Do you love a veggie burger that you can really sink your teeth into? Look no further than this round-up of 5 meaty veggie burgers, perfect for vegan grilling season.
It’s grilling season at last!
Whenever the snow melts off, I’m always excited to dust off the grill and cook in the sunshine.
Everything is better on the grill. Grilled tofu with lemon & rosemary, veggie fajitas, grilled Portobello mushrooms, and grilled banana splits with chocolate peanut butter sauce…
But sometimes when you’re heading to a cookout or just needing something cozy and familiar, only a veggie burger will do.
There are loads of vegan burgers on the market nowadays (and of course, you can make your own). Store-bought options range from vegetable & grain-based burgers to ones so meaty you have to do a double take.
My preferences are on the meatier side of things when I’m looking for a veggie burger. So I tend to choose ones that are made from seitan, soy, or pea protein.
If you also prefer a meaty veggie burger, here are 5 burgers for this vegan grilling season I think you’re going to like!
Field Roast FieldBurger
FieldBurgers are a longtime favorite of mine. They are the highest in calories of any of the options here. But that means it’s a fatty, juicy burger that really feels like a summer indulgence. One patty is 290 calories and has 16 grams of fat.
The fat gets a little crackly around the edges, which is downright addictive to me.
These burgers are seitan-based, but also include barley, garlic, onions, mushrooms, celery, and carrots. They include a lot of flavorful spices, which gives them a distinctive flavor profile.
You can find Field Roast burgers at many natural grocery stores in either the fresh or frozen case.
Looking for another Field Roast option? Their Celebration Roast is also amazing on a vegan bánh mì.
Gardein beefless burgers
The Gardein beefless burger is David’s usual summer pick. It has a strong grilled flavor right out of the package, which means that even if you have to cook it in a grill pan, you’re still going to have a lot of smoky flavor.
It is a thin burger, which David really likes in case he feels like making a vegan Big Mac – either full-sized or in mini form.
Gardein Beefless Burgers are made with non-GMO soy and wheat in addition to kamut, amaranth, millet, and quinoa flour. One beefless burger has 140 calories and 5 grams of fat.
They’re delicious alongside grilled vegetable skewers.
Add non-dairy thousand island dressing for vegan Big Macs. They’re also great on a cheeseburger pizza.
Gardein has a huge distribution. Within the U.S. it can be found at large chain stores like Target and Walmart, as well as the usual natural grocery store circuit.
The Beyond Burger
Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burgers have really taken off in the last few years. Not only can they be found at grocery stores big & small, they’re also popular at restaurants & fast food places.
You can buy them already formed as burgers, or in packs to form your own. It looks very much like red ground beef right in the package.
They are made from pea protein isolate and get their signature color from beet juice extract & annatto. One patty is 270 calories with 20 grams of fat.
Beyond Burgers can be cooked on an indoor grill pan (as shown above). But keep in mind that they have a lingering scent. So I recommend cooking them outside or in the air fryer, which seals in the scent, if you have the option.
To air fry the Beyond Burger, cook at 360 degrees for 9 minutes, stopping once to flip. Or go for 8 minutes and finish it off in a grill pan as I did here.
(By the way, I think the Beyond Meat sausages are much better than the burgers! You can even make their breakfast sausages on the grill in a cast iron breakfast skillet.)
Herbivorous Butcher hamburger
This hefty vegan burger from Herbivorous Butcher is one that really fills you up. It is the kind of burger you can really sink your teeth into.
It has a seitan base and is seasoned with vegan Worcestershire, soy sauce, brown sugar, and molasses. This burger has 260 calories with 7 grams of fat.
And if you feel like straying from burgers, of course, Herbivorous Butcher has loads of vegan meats that are perfect for the grill. (And here are some barbecue side dishes to go with them!)
Herbivorous Butcher products aren’t sold everywhere, but they are expanding. They also ship throughout the U.S. & Puerto Rico. You can find the burgers on their a la carte menu.
Impossible Burgers
Impossible Burgers are the Coke to Beyond’s Pepsi. They seem to be the two biggest competitors currently on the market.
They’re marketed similarly with a focus on how they compare to their animal-based counterpart.
You can find Impossible at Trader Joe’s or Target. They go for about $7.99 package.
It’s most commonly sold in packaging where you make your own patties. But I’ve recently also seen pre-formed patties, which is especially convenient for cookouts.
I prefer Impossible to Beyond for the texture, taste, and smell. They really taste like an old school hamburger.
Content and photos updated March 23, 2021. Originally posted May 7, 2018.
Tracey
Hi! What time & temp to you use to air-fry the Beyond Burger?
Cadry
That’s a good question, Tracey! I haven’t done it enough in the air fryer to give hard & fast numbers. When I made them the other day, I cooked them at 360 degrees for about 8 minutes, stopping once to flip, and then I finished them in the grill pan for better grill marks. The air fryer gets pretty smoky. I think limiting the amount of time they were on the grill pan helped minimize the smell some. The next time I make them in the air fryer, I’ll update this post, and let me know if you get to it before then! I’ll be interested to hear how it goes for you.
Bianca Phillips
Yay! These are all my faves (plus, Impossible, but you can’t buy it in a store, sadly). It’s been WAY too long since I’ve had the Field Roast burger, and it’s one of my top 5 burgers for sure. Glad they lowered the calories cause that 340 always got me! By the time you add a bun and Chao cheese and mayo, it was a calorie bomb for sure.
Cadry
I haven’t tried the Impossible Burger. It’s available a few places in Iowa, but all of the places close to me don’t offer a vegan bun. (One will swap in focaccia.) It’s great that more businesses are getting vegan burgers, but also getting vegan buns seems like an obvious next step. I was pleasantly surprised that Field Roast lowered the fat and calories in their burger too. I didn’t realize that until I was writing this post. I think it’s new since last summer, because I remember that last year, David’s double Gardein burger still had fewer calories than my single Field Roast burger.
Ttrockwood
The beyond burger and the impossible burger both just creep me out, they’re too much like meat for me! Haha!
I do like the Uptons naturals burger, but I usually go for the more veggie based burgers like sunshine or lately hillary’s which i have only made indoors so not sure how they do on an actual grill
Cadry
Haha! I hear that. I haven’t tried the Impossible Burger, but my husband is similarly creeped out that they advertise it as a veggie burger that “bleeds.” I don’t think he’ll be running to get one anytime soon! I haven’t had a Hilary’s burger in a long while, but I remember thinking it was quite tasty. It seems like it would be too delicate for an outdoor grill, though. I’m glad that there are so many veggie burger options to cover a variety of preferences!