What Is Beyond Meat Beyond Breakfast Sausage?
Beyond Breakfast Sausage is Beyond Meat's plant-based answer to the classic diner-style breakfast link and patty — the stuff that usually shows up next to pancakes, in a McMuffin knockoff, or crumbled into a breakfast burrito. It's a separate product line from the brand's dinner-table Beyond Sausage (the bratwurst and Italian links), built specifically to compete with pork breakfast sausage and with vegetarian standbys like MorningStar Farms.
The line comes in two formats — patties and links — and two flavors, Classic and Spicy, all sold frozen in the refrigerated or freezer meat-alternative section. Beyond built the current formula around pea, brown rice, and fava bean proteins with avocado oil standing in for the pork fat, which is how the brand gets to its headline claims: 0mg cholesterol, less saturated fat than a pork sausage, and a shorter ingredient list than some of its plant-based competitors. A 9.7-ounce box (six patties or links) runs about $5.49–$6.00 at major grocery chains like Target, Walmart, and Kroger, putting it roughly in line with — sometimes a bit cheaper than — other name-brand plant-based sausages.
Ingredients
Here's the full ingredient list for Beyond Breakfast Sausage Classic, taken directly from the packaging:
- Water
- Yellow Pea Protein
- Avocado Oil
- Brown Rice Protein
- Natural Flavors
- Dried Yeast
- Methylcellulose
- Potato Starch
- Spices
- Salt
- Red Lentil Protein
- Pea Starch
- Potassium Chloride
- Faba Bean Protein
- Apple Extract
- Pea Fiber
- Inulin
- Lemon Juice Concentrate
- Vinegar
- Pomegranate Concentrate
- Garlic Powder
- Onion Powder
- Vegetable Juice Color (with Beet)
It's a long list, which is typical for any processed meat alternative that needs to bind, season, and color itself into something that behaves like sausage in a skillet. But it's a notably "clean" long list — there's no gum-heavy filler dominating the front of the label the way some competitors lean on soy protein isolate or wheat gluten as a cheap bulking agent. Methylcellulose is doing the binding work here (it's a plant-derived fiber additive, not an animal product, despite the sciencey name), and the fruit extracts and vinegar are there for tang and color rather than flavor gimmicks.
Is Beyond Breakfast Sausage Vegan?
Yes — Beyond Breakfast Sausage is 100% vegan. Every ingredient in the Classic and Spicy formulas, in both the patty and link formats, comes from a plant or mineral source: pea, rice, lentil, and fava bean proteins for structure; avocado oil for fat; fruit extracts, spices, and vinegar for flavor. There's no whey, casein, gelatin, honey, or egg anywhere on the label, and Beyond Meat has never marketed this product as anything other than 100% plant-based. It also carries Non-GMO Project Verified, Kosher, and Halal certifications, and the current formula is soy-free and gluten-free, which is unusual for a breakfast sausage alternative and worth knowing if you're shopping for someone with those allergies too.
The bigger warning belongs to the category, not this specific product: "veggie sausage" on a shelf label does not automatically mean vegan. MorningStar Farms — one of the most recognizable names in the breakfast-sausage-alternative aisle — is a good example. Its Veggie Breakfast Sausage Links contain egg whites and sodium caseinate (a milk protein), which makes them vegetarian, not vegan. If you're grabbing a box in a hurry because it says "veggie" or "plant-based" on the front, flip it over. When in doubt, run the ingredient list through the spvegan.com ingredient checker before it goes in the cart.
Nutrition Facts: How Does It Compare?
Beyond Breakfast Sausage lands in a reasonable middle ground nutritionally — lower in fat and sodium than Impossible's breakfast links, but also lower in protein than either Impossible or Field Roast. Here's how the Classic Links stack up against three of its closest competitors, per standard serving:
| Product | Serving | Calories | Total Fat | Sat. Fat | Sodium | Protein | Vegan? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beyond Breakfast Sausage (Classic Links) | 2 links (59g) | 100 | 5g | 0.5g | 240mg | 9g | Yes |
| Impossible Sausage Links | 2oz (56g) | 130 | 9g | 4g | 370mg | 7g | Yes |
| Field Roast Apple Maple Breakfast Links | 2 links (44g) | 110 | 4.5g | 0g | 400mg | 11g | Yes |
| MorningStar Farms Veggie Sausage Links | 2 links (45g) | 70 | 3g | 0g | 300mg | 9g | No (egg, milk) |
All three plant-based competitors here are meaningfully lower in saturated fat than a typical pork breakfast sausage (which usually runs 4–6g saturated fat per serving), and all three come in at 0mg cholesterol, same as Beyond. Sodium is the number worth watching across the whole category — Field Roast and Impossible both push past 350mg per small serving, and it's easy to eat four links in one sitting rather than two.
