- Oh my gosh, oh God, okay.
We gotta move fast, it seems.
Hello, I'm Mei and today I'm going to be recreating
one of America's favorite breakfast sandwiches,
the sausage egg mcmuffin.
But make it plant based.
Look at that.
Perfection.
Also, surprise!
I'm bringing in my friend Nimi
who used to work at McDonald's,
so we're going to have her try both,
and see if she can tell the difference
between the McDonald's version and my version.
I was a McDonald's kid growing up.
I would have died, I swear, to have one of these
every morning.
Everything goes together so perfectly.
And the melting cheese, the sausage,
the kind of suspiciously round egg,
it's just the perfect breakfast.
So as we all know, the McDonald's version
is definitely processed, and to recreate that flavor
in the vegan one, I'm going to be using products
that are already available at the supermarket.
I bought a few different options for each ingredient,
and I'm going to be testing them out to try and figure out
which one's closest to the real mcmuffin.
I wanted to recreate the original mcmuffin,
which is with Canadian bacon,
but there are simply not that many vegan options
for Canadian bacon.
So we're going with sausage.
So this is the impossible sausage, which is a classic.
Looks kind of suspect now, but it won't soon (laughs).
And then we have this sausage,
which is the lightlife sausage.
For the white part of the egg, I'm gonna be using tofu.
Paired with this, we are gonna also use justegg.
When it comes to the cheese, I have two different options,
and as you can see, they're a little bit different.
I really need that classic melted cheese look
over my sausage.
I'm gonna try both of them. We'll see which one works best.
I know McDonald's breakfast sausage
has a little bit of sweet, a little bit of savory,
and I wanna try and recreate that flavor,
so I'm going to be using a little bit of maple syrup,
along with a little bit of sage, and some salt and pepper.
We're gonna mix those all up, make them into little balls,
shape 'em, and then I don't know,
we're gonna see how it works.
I know that this is all vegan,
but it is still giving raw meat.
So, don't even wanna touch that.
I'm gonna put on some gloves.
Oh, gosh.
(bell dings)
Please hold.
I cannot get this on my (beep) finger.
Ope, there we go. Done.
All right, let's do this.
Just really get in there, you know?
Gotta get all that flavor.
It smells kinda good, I'm not gonna lie.
I feel like that's mixed.
I dunno.
We're going one glove on, one glove off
because I didn't want to get the rest of my stuff dirty.
This is sufficiently, oh. This is sufficiently mixed.
I thought it might be smart to take another look
at our good friend here,
and I'm realizing the sausage in this thing is so thin.
I'm gonna now shape it into this egg ring.
Fun fact, these steel egg rings
were literally made just for McDonald's.
Like, for this purpose.
I'm a chef, ugh hire me please.
It smells kinda weird, honestly but that's fine.
Okay, one down, one to go.
Switching my gloves. No cross contamination here.
Mm.
(bell dings)
Okay, so same thing.
We've got the sausage.
There, mm, yum.
Oh, that feels just terrible (laughs).
I'm using miyokos butter to grease this pan.
I feel not confident about this one, but it's gonna be good.
Nope. Nope, it's bad. It's bad, I need to redo it.
Oh my gosh, he broke.
So, one thing to note now, not stable.
Okay, actually though, it doesn't look that bad.
That's fine, now we gotta put the other one in.
Much easier way would be this.
Really glad I figured that out.
What a whirlwind that was.
This one looks like a burger.
So, big mac taste test?
Like I said, I used miyokos butter because it is objectively
the best vegan butter that is out there, and I think
it'll add some nice flavor, which these might need.
I see some browning.
Okay, ah.
Wait, this one is so good.
Oh my little patty's doing so well in there.
I think they're done.
This is like, c'mon. That is so good.
Oh, mm.
So, obviously this one broke. Um, but it's okay.
We're not actually testing it for looks yet.
This is just the taste test to see which is better,
and if this one wins, I'll remake it
and make sure I am a little more careful.
So I tested a lot of different ways to figure this egg out.
I've come to the conclusion, firm tofu
has the closest consistency to the actual egg
of the mcmuffin, but it doesn't have the color.
So I'm gonna use that for the white,
and then we're gonna just have a little dollop of justegg
for the yolk, so it's actually pretty simple.
I took the block of tofu and cut it into fours,
and it gives us roughly the thickness of the egg.
I'm gonna try this one first.
I'm gonna use my trusty egg ring to just punch it out
like a little cookie cutter.
Oh my God, look at this perfect little circle.
Maybe I shouldn't hold it, I don't wanna break it.
I don't want another impossible meat situation.
Ope, mm.
This is black salt.
This really does give it a good eggy flavor
if you don't overpower it.
