Savoring the Taste: Flavorful Options for Plant-Based Proteins

The Science of Perfecting Plant-Based Proteins

Rotisserie chicken, steak, and pork roast; three delicious meals that you can almost taste when you think of them. Their flavor is what makes them desirable, and that’s why flavor is crucial when it comes to the plant-based protein market. Ethical treatment of animals, environmental sustainability, and health benefits are all important reasons to switch, but at the end of the day, it’s flavor and texture that remain the driving force behind food choices. 

Beany flavor, bitter taste, and astringency are commonly associated with current meat alternatives. Lack of authentic taste and undesirable sensory perceptions are the main factors standing in the way of widespread acceptance and regular consumption of plant-based proteins. The only solution is to make these proteins taste like actual meat.

New Flavors Developed by Kalsec Accomplishes This in Three Ways 

First, we disguise unwanted flavors. Certain plants, such as pea or soy, can leave behind a less than desirable taste. Adding ingredients can complement or cover the taste profile, or even coat the mouth to prevent the taste buds from touching the offending flavor. Second, mimicking the cooking process that creates meat flavors and aromas. Individual flavors contribute to the “meatiness” of a profile because of the reaction process. Imitating the chemistry found in the aqueous system of authentic meat results in a meaty flavor you can taste and not just smell. And last but not least, including flavor identifiers that actually taste like chicken, beef, and pork…

A Complete Menu of Flavorful Plant-Based Products

Our new Natural Chicken Thigh Flavor has flavor identifiers that you would attribute specifically to chicken such as sulfur, metallic, salty, brothy, and meaty. These chicken flavors can build a natural and delicious profile that brings to mind a fresh rotisserie chicken. With added fatty notes, Sunday dinner never tasted so good.

Another dinnertime favorite, pork roast. It’s time for plant-based pork to be the star in the center of the table. The Natural Pork Sirloin flavor has the same mildly meaty, gamey, fatty, salty, savory, and slightly sweet undertones of a sizzling pork roast straight from the oven.    

Whereas it’s been difficult to find a flavorful pork alternative, there are an abundance of tasty grilled plant-based hamburgers that nail the charred goodness of 80/20 ground beef. But there’s more to beef than just burgers. Rich, umami, sweet, salty, meaty, savory, nutty, and somewhat metallic, the Natural Beef Flavor can build a profile found in a full selection of delicious beef dishes. 

Kalsec’s natural meat flavors elevate the plant-based protein experience to give consumers what they really want, a complete menu of flavorful products that actually taste like meat.