earthy flavour with a sweeter secondary taste than its bovine minced meat counterpart used traditionally in a cottage pie for example. The earth-like taste of dried red lentils combined with the sweeter tones the tomatoes offer better suits Shepherd’s pie than any store-bought option in our opinion.
It’s undeniable though if you have not been vegan for that long, there is a certain comfort or familiarity in picking up a packet from the shelf. There are so many brands available for purchase in the grocery store now, that you don’t always have to reach for a packet of Beyond meat.
Also from our point of view, many of the plant-based options out there taste better than the real thing. The better brands though will have overcome the issue of dryness. One thing that can be lost when using meatless ground beef is the juiciness that the actual ground beef would have provided.
Presuming the ground beef was close to or over 80% lean (only 20% fat) then this would be much juicier than a leaner alternative with a lower fat content. The plant-based ground beef when used in vegan recipes can seem like meat with a very low-fat content, but not all and it’s worth trying out what your local stores have to offer. There’s no harm in trying out more than one of your local grocery stores range.
Of all our vegan recipes, the first vegan ground beef recipe we posted on Easy Vegan Grub was for our easy vegan lasagne. The whole recipe only uses 10 simple ingredients:
VEGAN LASAGNE BAKE INGREDIENTS
9 lasagne pasta sheets
450 g vegan ground beef substitute
1 yellow onion
2 tsp minced garlic
800 g of lasagne tomato sauce
480 g vegan white lasagne sauce (recommend Tesco Free From sauces)
200 g grated mozzarella
Olive oil
Ground salt and black pepper (to taste)
50 g vegan parmesan
We wrote the recipe with the same aim as all the dishes we share, to be affordable and simple to make. Making vegan food accessible to everyone, regardless of cooking experience, free time or even confidence. For full instructions for this great meatless ground beef recipe, and our vegan meat sauce, just visit the original easy vegan lasagne post, and you will find a downloadable recipe card there too.
While regular ground beef might have a distinct flavour, there are ways in vegan cooking to replicate these meatier tastes. If you aren’t interested in cooking with plant-based ground beef from the store, then as we mentioned above you can use a legume such as lentils and soy sauce for that missing umami flavour, you can even use a vegan Worcestershire sauce. This is exactly what we did for our vegan shepherd’s pie recipe, plus some other rich flavour-packed ingredients.
Staying true to the title of this post through and focusing on ground beef substitutes, another great vegan beef recipe we posted a little while after our easy vegan lasagne was for a vegan cottage pie. To quote the recipe’s introduction a cottage pie is called so “because it was an affordable and easy meal for the masses. It was a warm and wholesome dish that was accessible to those who you would find residing in a dwelling such as a cottage, and much like what a plate of haggis, neeps and tatties is to the Scottish”.
Our vegan version of the cottage pie is pretty true to the historic original recipe, just simply substituting the minced meat and a couple of other of the main components (butter and stock) for plant-based ingredients. There are plenty of classic British dishes that lend themselves to being great vegan meals, and this is one of them. As you can see from the list we’ve shared below most of the standard ingredients for a cottage pie are vegetables anyway, so just using vegan ground meat substitutes is all that’s needed to enjoy these hearty dishes meat-free.
1 kg of potatoes (King Edward or Maris Piper)
500 g vegan mince
2 carrots
1 cup of frozen garden peas
1 yellow onion
1 tsp of wholegrain mustard
2 Tbsps of vegan butter
500 ml of boiling water
Vegan gravy granules (Bisto’s Best onion gravy or similar)
Vegan stock cube (Oxo vegan beef flavoured or similar)
1 Tbsp of olive oil
Granulated salt
Ground salt and Pepper
For this post, we also thought we would consider some of our favorite recipes that we’ve already put out into the world that could be transformed by adding a plant-based alternative such as a vegan mince or a beefless crumble. The one we decided to try straight away was to take our easy recipe for a vegan marinara pasta sauce and simply add our favourite meat-free mince. This made for a great vegan bolognese sauce, perfect for anyone practising the plant-based diet and looking for a simple vegan spaghetti sauce to accompany a bowl of fresh pasta.
We’ve shared the ingredients list below for our vegan marinara sauce recipe, just simply add a meat-free pound of ground beef and you have a great pasta meat sauce.
VEGAN MARINARA SAUCE INGREDIENTS
2 cans of crushed tomatoes
1/2 yellow onion (substitute with onion powder)
4 tsp minced garlic (substitute with garlic powder)
1 sprig of fresh basil
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
So regardless of whether you are new to the plant-based diet and are sticking to what you know with store-bought protein, or you’re more experienced in vegan cooking but are looking for a simple meal for a busy weeknight, there are plenty of options for easy vegan ground beef recipes. Whether you are in the mood for some rich Italian food or a hearty English dish there are loads of great meals you can cook up using meatless ground beef.