And then I'm also gonna add a little bit of pepper to this.
Honestly though, does McDonald's even season their eggs?
Controversial.
We're gonna use this butter again.
We're gonna have to move quick,
'cause I'm making two at once.
Her on deck.
It's go time.
I'm just putting the justegg in here
for a little yolk sized amount.
That feels right.
And now, put this on top.
Okay, and now we wait.
I thought there might be a little spillage,
and I do see a little bit already,
so if I see that, I'm just gonna push her in a little bit.
I'm gonna flip it.
Okay, okay. I feel like that yolk is kinda good.
Is that enough? Oh my God.
Okay, that's fine, that's what we have the spatula for.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.
This is too fast paced for me.
Get some egg in there, that's better.
Now we just need to push this over
so we keep that roundness.
Things are looking up. It was a little rough.
Okay, it came off.
No, go back on.
More justegg.
This is not it for me.
It's all coming off.
I know I'm complaining about the spillage, but honestly,
this one kinda has yolk vibes.
It's giving yolk.
This feels dangerous. Oh!
Okay, success.
I know it's not perfect, but like this whole section,
eggs do that, so.
It is the final part of cooking,
and all we're doing now is buttering the muffins,
and then adding the cheese, and assembling.
So, we're gonna put the cheese on the bottom.
That is also crucial.
Let's butter these muffins with our trusty miyokos butter.
Plus, who doesn't love butter? You know?
The only real difference in the cheese right now
that I'm noticing, is that they're different colors.
I think it's really gonna be about taste and if it melts.
And now we know we need that melty flavor,
so we're gonna put them in the toaster oven.
So, I'm gonna put lightlife here.
I'm gonna try and put the impossible sausage
as best as I can.
The impossible sausage does have this factor against it,
and it's one that is good to consider.
So that feels like as complete as it's gonna get.
And then, our little eggs.
Ah, wow.
Buttered muffin on top.
Wow, there it is.
That looks really good.
I mean, both of these are pretty good.
Let's do a side by side.
The ratio of cheese is a little bit, very off, but.
Wow, I'm really impressed.
The egg and the sausage are both perfect.
The first one that I'm trying is the 365 cheese,
the lightlife sausage, and our little tofu egg.
I wanna try the cheese on it's own first.
Um, I don't know.
Something about it feels a little bit off.
Maybe with everything else it will taste better, though.
I'm kind of speechless.
This is so good.
The sausage, I think if you gave me the sausage,
I would not know that it was vegan.
I'm realizing like the egg,
it's really not the star of the show,
so like this being tofu doesn't feel
like it matters that much.
I'm gonna take one bite of this one.
Um, I hate the sausage.
I don't hate it as a sausage on it's own.
For this, it is really honestly very wrong.
This tastes like seriously like just American cheese.
Oh my God, knowing what I know now,
I'm going to reassemble using the voilife cheese,
and the lightlife sausage.
Okay, we've made it here.
We have McDonald's version, and my version.
I feel like it's pretty close.
All there's left to do is bring in Nimi.
The final test.
So, before we get into the taste test,
I just have a couple questions, just background, you know?
So you worked at McDonald's,
- I did, I worked there for five years.
I was actually a manager, made sure we made a lot of egg
muffins (laughs), - Yeah, so she's
experienced. - That was popular.
- What can you tell me about the mcmuffin?
- It's delicious. That's for one.
Everything blends so well together.
- So we're gonna be testing out two different mcmuffins.
- Okay.
- You're gonna have to tell me which one is real,
and which one is my version.
- Okay. - Do you think you'll be
able to tell?
- I think I will be able to tell.
I'm gonna try this one first. - Go ahead, try them both.
- Mm hmm. This is good.
I got this one down.
Mm. This is really good.
- Okay, thoughts?
- Mm hmm. I think this is the real one.
- Okay.
- There's a taste in
the muffin. - In the English muffin?
- Mm hmm. I'm tas- - The English muffin
is the thing?
- Mm there's a flavor I'm tasting.
- Huh.
- But it looks very flavorful though, it's really good.
It has a kick to it.
- Okay, and like,
it being plant based? - It's so good. Mm hmm.
Oh, was it? - Wait, did you know?
- What? - Yeah, this is all vegan.
- This is really good!
And I'm a huge carnivore, so like this is,
wow. - Wait, stop.
Wow, I feel
so good that you didn't - Wow.
- realize it. - No, I didn't.
- Even though you could obviously tell the difference,
and I can as well, I and Nimi both liked this one more.
So, I think that the plant based one is at least good enough
to be a sub for the real thing.
- Yeah.
- Cheers? - Cheers.
I'm still shocked about this.
- There is no reason for it to be that good.