Vegan Ground Beef Meatless Crumbles - Healthy Hearty Recipes (2024)

Making vegan ground beef at home is fast and easy! This recipe for meatless crumbles is plant based and soy based, and only uses a few simple ingredients including TVP, mushrooms and onions. It’s a high protein, gluten free, budget friendly option compared to buying vegetarian and vegan ground beef in stores, and it takes less than 20 minutes to make!

What are Vegan Crumbles?

Vegan crumbles are a plant based protein. These soy crumbles serve as a vegetarian alternative to ground beef. There are many options for beefless crumbles that can be purchased in stores, but this is a homemade recipe that you can make yourself.

Why Make Your Own Meatless Crumbles?

• Budget Friendly: Making your own vegan ground beef crumbles is a really budget friendly option. The ingredients needed are frugal, sparse, and quite a few of them are pantry staple items you won’t have to buy each time you want to make them!
• More Flexibility: Making your own meatless crumbles allows you much more flexibility with the flavor, and with the quantity. You can adjust the spices and seasonings to your own tastes unlike purchasing it. And you can make half the amount for smaller portions and recipes, or double it for larger ones based on your own cooking needs.
• Healthy: Vegan ground beef is healthy! It’s a good source of fiber, iron and folate, and contains less saturated fat than ground beef. Making vegan ground beef crumbles yourself also means less additives like sugar is being added! When made with textured vegetable protein, it is a low fat yet high protein recipe.
• Always Available: Because meatless crumbles require so few ingredients to make at home, knowing how to do it yourself means that you’ll be able to have them for dinners or lunches without having to make a special trip to pick.

Ingredients for Making Vegan Meatless Crumbles

The ingredients needed for making meatless crumbles are all plant based. You will need chopped yellow onion and chopped mushrooms. These should be finely chopped so they incorporate well and create texture that resembles beef crumbles.

You’ll also need olive oil or avocado oil, water, coconut aminos (or gluten free soy sauce), garlic powder, paprika, onion powder and salt. The main ingredient that makes this into vegan ground beef is the TVP, or textured vegetable protein.

What is TVP?

TVP is textured vegetable protein, which is also commonly called TVS, or textured soy protein. It’s often used as a meat extender to get more life out of a pound of ground meat. However, for vegetarian and vegan use it is a meat replacement for ground beef.

Some benefits of TVP is that it is unflavored, so it easily absorbs flavors you are cooking with. This is ideal when making your own vegan ground beef crumbles because it takes on the flavor, texture and shape of ground meat really well. TVP is not the same thing as tofu, but it is in a similar family as a soy product, almost like a cousin to tofu.

It is made from soy flour and ground into chunks, or flakes, and when it’s rehydrated it has a spongy texture that replicates that of cooked ground meat. It’s a really easy vegan substitute to work with, cooks in about 8 minutes, and is affordable. TVP is gluten free, and really versatile. It can go in many recipes such as meatloaf, tacos, burgers, and more.

You can purchase TVP or TSP at many grocery stores, or from many online retailers. The best TVP options I like cooking with are Anthony’s, Bob’s Red Mill, and Golden Goodness.

How to Cook Meatless Crumbles

Beefless crumbles are very easy to cook. Everything is done right on the stovetop in one pan. You first start by sautéing the finely diced onion in the oil for about 3 to 4 minutes in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Once the onion is translucent, you will add the chopped mushrooms. These should also be very finely chopped.

Add the spices into the skillet and stir them into the mushrooms and onions. Continue sautéing until the mushrooms have softened. At that point, you will go ahead and add in the water and coconut aminos.

Stir it to combine with the vegetables and bring it to a light simmer. Then, the last step is to add in the TVP and stir. The TVP will begin absorbing the liquid. Saute the meatless crumbles until no liquid remains and has been soaked up. The TVP and vegetables should now resemble crumbled meat.

How do you use Meatless Crumbles?

Meatless crumbles can be used in place of ground meat in many recipes. It can be used as taco filling, in casseroles such as this stuffed pepper casserole, skillets such as this ground beef and broccoli skillet, or soups like this hamburger and vegetable soup.

Storing Instructions for Homemade Meatless Crumbles

If you are not immediately using the vegan ground beef in a recipe, you can store it on it’s own for up to 4 days in the refrigerator. Be sure to cover it with an air tight lid to keep it fresh. Before you use it in a recipe or meal, you also will want to add it back into a skillet to saute for a few minutes prior to adding it to your recipe to heat it up and reconstitute it.

Other Meatless Recipes You’ll Love:

• One Pot Mushroom Stroganoff
• Slow Cooker Vegetable Curry
• Meatless Mexican Stuffed Peppers
• 4 Ingredient Vegetarian Meatballs
• 3 Bean Chili

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