Hey all,
I recently bought a bag of Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) as a recipe in a cookbook I have called for it for tacos. Funnily enough, the bag I got also had a recipe for tacos on it, and after following it I have to say, it was phenomenal. Pretty certain I got bang for my buck considering it only used 100 g or such of a 340 g bag that I got for $5.79, that’s only about 21 ¢ a taco putting aside other ingredients.
I checked the company site for other recipes using TVP, but there wasn’t a whole lot. Curious if anybody here has any go-to recipes they’d like to recommend or share, as I’d love to use this stuff more often.
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I’m just commenting so I can come back and see if you get any good ideas. I used it in a green chile casserole with potatoes and “cheese” sauce recently and it tasted good, but got kind of mushy. It’s not my favorite vegan protein, but I still have most of a bag, so I also need suggestions.
As a replacement for ground beef.
Hamburger helper, pasta with “meat” sauce, that kind of stuff
Not where you’d shape it though; it won’t work for meatloaf and meatballs.
In addition to the other great ideas, I like making stuffed mushrooms with leftover TVP. Ingredients and style vary with what I have on hand but easy and tasty. Just remove the stem, fill/top mushrooms with tvp mix and bake/airfry. I love making TexMex ones with chorizo tvp.
Chili is another solid option
You can actually use it to make your own beyond-style burgers and sausages. That recipe didn’t work super well for me, so I developed my own which I can post if you’re interested.
TVP is useful anywhere you’d normally use ground meat, such as in chili, but adding a binder, as above, makes it useful for applications like sausage rolls, keema naan, etc.
You can also get TVP in large chunks or slices. For this stuff, I like to hydrate in stock with a little vinegar to get rid of that off-taste some TVP has, then squeeze out the moisture and sear in a large amount of fat. Prepared in this way, it is almost indistinguishable from meat.
You can also fry small, unhydrated TVP crumbles in oil and season with salt, MSG, and liquid smoke to make your own fake bacon bits. I like to use them on baked potatoes.
Sloppy joes works well.
It’s fine in any recipe where a heavy amount of seasoning provides most of the flavor, since it’s a little bland compared to normal ground beef. So you could throw some in a meat sauce for spaghetti, chili, could stuff it into peppers, things like that.
We primarily use it for a replacement or ground beef in tacos, and spaghetti.
Simple taco recipe we use: 1 onion 2 cans beans (any kind you like for tacos) 2 cans tomatoes (whatever kind you like for tacos) 1-2 Tbsp beef bouillon 1-2 packs of taco seasoning 1 cup TVP
Dice the onion. On high heat cook the onion in a large pan with oil to the level you prefer. Add cans of tomatoes and beans and cover. Once it simmering turn the heat down and stir, then leave covered and simmering for 10-20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes. Remove lid, add 1/2 cup of water, TVP, and beef bouillon and stir until TVP absorbs liquid. Add taco seasoning and stir. Add more water as needed to get the consistency you prefer. Done.
I’ve seen people rehydrating them, mixing with breadcrumbs, making balls out of them, and deep-frying.
I recently ran tvp through a pressure cooker and it was divine.
So there’s another thing called soy curls, which are similar to tvp. They come in a bunch of different shapes. Which can be handy for emulating different meat cuts. Just rehydrate them in whatever kinda broth/stock you want beef, chicken, veggie. I love to fry up an onion, and a poblano then drop in my tvp/curls. Add your favorite taco spices and enjoy some delicious tacos.
White bean chili is one of my favorites.
