Plant-Based Alternatives to Chicken

Most meat fast food joints use factory-farmed meat. Yet buckets of fried chicken are one of the most popular meals in England. Meat that is not free-range (just recognised by Red Tractor) is not ranked well by animal welfare organisations.

KFC has recently said it will be going back on its pledge to use slower-growing chickens (with better welfare) as it can’t find enough chickens? And it fries its chips in chicken fat.

Chickens (related to dinosaurs) are now the most over-bred (25 billion and counting) and abused creatures on earth.

VFC was founded by the co-founder of Veganuary with a chef (who he took to visit a chicken farm). You can recycle packaging at supermarket bag bins, if kerbside does not recycle.

This ‘chicken’ is high in protein and tastes as good, you’ll find it in most supermarkets including budget ones (Lidl and Aldi).

Based on the target slaughter weight of a chicken in the UK (and percentage being edible), they estimate one chicken’s life is saved for each 1.5kg they sell.

Made from wheat protein in corn coating, you can bake it in the oven or air-fry, or pan-fry. Full instructions on the packets.

Look in stores for Heura Plant-Based Nuggets (made in Barcelona by a young fresh sustainable team). Serve with home-baked fries and ketchup.

Non-Fried Vegan Chicken Alternatives!

Vegan Cream of Chicken Soup (A Pinch of Parsley) is the ultimate comfort food recipe, with childhood memories but none of the ‘not being friendly to chickens’. It’s ready in 15 minutes, and you can freeze leftovers, to heat later on.

This recipe is kind of a plant-based take on the old Campbells’ condensed cream of chicken soup. And the good news is that you only need one saucepan and a few easy-to-find ingredients.

Made with plant milk and oil (or Flora vegan butter), the base uses a no-chicken stock. Nine Meals of Anarchy makes good vegetable stock, just add some Steenbergs vegan chicken powder to turn it into ‘chicken stock’.

You can then go all traditional, and serve in a big crockpot with torn-up-bread chunks and grated vegan cheese. If you wish, you can omit the chicken part and replace with celery, to turn this into a ‘cream of celery’ soup.

If you like making soup, invest in a stick blender, as it saves all the faffing around with washing jug blenders. When buying a new electrical appliance, UK says the store has to take the old one back. So take the dusty broken jug blender back to the store you buy a new one from, and it will be recycled on for you.

Also invest in Souper Cubes. Made from silicone, just pour leftover soup in, then freeze and the soup is ready to thaw and cook, whenever you want it.