Review: Tofurky Slow Roasted Chick'n

Faux chicken pieces in the chiller section. Launched in the UK earlier this year, we were keen to get our hands on them. They finally landed in our neighbourhood this month, so we tried out a couple of the flavours:

Inside the boxes, the chick'n pieces are vac-packed in plastic, which locks in some moisture. The flavours we picked up were the Lightly Seasoned (plain, in other words) and Tandoori (on the left). There is also a BBQ flavour over here in the UK, while in the States there are another three varieties to choose from.

The plain and Tandoori are quite different, as the plain comes without sauce, while the Tandoori is covered in it. The flavours are similarly distinct, with the plain having a lightly salted and seasoned taste, that's vaguely reminiscent of chicken.

The Tandoori flavour is very mildly spicy, but has a decent sweet rounded curried flavour, with paprika and turmeric. Eaten straight from the pack, from the fridge, it's a flavour that you want to return to.

We wanted to try the pieces both hot and cold, so we put the Tandoori pieces in a wrap with some salad and dressing. It's not bad, but the texture is really a little too firm, chewy and dry. 

The same goes for being served hot, or at least without being cooked in a sauce. We followed the microwave instructions to warm the plain pieces up. The don't get any more tender cooked this way, but they perhaps would cooked in a sauce.

These chunks are essentially the same meaty texture as the full Tofurky Roasts, made from wheat gluten and tofu, but the roasts are sliced more thinly when served. With these thick chunks the texture is too firm and any juice doesn't penetrate.

Round Up

We're glad to have another option in the chiller section, but these new arrivals don't bring too much more to the table. They're quite similar to the VBites offerings and both brands could have better textures. It's unfair to say they're something we wouldn't recommend, because as a fridge snack they're okay, but just okay.

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Veganoo Score: ★★★☆☆
Tofurky - Slow Roasted Chick'n Pieces
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The Good: Meaty, tasty flavours

The Not-so-Good: Too firm

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Footnote: Ingredients

Here are the ingredients panels from the packs we reviewed.

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