Tofurky Gourmet Sausages

Tofurky makes a fun variety of plant-based meats, including two lines of sausages: 'Artisan' and their original 'Gourmet'. Their original line includes three flavors: Italian, beer brats, and kielbasa. I've actually been eating these sausages for years now, but today I will be reviewing them for your reading pleasure! Read on to see my take of them...

Buying. The Tofurky gourmet sausages are usually pretty easy to find; it seems like any grocery store that carries a decent variety of plant-based meats will usually carry a flavor or two. They usually run between $3-6 for a 14 oz pack of four sausages. You will likely find them in the cold case, but I suppose they could be found frozen as well. Tofurky has a product locator on their website.

Online, you can purchase them from Vegan Essentials.

Packaging. As you can probably see in the picture above, the Italian flavor has a much different packaging design! I guess I decided to do this review just as Tofurky is giving their products a new look. Besides appearances on the cardboard sleeves, everything else about the packing is the same.

Nutrition. While there are some slight variations between the three flavors, they all have an awesome amount of protein, and too much fat & sodium. Still, they are much healthier than a pig-based option. In my opinion, they're not the healthiest way to get protein, but I feel they would be fine to eat on occasion.

Preparation. I'm really quite happy to see a much needed paring down of the heating instructions on the newer packaging. Over the years, I've prepared them using every method on the package except boiling. I've even eaten them straight from the package, which probably isn't recommended.

I do have a bit of issue with their suggested cooking times, as none of them seem long enough to properly heat them through. I find that I have to increase the cooking time at least by 50% to get the sausages all the way heated. On the other hand, you want to be careful to not overcook them, as they will easily dry out and become really unpleasant.

For the purposes of this review, I prepared them on my Cuisnart Griddler, using the grilling plates, for the recommended grilling time of 3-4 minutes. I probably should have used a higher heat setting (I went medium-high), but I didn't want to burn them. Still, as expected, they warmed through, but didn't get as hot as I would have preferred.

Top to bottom: Italian, beer brat, kielbasa

Tasting. All three varieties have a good, dense texture to them that holds up well. No mushy-ness or crumbling going on here!

• Beer Brats: These have a wonderful, ale-y flavor to them, I absolutely love them! They are definitely my favorite of the three. 
• Kielbasa: Even though they are primarily flavored with onion and garlic, the flavors don't come across too strong. Overall, they taste very good and rank my second favorite. 
• Italian: Don't think these are a replacement for "traditional" Italian sausage, the flavor is just something more along the lines of Italian-inspired. They taste very strongly of the dried tomatoes that are very present throughout the sausage. I could barely taste the basil at all, which is disappointing since I love basil. They also have a tiny bit of heat to them too. I think I would like these a lot more if the tomato flavor wasn't so overwhelming. 

Bottom Line. As I mentioned above, I've bought these sausages many times in the past and I plan on continuing buying them! Well, at least the Beer Brat and Kielbasa flavors, I could personally give the Italian flavor a miss.

I would recommend giving any of them a try! If you don't mind strong tomato flavor in a sausage, you might like the Italian more than I do. I guess some people certainly like it as it seems to be the easiest of the three flavors to find. If you're one to avoid carageenan, you'll want to give the Beer Brat flavor a miss.

Tofurky product page.