Review: Fry’s vegetarian range

I’m always delighted to come across new ranges of vegetarian offerings.

While I adore scratch cooking, making dinner for a mixture of meat and non-meat eaters can be a bit of a faff. So it’s good to have a freezer full of veggie alternatives to bung in the oven.

I’ve also found that these veggie alternatives can be so tasty that the boys and I will often join Matthew.

We use a mixture of Quorn and Sainsbury’s own meat-free ranges in our house, both of which are fantastic to cook with and get a firm thumbs up from the boys. They were particularly lifesaving when Sam dabbled with vegetarianism for a few months.

So I was curious when Fry’s sent me a box of their range to try – would it be as good?

I’d never heard of the company before, probably because I don’t really shop in Holland & Barrett where the range is available.

Fry’s vegetarian was started in the 1990s by the Fry family – a vegetarian couple on a mission to find their own protein-based alternatives to meat products.

I was immediately impressed with the fact that they cater for vegetarians and  vegans alike as they don’t contain any dairy products.

Veganism and convenience food don’t tend to go hand in hand, and is also great news for the barbecue season – should it stop raining long enough to roll the grills out that is.

We tried:

Chicken style burgers: Quite convincing if you’re after something that’s a bit like meat, easy to eat and quick to cook.

Schnitzels: Tasty crumb coated fillets that made a brilliant quick shove-in-the-oven meal with potatoes and vegetables. This is the kind of meal the boys wolf down without questions.

Traditional burgers: Looked a bit insipid and pale, but Matthew found them moist and tasty.

Traditional sausages: Kind of a cross between a regular pork sausage and a hot dog in texture. They looked a tad pale like the burgers, but again were moist with a nice flavour.

Meat-free pepper steak style pies: Looked great on the cover, and also when they came out of the oven. Took a little longer to cook than billed on the box. The filling certainly looked like meat, but had a bit of a strange taste with a very peppery after-taste.

Overall verdict:

The range is pretty extensive, so if you’ve got vegetarians or vegans coming to stay then stocking up on these will certainly make your life easier.

One of the best things about these products is that they’re ready in a flash – generally 10 minutes in a hot oven, so are great for speedy suppers.

The flavour and texture overall is pretty good, but the appearance of some of the products lets it down a bit.

The Fry’s Vegetarian range is available from Holland & Barrett, health food shops and to caterers via 3663.

Thanks for my review samples.