The Quest to find a decent vegan sausage continues with an option from one of the big brands in the market. I’ll be honest, Richmond have always featured near the lower end of my preference list when buying sausages – their smooth pink cylinders (steady now!) have a particular sense of artificiality about them; I would usually opt for the more rustic, butchers’ style versions, that tended to have a better authentic taste. I realise that ultimately, all sausages are just tubes of over-processed, mushed up meat, but Richmond struck me as more cheaply produced than most.
So, with all of that baggage, I gave their meat-free sausages a try, generally expecting a similar disappointing experience that I had found with their pork versions…
Tastes like meat?
Well, yes they do, insofar as they taste similar to their meaty counterparts from the same company. These are pretty close to normal Richmond sausages. And to be honest, they do quite well as part of a cooked breakfast or as an addition to a casserole or pasta sauce. Basically, they are useful as an ingredient. They are not so good when used on their own in a bun with sauce, which is—I have mentioned before—my test for a true sausage. So, not terrible by any means (and maybe even an improvement over Richmond’s actual meat sausages) but not great either.
Easy to cook with?
Yes. They cook just like normal sausages and even bake well in the oven. They sometimes suffer from the skin peeling, but I didn’t find it a big problem.
Value for money?
They normally retail for around £2.30 which is excellent value for money, especially compared to some of the other vegan sausage options available. What’s more—and this is a hugely important point for me—they are sold in a pack of 8. I’m scoring them up a point for bumping the disgraceful trend of packing sausages in 6 or even 4. All in all, fantastic value.
FINAL VERDICT
These sausages can best be summed up as ‘decent’. They won’t win any awards for taste, but they are a useful replacement for the real thing as part of a bigger meal. On taste alone they would probably be lower on my list, but they make up for it in ease of cooking and excellent value for money.
