With the explosion in the growth of the meat alternatives industry, I was happy to accept an offer to try a few products from Ruth’s Vegetarian Gourmet.
The company is based in Minnesota and gets its recipes from a woman named Doris Ruth, who “joyfully (experimented) with simple, wholesome vegetarian recipes in her humble Midwest kitchen.”
The products come frozen and are easy to heat up–I used both a microwave and a frying pan. For allergens, they contain milk, egg, wheat and tree nuts. Because the products are well-seasoned, they do a good job of mimicking the taste of meat, especially if you use them as part of a larger recipe.
For example, the breakfast patty was my favorite, as it was fairly close to sausage in terms of taste and texture. I combined the patty with a fried egg to make for a delicious breakfast sandwich that the average person would probably have a hard time telling was not actual meat if you didn’t tell them in advance. Each patty has 140 calories, 8 g. of carbs and 9 g. of fat.
I also enjoyed the pepper and cheese slider, which tasted like a Boca burger, but meatier. If you’re pressed for time, you should know that the patty only takes 75 sec. in the microwave to be ready. I am a fan of sliders (I make homemade ones all the time), and I can see these vegetarian sliders making it into my rotation. Each slider has 165 calories, 8 g. of protein, 10 g. of carbs and 11.5 g. of fat.
Ruth’s makes two versions of meatballs (vegetarian balls). The homestyle is quite dense, but each successive bite made it grow on me in terms of enjoyment. In fact, I ate them without any sauce. You can detect a hint of the cheese along with pecans and onion. Three balls have 280 calories, 11 g. of protein, 21 g. of carbs and 17 g. of fat.
The sweet and tangy vegetarian balls were more to my liking, as they resembled meatloaf in taste because of its use of (organic) ketchup. They’re not as dry as the homestyle version and fit nicely in a hoagie. Three balls has 330 calories, 12 g. of protein, 17 g. of fat and 33 g. of carbs.
In Madison, you can buy Ruth’s Vegetarian Gourmet products at a variety of stores including Regent Market Co-op, Willy Street Co-op and Woodman’s.
Top photo courtesy of Ruth’s Vegetarian Gourmet
Tags: vegetarian
I want to personally thank you for reviewing Ruths Vegetarian Products. These are my Mom‘s recipes that I’ve eaten for decades. As a small company located in my hometown of Two Harbors, MN, you are helping a start up that cares about our people, our community and the planet. We source from the US and Canada exclusively and in fact our cheese comes from Wisconsin of course! Again, thank you so much for your very well written review. It means a lot. Bruce/ founder