The western take on Chinese food is very different from the dishes you’ll find at restaurants in China. However, sweet and sour pork is something you can enjoy across the world. Cantonese sweet and sour sauce was created to be served over pork, but thanks to the Gardein Sweet and Sour Porkless Bites, you can enjoy it without the pork too.
When you open up this bag, you won’t just find balls of frozen faux-pork — you’ll also find frozen sauce encased in plastic. The bag is small, and you can easily thaw it out in a mug of hot water.
When you pour the rest of the contents of the bag into a pan, you’ll quickly notice that there aren’t that many porkless bites here. A bag can definitely serve 2-3 people if you add in some extra ingredients, but there is still less food here than you might think.
Those issues aside, the cooking process pretty basic. If you toss the bites into a pan and move them around so that they can cook evenly, you won’t have any issues. We added the sauce to the mix for the last minute of cook time, and we had more than enough sauce to coat every bite.
These bites don’t have the strange spongy texture that some faux meat products have, but they’re still not a great match for actual pork. They lack the gristle of real meat. Long-time vegetarians might be fooled, but meat-lovers will notice that these bites are much softer than the real thing.
The sweet and sour sauce dominates the meal, and that’s not a bad thing. These bites might not taste like pork, but we it’s hard to tell because the sauce overwhelms everything else. It’s a pretty standard sweet and sour sauce — the kind you’d expect to get when you order takeout — but it’s more than enough to make this a palatable meal.
If you really want to enjoy Gardein Sweet and Sour Porkless Bites, you’re probably going to want to add a few ingredients before you serve them. Throw in some rice, a few chunks of pineapple, and maybe some freshly cooked bell peppers, and you’ll have a great vegetarian alternative to takeout. If you’re craving sweet and sour pork, but are trying to avoid meat, this might help you to satisfy those cravings.
To learn more about the nutrition content, cooking instructions, or ingredients for these vegetarian-friendly bites, check out our package scans below.
