Meat-Free Barbecue with Quorn

Did you know that only 25 percent of the people who buy Quorn are vegetarians? The rest, like me, buy it for health and diet-related reasons. Quorn is low in fat and calories and is a very healthy source of protein.

 

I often have Quorn sausages in a sausage sandwich while my boyfriend has the full-fat kind, but when it comes to barbecues, I never go meat free. Quorn just isn't a patch on a juicy burger - or so I thought until the brand invited me to an event at the London Barbecue School.

First a few words about the London Barbecue School. I was amazed I'd never heard of it before but then owner/head chef Alastair said it had only been going for a couple of months. They have an outdoor space in a courtyard just across the road from Peckham Rye train station (easily reachable from London Bridge in less than ten minutes), round the corner from the Rooftop Cinema I've heard so much about.

The London Barbecue School uses a ceramic barbecue called a Kamado Joe – I’d never heard of these before. They have interchangeable cooking surfaces which let you create different heat zones; you cook with the lid closed and control the oxygen going to the fire using a vent at the top and the bottom.

 

 

We divided ourselves into four small groups and each had a cooking station with the barbecue, a selection of ingredients and a recipe. My group used the Quorn breaded chicken burgers to make wraps – chop some courgette, peppers and red onion and grill it, then spread a tortilla wrap with Greek yogurt mixed with lemon zest. Add some rocket, slice up the chicken burger and add to the wrap, roll up and enjoy. You can find the recipe on the Quorn website here.

 

 

 

It was very easy to make and assemble. We mixed lemon zest into Greek yogurt and spread that on a tortilla, and added the barbecued vegetables, and the chicken burger which we sliced up. It was delicious and something a bit different!

 

 

 

Another group was cooking Quorn’s meat-free Swedish style meatballs, in a sauce made of red pesto, tomato puree and garlic. These were threaded onto a skewer along with some courgette, red onion and cherry tomatoes, and barbecued. The recipe is here.

  

 

There were other kebabs on offer: when I’ve cooked Quorn sausages before it hasn’t occurred to me to do anything to them, but I will from now on! Another group was slicing the sausages into chunks, coating them in a mixture of mango chutney and mustard, and threading these onto skewers – they were delicious!

 

 

 

Finally you can’t have a barbecue without a burger; the last group was grilling Quorn’s meat free burgers and serving them in ciabattas, which they also lightly grilled, with sliced red chilli and pea shoots.

 

 

 

It was a very enjoyable evening and great to meet a few other bloggers who I follow like Becca from Amuse Your Bouche and Becky Thorn, author of one of the books I have at home, the No Waste Meal Planner. It was interesting hearing some things I didn’t know about Quorn, such as that they are launching a vegan range earlier this year, and that the brands is celebrating its 30^th anniversary, and is present in so many countries around the world. It was great fun learning some new ideas for things I can do with Quorn so I will be trying some of these out at home!

 

Thanks to Quorn for inviting me to the event.

Meat-Free Meals: Quorn Review and a recipe

Have you tried Quorn before? I've eaten their burgers and sausages many times - I'm not vegetarian, but they are much lower in fat and calories (and Slimming World syns!) than the meat versions. Sometimes you just can't beat a beefburger... but as I am watching my weight I often choose Quorn instead, and do really enjoy them. I didn't realise though that Quorn had so many products in its range until I was sent a few vouchers to try them.

Quorn products are made from Mycoprotein which is basically a fungus (like mushroom) with added minerals and so on - though it tastes nothing like mushroom. It is low in saturated fat and high in fibre, and has a similar texture and appearance to meat, and the taste is not that different either - perfect for people who don't want a beanburger but something actually resembling a hamburger, for instance.

The Quorn website is really interesting- as well as information about how it is made and the full range of their products, there are recipes and even a restaurant finder where you can put in your postcode and find restaurants which serve Quorn products. I didn't even realise that any did, but there were dozens around where I live, including Wetherspoons, Beefeater, Slug & Lettice, Pizza GoGo and more.

I could choose whichever products I wanted with the voucher and as I've had the burgers and sausages before I wanted something different. I thought a good taste test would be to compare one of their products to the meat version - since I am not a vegetarian, I choose Quorn for health reasons but it also has to taste good!

So I bought the Quorn lasagne - £3 for a 500g pack - and compared that to a beef lasagne I bought for my boyfriend. First of all it was good value for money - obviously beef is more expensive -but the nutritional information on the front was eye-opening when compared to the beef lasagne, though it did have more salt if you eat the whole pack (to be honest this would only serve two with a lot of veg or garlic bread on the side). You also get a lot longer on the best before date than with the beef lasagne.

Other leading supermarket's lasagne

Quorn lasagne

I like lasagnes that have a lot of cheese sauce rather than being too dry, and this one was perfect. I actually forgot I wasn't eating meat, it tasted that good, and with some veg on the side it made for a very filling meal, and is definitely something I would choose again. You can also buy Quorn mince to make your own lasagne, or spaghetti Bolognese following the recipe here.




Quorn lasagne. Mmm, cheese....

The second Quorn product that I tried was the meat-free bacon rashers. I know a few vegetarians who say the thing they miss most is bacon - and I also know one vegetarian who doesn't eat meat apart from bacon! I've never been a huge fan of bacon but as it does seem to be one of the things that vegetarians miss out on, I thought I'd see what this alternative tasted like.

The texture is completely different to bacon - it reminded me more of thin slices of Spam, or the turkey bacon I've eaten before. Like the turkey bacon, there is no fat in this so nothing to crisp up when you cook it, but it is incredibly low in fat and calories.

The flavour did remind me of bacon, but it clearly wasn't bacon - so if you're vegetarian try it and see what you think - it can't replace bacon entirely but then nothing can! I used these in a recipe for baked eggs - look out for this on the blog later - and it worked really well, but the rashers I ate on their own weren't quite as good as the texture was unfamiliar. But I think if you are vegetarian and really miss bacon, you should give these a go!

Finally I tried the 'roast chicken' sliced fillets. On their own they had a similar taste and texture to chicken and weren't bad. These are already cooked (unlike the bacon) so can be eaten straight from the packet for a healthy snack.

You can also cook with them and I decided to use the 'chicken' strips to make a variation on burritos. I had some leftover rice which I put into a small pan with the chicken, some chopped red pepper, a dash of water to stop it sticking and then as an afterthought some sweet chilli sauce and heated it through.

I used this to fill a flour tortilla which I then wrapped up; it was delicious!

 

Now I know that there are so many Quorn products in the range I won't just be sticking to the burgers or sausages, when I want a low fat alternative to meat.

Thanks to Quorn for sending me the vouchers.  I was not required to write a positive review. All comments are my own.