Review: Amy's Kitchen Lasagne / Mac & Cheeze

Dairy-free pasta meals with Daiya cheese... the only source of Daiya in the UK as far as we're aware. These frozen ready meals are available in health food shops in the UK. Be careful when selecting the lasagne packs, as the dairy-free version looks similar to the dairy version. What we're itching to know... is Daiya all it's cracked up to be...?

The meals come in oven-proof cardboard trays. No frozen ready meal is going to look great before it's cooked, but we were particularly saddened by the sorry looking lasagne... you can practically count the cheese shreds... 

Macaroni cheese (or mac and cheese in US-speak) is easy to get wrong, or at least the vegan version is. Vegan cheese melts at higher temperatures than the dairy-stuff, which can lead to something silky in the pan becoming stodgy on the plate.

Our first exposure to Daiya isn't good. This mac and cheese is extremely cloying. The cheese is quite cheesy in flavour, but tastes over-salty. The rice pasta is fine - you'd never know this wasn't 'normal' pasta. 

That's not a melting cheese! (Daiya)

THIS is a melting cheese! (MozzaRisella)

The lasagne barely gets any of the Daiya cheese, and this is further compounded by the fact that this is a lasagne without any béchamel layers. It's almost dairy-free-by-leaving-out-the-dairy. What you get are layers of pasta and tomato-puree sauce, topped with a tiny bit of cheese. There are pieces of tofu in there, but we think of these as a meat replacement rather than replacing a white sauce.

The Daiya does melt...just about. You have to cover the lasagne with foil while cooking, to stop it burning though. If this is what Americans rave about for dairy-free cheese, we have to wonder why. For a real melting cheese that's great for lasagne, check out our reviews of MozzaRisella. Maybe Amy's should look into using MozzaRisella for their UK ready meals.

We can't be too harsh on Amy's Kitchen - they produce some great products , and they're one of the few producers actually making vegan ready meals. Their dairy-free efforts are underwhelming though - the use of Daiya is not a shortcut to great dairy-free meals. These pasta meals are tasty and filling however, and as a frozen standby, we're still inclined to recommend them.

The Good: Tasty, filling and widely available dairy-free pasta meals
The Not-so-good: Cloying mac 'n' cheese, No white sauce on lasagne

---

Veganoo Score: ★★★☆☆
Amy's Kitchen Vegetable Lasagne / Macaroni Cheese

---

Footnote: Ingredients

Here are the ingredients panels from the packs we reviewed.

Web: veganoo.net   Twitter: @veganoo   Facebook: fb.com/veganoo.net   Flickr: veganoo

Vegan Blog · Vegan Product Reviews · Vegan Food Reviews · Vegan News · Vegetarian