Taste and Texture
This is where opinions genuinely split, and it's worth being upfront about that rather than pretending it's a unanimous win. On the positive side, several independent reviewers who tested the current avocado-oil formula described the patties as juicy, with "just the right amount of chewiness," a golden-brown crust when pan-fried, and a flavor they called balanced between salty, sweet, and savory — good enough to hold its own in a breakfast sandwich against real vegan eggs and cheese. Cooking is genuinely convenient: the patties and links go straight from freezer to pan (about 4–5 minutes), oven (roughly 8 minutes at 350°F), or air fryer (8–10 minutes at 400°F) with no thawing required.
On the other hand, a widely cited comparative taste test of ten breakfast sausage brands — including several meat and plant-based options side by side — ranked Beyond's version dead last. The panel's main complaints: a "rubbery, wet puck" texture rather than a tender, juicy bite, and seasoning that leaned almost entirely on salt rather than the sage-forward blend people expect from breakfast sausage. Some Amazon reviewers echoed that, describing the patties as greasy with an unusual smell both raw and cooked. Other home cooks and some Reddit threads pushed back the other way, saying they preferred Beyond's breakfast sausage to Impossible's version and found it perfectly serviceable.
Our read: it's not a bad product, but it's also not the slam-dunk "you'd never know it's plant-based" experience Beyond markets it as. Cooking it hot and fast, patting it dry before it hits the pan, and not over-salting whatever you're serving it with goes a long way toward avoiding the "wet puck" complaint.
How to Cook It for the Best Results
Given how often texture complaints show up in reviews, cooking method matters more with this product than with most plant-based meats. Straight-from-frozen microwaving is the fastest route to the "rubbery puck" complaint — the links and patties steam in their own moisture instead of browning, which is exactly the texture reviewers didn't like. A hot, lightly oiled nonstick or cast-iron pan over medium-high heat for 4–5 minutes per side, flipping once a real crust forms, gets much closer to the "crisp exterior, tender center" result Beyond is going for. The air fryer (8–10 minutes at 400°F, flipping halfway) is the other reliable method, since the circulating heat renders the surface without letting the interior get soggy. Whichever method you use, resist the urge to crowd the pan — patties and links released too close together steam each other and stay pale and soft instead of browning.
Because the seasoning leans salty rather than herb-forward, it pairs well with things that can offset that — maple syrup on the side, a vegan hollandaise, or fresh herbs stirred into a breakfast hash — rather than salty companions like hash browns doused in extra seasoning salt.
Beyond Breakfast Sausage vs. the Alternatives
| Product | Best For | Approx. Price | Flavor Profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beyond Breakfast Sausage | Lower fat/sodium option, gluten-free and soy-free needs | ~$5.49–$6.00 / 9.7oz (6ct) | Balanced, salt-forward, mild sweetness |
| Impossible Sausage Links | Higher protein-to-calorie ratio, closer fat content to real pork | ~$6.50–$7.00 / 13.5oz (4ct) | Rich, savory, more heavily spiced |
| Field Roast Apple Maple Links | Highest protein of the group, sweeter breakfast profile | ~$5.50–$6.00 / 9.31oz | Sweet, maple-forward, firmer bite |
| MorningStar Farms Veggie Sausage | Vegetarians only — not vegan | ~$4.00–$4.50 / 8oz | Mild, classic diner-style seasoning |
Who Should Buy Beyond Breakfast Sausage?
It makes the most sense for people who want a lower-saturated-fat, cholesterol-free breakfast protein that cooks in minutes from frozen and doesn't require any prep beyond a hot pan. The soy-free and gluten-free formula also makes it one of the more accessible options on the shelf for people managing those allergies alongside a vegan diet — Field Roast and MorningStar Farms both lean on wheat gluten or soy as core ingredients, which rules them out for that group entirely.
If protein-per-serving is your priority — say, you're trying to hit a number for a post-workout breakfast — Field Roast's 11g per two-link serving or Impossible's 7g per 2oz edge Beyond out on paper, though you'll trade away some of the fat and sodium advantage to get there. And if a rubbery texture is a dealbreaker for you based on past experience with plant-based sausage, it's worth trying the Spicy variety or adjusting your cooking method before writing the whole line off — several reviewers found the crispier, higher-heat cooking methods solved the texture complaints entirely.
Final Verdict
Beyond Breakfast Sausage is a legitimately vegan, reasonably well-formulated breakfast sausage alternative with a genuinely clean-for-the-category ingredient list and a nutrition profile that beats real pork sausage on saturated fat and cholesterol without falling far behind on protein. It's not the unanimous crowd-pleaser Beyond's marketing suggests — texture and seasoning complaints are common enough in independent testing that they're worth taking seriously, not dismissing as outlier reviews. But cooked properly, it's a solid, convenient, widely available option, and it's meaningfully better on the ingredient front than several of its plant-based competitors.
Rating: 7/10 — Vegan, accurate marketing, and genuinely convenient, but texture inconsistency keeps it from top marks.
