A good breakfast sausage can be a great start to your day. Thankfully, Morningstar Farms’ line of vegetarian-friendly foods includes the Veggie Breakfast Sausage Links, letting vegetarians join in on this morning tradition. We picked up a box to see if these could stand up to real sausage links (the kind made from a pig).
According to the package, one box of these should contain approximately 10 sausage links. Ours contained exactly that, and all ten were sealed inside a single plastic pack.
Right out of the box, you can tell that these look more like the real deal than Amy’s Meatless Veggie Sausages do. Now, we actually do enjoy Amy’s take on this breakfast classic, but Amy’s links are crumbly in a way that a real sausage link would never be. The Morningstar Farms version holds together better and has a smoother texture.
We learned our lesson in the past about trying to cook sausage links in a microwave — they don’t usually turn out very good. So we decided to go straight to the skillet with these.
One serving size is supposed to be two links, which is reasonable considering these are intended as a side. We wanted more than two, though, so we tossed five links into a skillet and cooked them up. And oh, how they sizzle! You’ll want to make sure you attend to these through the cooking process, otherwise they’ll burn on one side. Make sure you keep flipping these while you are cooking them. We found the 12-minute recommended cook time to be a little too long — we pulled these off after about eight minutes and they turned out just fine.
Will a non-vegetarian be fooled into thinking these are real meat? Of course not. These have a melt-in-your mouth consistency that real sausage links lack. They also lack the firm outer casing of a real sausage, so you don’t get that crisp snap when you bite into one.
As far as flavor, however, these are pretty darn convincing. They have herbs and spices mixed in that create that seasoned sausage vibe, and the overall flavor is very close to the real deal. Add some syrup and these really do taste like genuine sausage links.
If you stick with the recommended two links, these only have 80 calories (25 from fat) and 300 mg of sodium. If you’re like us and decide to eat half a box at once, that becomes 200 calories (62.5 from fat) and 750 mg of sodium. That’s about average for a frozen meal. Of course, even if you eat five of these at once like we did, you probably won’t feel like you’ve eaten a full breakfast. We recommend two links with a plate of pancakes and a glass of orange juice if you really want a hearty breakfast.
The Morningstar Farms Veggie Breakfast Sausage Links are the closest thing we’ve found to a vegetarian version of breakfast sausage. Even though the consistency might not be perfect, these links have a great, authentic flavor.
To learn more about the nutrition information or ingredients in these vegetarian sausage links, check out our package scan below.