After being so wowed by the Worthington Meatless Leanies, I immediately set myself the task of trying more of the brand’s plant based product line up. The next item I managed to track down (I wish they had a bigger distribution and availability!) was this stand in for corned beef. I’ve never had the best of luck with meat free deli meats, they often verge between plastic and dog food.
Inside the cardboard packaging of the Worthington Corned Beef come two plastic packages. Neither is resealable and each contains about six slices as shown here:
Obviously the stuff looks totally fake as you can see. This isn’t one of those plant based products that will have you questioning, “is this really not meat”, from a glance. It’s a hyper processed looking product and vibrantly red. I decided to eat it cold out of the fridge (the packaging says to freeze, but I screwed up) as a coleslaw/corned beef sandwich and also fried up in a pan on top of a veggie burger. Here are the results:
So, as good as the leanies? Well… I’m tempted to say yes, this product is also a home run success. Lets be clear, this won’t convince a dyed in the wool carnivore to hand over their corned beef, but as part of the right burger or sandwich it does make for an impressive stand in. You get a lot of rich smokiness and garlic bite that can add a ton to a dish.
The texture is really great. I can’t say spot on, but check out those cross section photos above, at a brief glance, this stuff really does have that corned beef flakiness and importantly, mouthfeel.
Taken purely by itself, the artificiality of the product does leap out, that’s why I’d recommend using as part of a larger dish with other ingredients. Like the packaging shows, if you piled a few slices of this heated up on some rye, with sauerkraut and Russian dressing, I’m betting you’d be pretty happy.
Worthington Meatless Corned Beef
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Overall
Is the Worthington Meatless Corned Beef any good?
I’m a huge fan of this product. First up it has a great texture and mouthfeel, it can work really well provided you bring some other quality ingredients/toppings to the table. On its own the artificial nature of the product can stand out, but hey, you’re not going to do that right?
Hi, I’m Stuart, nice to meet you! I’m the founder, writer and wrangler at Gastronomic SLC – Utah’s biggest and oldest online food magazine; I’m also a former restaurant critic of more than five years, working for the Salt Lake Tribune. I’ve worked extensively with multiple local publications from Visit Salt Lake to Salt Lake Magazine, not least helped to consult on national TV shows.
I’m a multiple-award winning journalist and have covered the Utah dining scene for the better part of fifteen years. I’m largely fueled by a critical obsession with rice, alliteration and the use of big words I don’t understand. I started Shop Smart to catalogue my adventures in the grocery store and kitchen. Follow along on Instagram too!