Earth Grown Veggie Breakfast Patties + Veggie Breakfast Links
EDITOR’S NOTE: Read our roundup of many of Aldi’s Earth Grown products here.
Aldi’s Earth Grown product line has exploded in the last couple of years, with a variety of items showing up in stores throughout the year. The Earth Grown line typically consists of vegan foods, including everything from cheese substitutes to “ice cream” to meatless chicken patties to beefless crumbles.
Aldi has also introduced breakfast patties and breakfast links into the Earth Grown lineup. However, these breakfast items that resemble sausage are not true vegan products because they contain egg. Aldi seems to have been intentional about the wording on the packaging because they’re called Veggie Breakfast Patties and Veggie Breakfast Links (rather than vegan breakfast patties or vegan breakfast links). So, these are vegetarian rather than vegan, and they represent a break from what has — as far as I can recall — been a strictly vegan Aldi house brand up to this point. It remains to be seen whether that will cause confusion for consumers about what exactly the Earth Grown lineup is all about.
Earth Grown Veggie Breakfast Patties and Earth Grown Veggie Breakfast Links cost $3.49 for an 8-8.5-oz. box at the time of publication. These are ALDI Finds, which means they’re only at Aldi for a short time. They’re located in the ALDI Find freezer section.
Here’s a closer look at both of them.
Earth Grown Veggie Breakfast Patties
These come in an 8-oz. box with six patties. My family thought these closely resembled meat in terms of texture, although some of us thought they were a bit crumbly. They have good flavor, and the outside browned up nicely when cooked on a large griddle on the stove top. If someone served these to us and didn’t tell us they weren’t made of meat, we never would have guessed it.
One patty equals one serving, which has 90 calories, 5 grams of total fat (8% DV), 0.5 grams of saturated fat (3% DV), 270 mg of sodium (11% DV), 4 grams of total carbs (1% DV), 1 gram of dietary fiber (6% DV), less than 1 gram of total sugars, no added sugar, and 7 grams of protein.
In my experience, meat substitute foods tend to be more processed, with fillers and other less familiar ingredients, and these patties include some ingredients that aren’t transparent, such as “spices” and natural flavor. Ingredients in these patties are: water, soy protein, sunflower oil, free range egg white, potato starch, tomato paste, natural flavor, salt, garlic puree, wheat gluten, dextrose, spices, wheat starch, barley malt extract, sugar, spice, and coloring. (I’m guessing the added sugar is such a small amount that it doesn’t count on the nutrition label, which gives the impression these patties have no added sugar.)
If you’re watching out for allergens, these contain soy, wheat, and egg. They may also contain nuts and peanuts.
These can be prepared in a pan (preferred) or in the microwave.
To heat in a pan, preheat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Cook frozen patties four minutes. Carefully flip and cook for an additional four minutes. Continue cooking and flipping as necessary until heated through.
To heat in the microwave, place frozen patties on a microwave-safe plate and cook on high approximately 45 seconds. Carefully flip and cook an additional 30 seconds. Patties should be hot throughout.
Earth Grown Veggie Breakfast Links
These come in an 8.5-oz. box with eight links. Again, these are spot-on in terms of resembling meat in texture. My family thought these were a bit more bland compared to the patties above, but if you’re looking for a vegetarian knockoff of traditional sausage, they’re not bad.
One link equals one serving, and it has 170 calories (that seems high!), 9 grams of total fat (12% DV), 0.5 grams of saturated fat (3% DV), 640 mg of sodium (28% DV), 7 grams of total carbs (3% DV), 0 grams of dietary fiber, 1 gram of total sugars, 1 gram of added sugars (2% DV), and 14 grams of protein.
As mentioned above, meat substitute foods tend to be more processed, with fillers and other vague ingredients such as “spices” and natural flavor. Ingredients in the links are: water, soy protein, rapeseed oil, egg, onion, and less than 2% of potato starch, salt, spices, natural flavor, dextrose, wheat gluten, yeast extract, sugar, and sage extract.
If you’re watching out for allergens, these have egg, soy, and wheat.
These can be prepared in a pan (preferred) or the microwave.
To heat in a pan, preheat a non-stick pan over medium heat. Cook frozen links, turning occasionally, until cooked through.
To heat in the microwave, place frozen links on a microwave-safe plate. Cook on high for approximately 60 seconds until heated through.
The Verdict:
Earth Grown Veggie Breakfast Links and Earth Grown Veggie Breakfast Patties are a vegetarian substitute for traditional meat sausage links and patties. The Earth Grown product line at Aldi typically is limited to vegan food, but these breakfast items are not true vegan because they have egg in them. We found them to be good imitations of meat in terms of texture, and we preferred the taste of the patties slightly over the taste of the links, with the links being a bit on the bland side. The links are also high in calories, with 170 calories per link. Overall, though, both the links and patties taste decent if you’re trying to avoid or take a break from meat. Just be aware that, as with many meat substitutes, these are pretty processed in terms of what’s in their ingredients lists.
I bought the earth grown veggie breakfast patties and there is no plastic bag SEALED liner inside the outer box. Is this standard ? It seems ANYYHING could get into a non sealed box from the manufacture to the consumer .
Is it possible that the veggie breakfast links nutrition info is wrong? Perhaps the 170 calories is for 2 links? As you mentioned, it seems high, and I don’t see how something of that size could have so many calories, protein, etc. Especially, when compared to a slightly bigger patty (38g vs. 30g per serving) that has half of everything.
I had the same thought. I think the Nutrition Facts must be inaccurate.
Has anyone tried the links? I did the pan method, and for the life of me, I can NOT get them cooked. They always taste un-done and somewhat cold to me. Won’t be getting them again.
I fried the links in the pan, and they were great! Admittedly, I did do so after my family fried normal sausages, so I didn’t add any oil to crisp them up (the small amount of residual fat was sufficient). I was initially tentative at their prospects when I flopped those pale white sticks onto the pan, but they turned a golden brown — tasted pretty good too! While trying a normal sausage with it clearly showed a winner in taste, I was pretty damn satisfied with mine. Would buy again.
I was so confused when I saw the nutritional info — the box I just bought states that each link is 55 calories (110 calories for 2 links on the nutritional label)!! I imagine that the label shown in the article was wrong, instead referring to 2 links, and they also improved their recipe so that the calories were lower.
With the high calories and the eggs it’s not vegan it’s more like vegetarian and I won’t buy him again too many calories
I hate, nooo I LOATH the Aldi term ‘seasonal and Aldi Find -special buy’. They are usually items that you quickly get accustomed (addicted) to, then they take them away. This is what has happened with that Earth grown sausage patty. Beat me down but I love them as opposed to some form of pork or beef, and this little bitty bit of happiness, I think Aldi could find room to make as a constant PLEASE!! BTW, I don’t think you’ll truly be able to appreciate them until you’ve had one air fried OMG!!!!
Utterly ridiculous!!
I thought Earth Grown was totally vegan and just luckily I read the label before buying.
Very disappointed