Tofurky Deli Slices - Smoked Ham Style

Once upon a time, when I first started going veg, my choices for deli slices were salty, rubbery crap or salty, rubbery crap. Not too appealing, eh? And then along came Tofurky, purveyor of the awesome holiday roast, they decided to make the roast in a sliced form with a variety of flavors! But how did it compare to the lackluster offerings from Yves and Light Life? Let's take a look!


Buying. I can find Tofurky slices almost anywhere that has a decent selection of vegan meaty goods. Finding the ham flavor might be a bit tricky, however. It seems this is their newest flavor to join their deli slice line up, although how long it's been out I'm not sure. The only place I've seen it so far is New Seasons, and the package I picked up was almost expired as is. Most stores seem to have them for $2-4, I payed $3.49 for this package at New Seasons. Tofurky slices do freeze well, but look for them in the cold case.

Don't mind buying perishables online? Vegan Essentials carries the ham flavor, and I found a case of six at an obnoxious price on Amazon.

Packaging. These ham flavored deli slices are packaged the same as all the other Tofurky deli slices. They are vacuum packed in plastic and then inside of a slim cardboard outer box. The carboard box has a perforated tear tab along the bottom, and I usually don't have too much trouble ripping open the plastic, but sometimes I require the aid of scissors.

Unfortunately the plastic "bag" isn't resealable, and I'm left to my own devices to find good storage for the uneaten slices (though it is tempting to eat the whole package at once). I recommend something air tight as the deli slices can dry out easily, and nobody wants dried out tofurky slices!

Nutrition. A serving size is five slices, now keep in mind that these slices can vary in thickness a bit, I've come across paper thin slices and rather thick slices. I guess they mean the "average" thickness for the serving. For me, 5 slices is way more than what I would typically put on a sammich anyway, I usually go with 2-3.

Each serving is only 110 calories (that's 22 per slice), with 4g of fat and no saturated fat, yay! I feel like the sodium is a bit on the high side considering that this should just be one component of a whole meal, it's got 280mg.

I was surprised to see any fiber at all in these slices, it's got 2g per serving! And it should be no surprise that it's got a nice load of protein, 15g!

Looking over the ingredients, you'll see this is a pretty processed food. Really, almost anything trying to imitate animal products is going to be processed. I honestly don't have much positive to say about the ingredients. It's mostly gluten, tofu and oil. It does contain carageenan as well, I'm not personally worried about, but I know others try to avoid it.

So nutritionally, the slices don't look too bad, but the ingredients show that it is very processed. I would only eat these occasionally. Still, they're much better health-wise than animal flesh deli meats.

Sammich time!

Noms. I've been eating Tofurky slices for years now, and I have to say that these are just ham flavored Tofurky slices. The texture does not seem like ham at all (keep in mind, I haven't had "real" ham since probably '94-'95), their deli slices were originally meant to be like turkey if I am not mistaken. When I first had Tofurkey deli slices, it made me do a double-take because I thought they really were turkey cold cuts. So I guess these slices could be something like turkey ham slices (if such a thing exists, I know turkey bacon does).

Flavor-wise, they taste "hammy" enough for me, they even taste a bit smoky and a little too salty. I ate some slices on their own and then in a sandwich, and in the sandwich I'm not sure I would easily be able to tell the difference between these or any other flavor of Tofurky deli slices.

End Notes. Tofurky website. Don't get me wrong, I do actually enjoy Tofurky deli slices, as well as many of their other products. I just wasn't overly impressed with these ham flavored slices, I guess it missed my expectations a bit when the texture was exactly the same as all their other slices. I do plan on continuing purchasing the deli slices in the future, and I probably would buy this flavor again to change things up here and there, but I would not intentionally seek it out.

I love the fact that Tofurky is a local company (for me), they're just a small, family owned company, and they're all vegan! You can buy all their products with confidence, I do recommend giving any Tofurky products a try, if you don't have anything against plant-based meats!