If all the vegans and vegetarians find real bacon, sausage, and hamburger so distasteful, why do they keep trying to make food that tastes just like it? (I totally understand that there are those people with allergies to beef or pork due to the lone star tick—but really, there aren’t a lot of people like that.) Why not just eat the produce and grains instead of trying to turn them into something like meat?
Unfortunately, we’re entering a world where access to meat—and lots of other food—is going to become limited due to availability, price, or both. Making a substitute to tide us over might not be a bad idea. Or, like the Fakin Bacon I wrote about a year ago, it could be a truly horrendous idea. (You have no idea how awful unless you’ve tried it.)
Enter Oatmeal Sausage.
How bad could it be?
Let’s find out.
There are precious few recipes online for oatmeal sausage. That’s your first hint that there could be trouble ahead. I started with the second recipe listed below. However, it needed some chill time in the fridge, so while waiting I went ahead and cooked up the first recipe. I found it at TheThriftyVegHead.com.
Oatmeal Sausage
½ cup quick oats
1 cup water
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon sage
Dash salt
Dash cayenne
3 tablespoons unbleached flour if going gluten free, try any type, it's really just a binding agent
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Microwave the oats and water for 1 minute, or cook on the stove for 5 minutes. Add all the seasonings, and then the flour and oil, mixing very well.
Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Pour 1-2 tablespoons of oil into the pan. Drop balls of the mixture onto the pan. Cook for 2 minutes, until firm and browning. Flip and cook the other side, pressing down on the patties with the back of the spatula. Cook 2 more minutes and then flip again and cook for a final 2 minutes.
Reviews. These are truly nasty. And while I think it’s important to have more than one person taste testing and reviewing, there’s no way I could serve these to my family. I’m thinking I might even offend the dogs by offering them. The rest of the batter is going into the compost pile.
After that disaster, I didn’t hold out much hope for the second recipe, which I got from MentalHealthFood.net. But as I already had the oatmeal cooling in the refrigerator and I already made up the spice blend, I figured I might as well go for it.
Oatmeal Breakfast Sausage
3 cups cooked old-fashioned oatmeal
Sausage Seasoning Blend
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried parsley
½ teaspoon dried sage
¼ teaspoon black pepper
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch garlic powder
Combine seasoning blend ingredients and then add to the cooked oatmeal. Mix well and form into patties. Fry over medium heat in 2 tablespoons of cooking oil. (I used olive oil.)
Cook for a total of six minutes, flipping every two minutes and pressing down as necessary.
Some sources noted that using regular oats will yield a better textured product. Also, frying in oil makes a huge difference. Don’t listen to the fools who suggest using non-stick pan and no spray.
Family reviews: Wowza, this is much better. After starting two oatmeal sausage patties in the frying pan, I put the pan by the other bowl of oatmeal fake sausage to be put in the compost pile, because I was sure it wouldn’t taste good. Happily, I was wrong and quickly ate the two patties I made for myself. When Aaron got up I made two patties for him as well. And he thought they were pretty good. A few hours later I then made some for King of the Picky Eaters and Buttercup. KOTPE said he could definitely tell it wasn’t sausage, but it tasted pretty good. Buttercup doesn’t like real sausage that much—a texture thing—and she didn’t like this much, either, but she thought the flavor was fine. Also, as I couldn’t find our rolled oats, I used quick oats. We all think rolled oats would give a better texture.
Links to related posts:
References:
https://thethriftyveghead.com/quick-oatmeal-breakfast-sausage/
https://mentalhealthfood.net/oatmeal-breakfast-sausage/
