Tag Archives: Follow Your Heart

Vegan eggs – you have options

Eggs have often been considered one of the hardest animal products to replace, but increasingly there are some great alternatives available, both as commercial products and using basic ingredients.  There are plenty of recipes available online to help you use them.  Choosing what to use as an alternative depends on how you intend to use the egg – for a scramble, for an omelet, for pancakes, cookies, cakes or even meringue – it’s important to consider what you need the egg to do.

Commercial products currently available in the grocery store:

Just Egg – a liquid product that you can pour directly into the skillet to make yourself an omelet or scramble in just the same way as you would use fresh eggs.

Just Egg also make a Folded Plant Egg, which are pre-made patties that can be browned in the pan and served in sandwiches or on toast.

Follow Your Heart VeganEgg

This is a powdered egg replacement that comes in an egg carton-style package.  It is pre-seasoned, so there’s no need to add any salt.  Just add water and pour to make a great omelet.

Vegg Vegan Egg Yolk

Add water and oil then whisk together and let it stand for 3 minutes. This will give you a product very similar to the yolk of the egg.  It can be used in a scramble, on top of toast, or used in baking recipes.

Classic egg substitutions using basic ingredients

Mashed tofu

Recipes abound for the classic egg replacement of a tofu scramble. A tofu scramble can be made with cubed fried tofu, or by mashing a package of tofu, adding spices and vegetables.  Tofu Scramble Recipe

Silken tofu is also a great substitute for other dairy products, especially in desserts such as cheesecake. Baked Tofu Cheesecake recipe

Flaxseed or Chia seeds

For example, a standard substitute in recipes is a tablespoon of ground flaxseed, mixed into 3 tablespoons of water.  As the water absorbs into the ground flaxseed, the consistency becomes very similar to an egg, and this can be a great binding agent, in cookies for example.  Chia seeds also work in the same way, and give a gel like consistency when soaked. Added to your favorite baking recipes, this can work very well as a substitute for one egg, although it’s a good idea to find a recipe if you need more than one egg, since eggs also provide structure and lift when whipped and cooked.

Applesauce

Applesauce can help with replacing both eggs and oil, which is great if you’re trying to cut down on calories. For 1 egg, use ¼ cup of applesauce.  The pectin in the apples helps to bind ingredients together.  It does have a lot of moisture, so this works well for recipes that need a long baking time.

Mashed banana

Another ingredient which has a similar texture to egg is mashed banana.  This works great in pancakes or banana bread.   It is a great binder, but has a strong banana flavor. Pancake recipe

Pumpkin puree

Use ¼ cup of pumpkin puree for one egg in breads where the pumpkin will add moisture, sweetness and a rich color to your baking.

Baking soda and apple cider vinegar

When you need lift in your baked goods, the combination of baking soda and apple cider vinegar produces bubbles that give a light and fluffy texture.  It may take some experimenting, but try ¼ tsp baking soda for every 1 Tbsp vinegar as a substitute for an egg.

Aquafaba (Chickpea liquid)

When you drain a can of garbanzo beans, or cook your own from dried chickpeas, save the liquid.  It is similar to using whipped egg whites, so can be used for making a vegan meringue.

The best bet when using any of these substitutes in baking is to let someone else do the experimenting for you, and follow a recipe!

New vegan eggs

Brown eggs in the package

A new vegan egg is hatching, this one coming out of France. And, it will absolutely make us sit up and want to make some omelets. The advancement comes from two French entrepreneurs who are incubating a revolutionary vegan alternative to eggs that look and cook so real we won’t ever miss the real thing again. Their product is called Les Merveillœufs, which is a play on the French word, “merveilleux” meaning marvellous and “œufs,” French for eggs. It helps that these two founders are biologists at Paris’ Ecole de Biologie Industrielle. Read more

New Vegan Egg Product

VeganEgg_Closed-Carton-318x318Vegan Eggs are here!  Thanks to our friends at Follow Your Heart, we can finally make a dent in the 43.56 billion (yes, that was billion not million) eggs produced in the United States last year. Finally, we can have egg free omelets, quiches and good old stick-to-the-ribs scrambled eggs. They’re called VeganEgg and they’re taking the veg food market by storm.

These cholesterol free and compassionate lovelies are also touted as being sustainable “eggs”. The company reports that replacing just one year’s worth of American’s egg consumption is worth 48 billion driving miles worth of greenhouse gas emissions. Even the production of just one regular egg costs 52 gallons of water, when you factor in the irrigation for feed as well as the direct chicken and egg requirements. On an national level that comes out to 4.6 trillion gallons of water (yes, that was trillion with a t). The company making the VeganEgg is very environmentally minded. All their manufacturing energy needs are powered by state-of-the-art solar energy.

Eggs pack a lot of cholesterol. While the extra cholesterol in eggs only adds a little to the blood levels of the average American whose diet is already overwhelmed with cholesterol from animal products, it really shoots up the cholesterol levels for those following an otherwise healthy diet, and increases the amount of “bad” cholesterol relative to the “good.” Egg production is also really tough on chickens, that are usually packed into cages so tight they can’t turn around, and of course they all end up in the slaughterhouse.

Just as importantly for all those with an appetite, we’re happy to report that eyes roll when people taste ‘em. For all you omelet lovers, we have a delicious Italian Omelet recipe courtesy of Follow You Heart below.

VeganEgg is currently available at 6 locations in Washington state, and online. Please visit  http://followyourheart.com/buyveganegg/ for a list of locations. More locations are expected very soon.

 

Italian Omelet

(Serves 1-2)

Ingredients:

3 VeganEggs (6 level Tbsp VeganEgg™ + 1 ½ cups ice cold water)

1 tsp of vegan butter

3 leaves fresh basil, roughly chopped

4 cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

1/4 cup Follow Your Heart vegan cheese, shredded (we used Garden Herb)

Salt and Pepper to taste

 

Instructions:

Whisk or blend VeganEgg™ with ice cold water until smooth. Let sit for 1 minute.

Melt vegan butter in a pre-heated medium-sized skillet set to medium-high heat. Pour mixture into skillet (“egg” should sizzle in pan), and gently pull “egg” mixture toward the center with spatula so that uncooked “eggs” can reach the hot pan surface. Let sit for 2-3 minutes, then add “cheese”, tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper to one side of omelet (the half farthest from you will make folding easier later on).

When omelet starts to dry around the sides, use spatula to gently scrape and loosen omelet edges from skillet. You can carefully peek under with the spatula to see if browning has starrted, and reduce heat if necessary. When surface of omelet looks dry and underneath is golden brown, carefully flip empty side of omelet onto the “cheese”, basil and tomatoes side. This takes practice, but consider yourself an omelet master if you can do it in one go.

 

Serve and enjoy!