Vegan eggs

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I loved eating eggs before I went vegan. Poached was my favourite way to have them followed by sunny side up (easy over) and soft boiled for dipping hot buttery toast soldiers in… I was vegetarian for 13 years before going vegan so I ate a lot of eggs and I missed them when I first gave them up.

I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that as a vegan I’d still be able to eat my favourite egg dishes!

In August 2016 I ate my first vegan poached egg by the culinary wizards of Sgaia foods. It was unbelievable and tasted exactly as I remember with a soft poached yolk and everything.

Since Follow Your Heart (who I’ll refer to as fyh from here on in) brought out their own vegan egg over here, my full breakfast fry ups have been complete! The instructions on the packet say to scramble them but I’ve fried it omelette style and also microwaved them in an egg poacher gadget thing and it worked too! The key is to cook them a lot longer than you would a regular egg.

I’ve also made frittata with them, eggy bread, egg fried rice, quiche and baked breakfast eggy muffins with them…

And I’ve baked cakes with them too! They are so versatile and great to use in all sorts of ways in vegan cooking.

So while I have gained a lot of joy from these follow your heart vegan eggs, I soon realised what I really missed was the delicious golden nectar of a runny yolk.

This year I bought The Vegg vegan egg yolk and I’m not exaggerating when I say it has changed my life… I am reunited with my childhood / feeling under the weather favourite of dippy egg and soldiers. Or I pour it over fried or scrambled fyh vegan eggs and it completes the taste sensation.

Egg is a hugely emotive food memory for me tied up with feelings of being comforted and soothed by my loved ones… it can be hard for some people to let certain foods go because they can be bound up in more than just the act of eating itself.

So I honestly cannot tell you enough how happy this makes me! I mean, it would have been totally possible for me to live a life without a fantastic egg replacement in it (tofu scramble had all but filled my eggy void) but the fact I can live a cruelty free life whilst still eating all my favourite foods is nothing short of a victory, and every meal time I can have this celebration! Of winning at life and food and living cruelty free! It not only feels good but tastes amazing!

The fyh eggs can be bought in most good health shops and the vegg yolk can be bought online from Amazon. Neither come cheap but they last for ages.

It can take a few attempts to get the knack with the fyh eggs so don’t give up. I realised what I was doing wrong initially was not cooking them long enough – because they look so much like actual eggs you’d be forgiven for thinking they were ready just as quickly as a real egg takes to cook, but they really need double if not triple the length of cooking time.

I blend them both (the fyh mix and the yolk) up in separate small nutribullet jars & I usually make double then I can store a spare amount in the fridge for using in the next day or two.

Also, with the fyh mix I store it in a airtight clip lock container in the fridge as this helps to make it last longer.

Some people feel like the fyh eggs aren’t as eggy tasting as they would like, so they add kala namak which is a pink coloured salt, also called black salt, that you can add for an extra eggy taste.

If you decide fyh eggs simply aren’t for you then you can mash avocado and add some kala namak to it as an alternative option. Or try my recipes for tofu scramble which are delicious too.

One of my favourite ways to make an egg mayo style sandwich filling is to mash butter beans with mayo, turmeric and some curry powder and it tastes so delicious. You could leave out the curry powder and add some of that black salt for an extra eggy oomph!

Chickpea flour can also be used to make frittata and quiche as well as tofu in these recipes also.