Make your vegan spaghetti even meatier while increasing protein content with TVP!
TVP is an acronym commonly used for textured vegetable protein. It is made from soy and can be bought unflavored. TVP can absorb just about any flavor it’s cooked in, making it an extremely versatile ingredient. To make your vegan spaghetti even meatier and packed with more protein, add TVP!
Making Meaty Vegan Spaghetti
So, a pretty good vegan spaghetti cooking session only requires a few simple ingredients to get you going: pasta, pasta sauce, and a meat alternative like Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods.
If you feel like getting fancy, add some store-bought fresh basil or grow your own from basil seeds.
Add TVP to Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods
These days, there are amazing meat alternatives like Beyond Meat’s Beyond Beef and Impossible Foods burger meat. They both come in bricks just like ground beef or ground turkey packaging.
Beyond Meat is a pea-based meat alternative. Its Beyond Beef product weighs 20 grams of plant-based protein per serving.
A macronutrient breakdown for Beyond Beef:
- Fat: 18g
- Carbs: 5g
- Protein 20g
NUTRITION FACTS
- Serving Size: 4 oz (113g)
- Servings Per Container: 4
- Amount per serving
- Calories 230
| Amount | %Daily Value* | |
|---|---|---|
| Total Fat | 14 g | 18% |
| Satured Fat | 5 g | 25% |
| Trans Fat | 0g | |
| Polyunsaturated Fat | 3 g | |
| Monounsaturated Fat | 6 g | |
| Cholesterol | 0 mg | 0 % |
| Sodium | 390mg | 17% |
| Total Carbohydrate | 7 g | 3 % |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g | 7 % |
| Total Sugars | 0 g | |
| Added Sugars | 0 g | |
| Protein | 20 g | 40% |
| Vitamin D | 0 mcg | 0 % |
| Calcium | 100 mg | 8 % |
| Iron | 4mg | 20% |
| Potassium | 330 mg | 6 % |
| Niacin | 4.7mg NE | 30 % |
| Vitamin B6 | 0.3 mg | 15% |
| Vitamin B12 | 2.4mcg | 100% |
| Pantothenic Acid | 0.5 mg | 10% |
| Zinc | 4.6mg | 40 % |
* The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories in a day is used for general nutrition advice.
Their competitor, Impossible Foods, offers a burger meat product with 19 grams of plant-based protein per serving.
Both are equally delicious and both are equally cruelty-free
TVP Is Packed with Plant-based Protein
TVP is a great high-protein, non-fat ingredient to add to these meat alternatives to make spaghetti’s meat sauce meatier.
This superhero of an ingredient is light brown/tan in color, almost like plain cereal bits.
To use TVP for making a meat sauce, add it to the meat-alternative base (Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods) while it’s cooking so it can take on some of the flavors from the base meat alternative.
Combine the mixture with a quick stir and let it sit for about a minute or two.
After that, add pasta sauce and stir as needed.
Depending on your stove settings, it will take some time for the meat to cook fully.
Personally, I keep the burner on the middle setting and cover it with occasional stirring every minute or so for around 8 minutes.
Recommended Products
The following are the products I’ve used to make my own meaty, high-protein spaghetti. Some of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links.
TVP aka Textured Vegetable Protein
Anthony’s Textured Vegetable Protein, TVP, 1.5 lb, Gluten-Free, Vegan, Made in the USA, Unflavored
Beyond Beef from Beyond Meat
You can likely get Beyond Beef from Beyond Meat from your local grocery store. In South Florida where I live, Publix (our major grocery store chain) has been selling Beyond Meat products for a while. Sometimes, they go on Publix’s famous BOGO (buy one, get one) sale. Additionally, Whole Foods slang these on the daily.
If, however, you’ve scoured the shelves of frozen food are they don’t turn up, you can buy them on their site or even on Amazon.
Impossible Foods Burger Meat
If you’re lucky enough to have a local grocery store near you that sells Impossible Foods products, they’ll likely carry their burger meat product.
You can buy these bad boys in a convenience pack from the Impossible Foods website for those who aren’t so lucky.
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