A good brunch plate is made up of a few key ingredients. You need something like a classic tofu scramble or eggs, like a chickpea flour omelet. Barring any allergies, some type of potato is a must, such as hash browns, home fries or tater tots. And then, the last main for your brunch is usually vegan bacon—perhaps with a side of broccoli, if you want something green. Really, we kind of opt for both. There are so many options out there these days — so, how do you pick the best vegan bacon?
We’ll dive into the answer to that question in this guide, but first, how do you cook with vegan bacon?
How to Use Vegan Bacon
Vegan bacon doesn’t just have to make an appearance at brunch. It can serve as an appetizer around dairy-free Chevre-stuffed dates, asparagus, or jalapeño poppers. You can add it to a veggie BLT sandwich, sprinkle it over a cobb salad, or bake it into an eggless quiche. If there’s an omnivore recipe that uses bacon in any way, shape, or form, there’s a vegan bacon that will do the job.
Hooray Foods
Which vegetarian bacon you choose depends on the job. If you’re wrapping it around food, you want something that’s flexible enough not to break when bent. Plant-based bacon made from seitan or wheat gluten is best for this because it has some stretch, all thanks to the gluten. If you’re making sandwiches or wraps, you have a little more freedom—any kind of vegan bacon can do, like tempeh bacon or homemade tofu bacon. Or, take TikTok star Tabitha Brown’s famous carrot bacon for a spin.
In a salad, you’ll want mushroom bacon, plant-based bacon bits, or you can cut the strips into bite-sized pieces in the skillet. (FYI, many “bacon bits” are actually vegetarian, so it’s worth checking the label if you find a bottle at the grocery store. McCormick Bac’n Bites are 100 percent vegan.)
Is vegan bacon healthy?
From an ethical perspective, plant-based bacon is not made from pigs and has a much lower carbon footprint than factory-farmed versions. But, is veggie bacon good for your health?
Traditional bacon is made from pork and cut from a pig’s belly, and to a lesser extent, it is made from turkey meat. To make bacon, meat is cured using salt and nitrates, a type of compound used in meat as a preservative. In most cases, it is smoked later.
Claire Winfield
Studies have linked processed meats like bacon to a number of health conditions, including breast, lung, liver and colon cancers. Several studies have suggested that red and processed meat consumption is associated with a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes. Bacon is also high in salt and too much salt can lead to high blood pressure.
Plant-based meats are lower in saturated fat and calories than their traditional counterparts. They are high in sodium, but generally healthier than animal-derived meats when eaten in moderation as part of a balanced diet. In other words, don’t build your entire meal around vegan bacon, but enjoy it in a breakfast sandwich.
Best Vegan Bacon Brands
Bacon’s chewy texture and savory, salty flavors make it delicious. Fortunately, there are a growing number of options on the market. Some of them have attracted celebrity attention—Natalie Portman endorsed France-based brand La Vie in January 2022. Eventually, the brand plans to expand to the United States. But for now, here are some of our favorite vegan bacon brands.
Herbivorous butchers
1 Herbivore Butcher Maple Glazed Bacon and Hickory Smoked Bacon
Like all things herbivorous butcher, these faux bacons are meaty (in all the right ways). With the ability to be chewy and crispy to perfection, these bacons are great on sandwiches or stacked alongside vegan flapjacks, waffles and French toast. And better? Eat them hot on the frying pan. Don’t worry—we won’t judge. If you live in Minnesota, you can pick up these plant-based treats locally. Otherwise, they ship!
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Upton’s Naturals
2 Upton’s Natural Bacon Seitan
Loaded with this meaty, chewy, versatile seitan bacon heirloom tomato, vegan mayonnaise, arugula, and sprouted grain toast, this makes a most excellent BLT. If you like your bacon super crisp, cook it longer, or if you’re a fan of chewy bacon, heat them slightly in a pan. Available at many natural foods stores and Whole Foods Markets, this bacon is ideal for a quick, on-the-go breakfast or a hearty Sunday brunch.
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Lightlife Foods
3 Lightlife Smart Beacon
Amazing on sandwiches and bagels with avocado, LightLife’s Smart Bacon is made from wheat gluten and soy protein, which helps give it a chewy texture when pan-fried. This is one of the most readily available vegan bacons in supermarkets.
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4 Sweet Earth Benevolent Bacon
Winner of the 2023 Veggie Award, Sweet Earth’s wheat gluten-based bacon has notes of hickory smoke, sage and garlic. Try it on a sandwich or a wrap with a creamy dressing, a vegan BLT, or something a little more decadent, like a vegan grilled cheese sandwich with “bacon” and thinly sliced dill pickles.
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Lightlife Foods
5 Lightlife Tempeh Smokey Bacon Strips
Lightlife’s Tempeh Bacon is great on your barbecue grill! Just make sure not to drop it through the slats. Serve alongside roasted vegetables and corn for a wonderful al fresco meal.
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Tofurki
6 Tofurky Smoky Maple Bacon Marinated Tempeh
Tempeh bacon isn’t a replica of pork-based bacon — but don’t let that stop you from trying it. This fermented soy-based protein, which food historians estimate originated anywhere from Indonesia a few centuries to a thousand years ago, is beautifully marinated. Thanks to that, Tofurky’s tempeh bacon has all the flavors of bacon: savory, smoky, and a little sweet and salty.
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7 Yes veggie bacon
Lower in fat and cholesterol than “real” bacon, Yves’ Veggie Bacon is great on sandwiches, breakfast plates and out of the package.
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8 Bailiff Vegan Bacon
Bailey’s Vegan Bacon looks like a marbled, extra-fatty bacon cut. It’s fried nice and crunchy or slightly chewy, depending on your preference or what you’re making. Its realistic appearance makes a great presentation on a vegetarian breakfast platter, like a full English breakfast.
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Hurray Foods
9 Hurray Foods
California’s Hooray Foods makes vegan bacon that looks, well, bacon. It has fat spots but instead of pork, it is made from rice flour, tapioca starch and uses mushrooms to give it a meaty flavor. The strips are crispy when fried, but flexible enough to wrap around veggie hors d’oeuvres.
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Umro Foods
10Umro Foods
The plant-based food industry is finding new ways to use different foods as protein sources. Backed by serial investor Mark Cuban in Season 13 of ABC Shark Tank, Umaro Foods is making bacon with red algae. It is currently available only in select restaurants across the country.
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exciting food
11Exciting food bacon
These tofu-based strips of bacon are made from tofu. But, don’t think of them as thinly-sliced slabs of extra-firm tofu that we don’t like to cook every time we eat them for lunch. Exciting Food Salts cures and smokes its vegan bacon the traditional way, giving it an authentic flavor.
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MyForest Foods
12 mybacon
Mybacon owes its extra meaty bite to the mushroom’s fast-growing root system mycelium. Made with minimal ingredients—salt, coconut oil, beet juice, and sugar—this vegan bacon is just as crispy as its animal-based counterpart. Watch it brown, sizzle, and stuff it into morning BLTs.
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the life
13the life
Created by French startup La Vie, this pig-free bacon is endorsed by vegan actress Natalie Portman and has even been featured on special menu items at Burger King France locations. Although unavailable stateside, UK vegetarians can find La Vie at Whole Foods, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Planet Organic.
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