I Tried the New Impossible Sausage Links and They Look and Taste Just Like the Real Thing

I remember not so long ago when I first heard about Impossible “meat.” There were tales of this vegetarian burger that looked and tasted exactly like the real thing. While you couldn’t find it many places in the beginning, the hype was real. When I finally ate an Impossible Burger at a restaurant, I must say I was impressed. I’m fairly certain that if someone had fed me that burger without comment, I would have happily gobbled it up never knowing it wasn’t real beef.

Fast forward to present day, and Impossible Foods has gone from novelty to ubiquitous. Their burger patties, ground beef, and sausage patties can be found at Starbucks, Burger King, The Cheesecake Factory, and at major retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Costco. After conquering ground beef products, the next step was clear: sausage links.

While Impossible Foods has successfully sorted out the flavor and texture of meat, thanks to a combination of textured vegetable protein (soy), heme (a molecule that, as the company says, “makes meat taste like meat”), fats like coconut oil, and other clever ingredients, what about the sausage casing? What makes sausage links special is their signature snap, and it seems like a tricky thing to get right using all vegetarian ingredients.

I’ve now learned to never doubt the mad scientists at Impossible Foods. Simply put, they figured it out. Can I explain the science? I cannot. All I know is I grilled some sausages in a grill pan and roasted some in the oven, and both methods worked well. They cooked up just like pork sausage with the casing maintaining its shape and providing that signature snap. Whether you plan to enjoy these sausages on a roll, slice and add them to a pizza or pasta sauce, or use any other classic sausage preparation, they can handle it.

Just like with Impossible’s burger patties, if someone had cooked one of these sausages up and served it to me as the real thing, I’d have no idea it wasn’t meat. They’re flavorful, meaty, juicy, and even have a snap. The seasonings are spot-on, and they’re just as versatile as real sausage, holding up to multiple cooking methods and dishes.

That being said, if you’re a longtime vegetarian or vegan, then these will likely not appeal to you. Impossible products are designed to woo meat-eaters away from eating so much meat — not necessarily to appeal to non-meat eaters. They’re so much like the real thing, they could certainly be off-putting to someone who has no desire to eat meat.

If you love sausage as much as I do but would like to shrink your carbon footprint a bit, Impossible Sausage Links are a fun option. According to the company, their plant-based sausages use 79 percent less water, 71 percent fewer emissions, and 41 percent less land than traditional pork sausages. Plus, they’re available in Italian, Bratwurst, and Spicy flavors for all of your sausage needs. You’ll find them in a number of major retailers now, with even more availability over the summer.