What Is Beyond Meat Beyond Breakfast Sausage?
Beyond Breakfast Sausage is Beyond Meat's plant-based take on the classic diner-counter breakfast sausage, sold in two formats — skinny links and flat patties — and two flavors, Original (Classic) and Spicy. It's aimed squarely at the same shelf space as Jimmy Dean and MorningStar Farms, and it's meant to go straight into a skillet, air fryer, or breakfast sandwich without any prep beyond heating.
What makes this review timely is that the product isn't the same one Beyond Meat launched a few years ago. In early 2026, Beyond Meat pushed through a significant reformulation of the entire breakfast sausage line — swapping out canola and refined coconut oil for avocado oil, cutting saturated fat by roughly 89%, and trimming sodium by 45–58% compared to the old recipe. The company has also been rebranding itself around the "Beyond The Plant Protein Company" name and expanding into new categories like protein drinks, so this sausage relaunch is part of a bigger pivot, not just a quiet ingredient tweak. We tested the current, reformulated version — the one you'll actually find in stores now — and dug into whether the healthier numbers came at the cost of taste or protein.
Ingredients
Here's the ingredient list for the current Original Patties, pulled directly from retailer nutrition labels: Water, Yellow Pea Protein, Avocado Oil, Brown Rice Protein, Natural Flavors, Dried Yeast, and 2% or less of Methylcellulose, Potato Starch, Spices, Salt, Red Lentil Protein, Pea Starch, Potassium Salt, Faba Bean Protein, Apple Extract, Pea Fiber, Inulin, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Vinegar, Pomegranate Concentrate, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, and Vegetable Juice Color (with Beet).
The Classic Links use a very similar base — water, pea protein, avocado oil, rice protein, natural flavors, inactivated yeast, methylcellulose, yeast extract (fortified with B vitamins including B12), apple extract, salt, pomegranate extract, vinegar, lemon juice concentrate, sunflower lecithin, beet juice extract for color, and carrot. Worth noting: some retailer listings and older nutrition databases still show the outgoing recipe (canola oil, refined coconut oil, higher saturated fat), which is a good reminder to actually check the label on the package in your cart rather than trusting a cached product page — you can run any label through the spvegan.com ingredient checker if you want a second opinion before you buy.
Every listed ingredient is plant-derived: legume proteins (pea, faba bean, red lentil), rice protein, avocado oil, starches, fruit and vegetable extracts for color, and yeast-derived flavoring. Methylcellulose, a plant-cellulose-based binder, does the job that egg or animal collagen would do in a conventional sausage — holding the patty together and giving it some bite.
Is Beyond Breakfast Sausage Vegan?
Yes. Beyond Breakfast Sausage — both the Original and Spicy links and patties — is 100% vegan. There's no meat, dairy, egg, or honey anywhere in the formula, and Beyond Meat markets the entire line as plant-based and cholesterol-free by design, not as an accidental byproduct. The products are also labeled soy-free and gluten-free, which matters for the (different, but often overlapping) group of shoppers avoiding those allergens.
The one ingredient worth flagging for allergy purposes rather than vegan status is pea protein: Beyond Meat notes its products don't contain peanuts or tree nuts, but people with legume allergies should still treat pea protein as a real allergen risk, since peas are legumes. That's not a vegan issue, just a "read the label if you have food allergies" issue.
Nutrition Facts: How the New Recipe Compares
This is where the reformulation actually shows up. The table below compares the current Beyond Breakfast Sausage (both formats) to MorningStar Farms' vegan sausage patty and, for reference, a conventional pork sausage patty.
| Product | Serving | Calories | Total Fat | Saturated Fat | Protein | Sodium |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beyond Breakfast Sausage Links | 2 links (59g) | 100 | 5g | 0.5g | 9g | 240mg |
| Beyond Breakfast Sausage Patties | 2 patties (92g) | 180 | 10g | 1g | 14g | 280mg |
| MorningStar Farms Original Sausage Patties (vegan) | 1 patty (38g) | 70 | 2.5g | 0g | 10g | 220mg |
| Conventional pork sausage patties (Jimmy Dean Original, not vegan) | 2 patties (68g) | 280 | 27g | 9g | 8g | 490mg |
Two things stand out. First, the saturated fat drop is real and significant — the old Beyond Breakfast Sausage formula ran roughly 4–4.5g of saturated fat per serving, similar to conventional pork sausage on a per-serving basis; the new avocado-oil version is down around 0.5–1g, which is the main reason the relaunched line earned an American Heart Association Heart-Check mark and Clean Label Project certification. Second, the protein trade-off is asymmetric: the links actually gained protein (7g to 9g per serving) while the patties lost a meaningful chunk (11g down to 7g per patty). If protein-per-bite is what you're optimizing for, the links are now the better format, not the patties — a reversal from the old lineup.
Against MorningStar Farms' vegan sausage patty, Beyond's patties still edge it out on protein per gram but with more fat and calories; MorningStar is the leaner, lower-fat option if that's your priority, though it uses wheat gluten and soy as its protein base rather than legumes, so it's not suitable if you're avoiding gluten or soy.
Taste and Texture
Cooked from frozen — pan-fried, baked, or air-fried, all of which the packaging supports — the patties develop a genuine golden-brown crust and a snap on the outside that a lot of plant-based sausages don't manage. The flavor profile leans on fennel-adjacent spice and a mild sweetness that reads as "diner breakfast sausage" rather than "Italian sausage," which is the right call for the category. The Spicy variant adds a real black-pepper heat that holds up next to eggs and syrup instead of getting lost.
Texture is the more divisive part. Reviewers who tried both the old and new formulas describe a split reaction: some find the current version juicier and less dense, closer to a real sausage's give; others say it reads slightly softer or spongier than the pre-2026 recipe, which had more structure from the coconut oil. Neither camp calls it a dealbreaker — the consensus is that it's a good, convincing breakfast sausage, not a perfect clone of pork, and it holds up fine in a sandwich or on a plate next to JUST Egg or a MorningStar patty for comparison.
How It Compares to Other Vegan Breakfast Sausages
| Product | Protein Source | Sat Fat (per serving) | Gluten-Free? | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beyond Breakfast Sausage | Pea, rice, faba bean | 0.5-1g | Yes | Best overall taste/texture match to pork sausage |
| MorningStar Farms Original Sausage Patties | Wheat gluten, soy | 0g | No | Lowest calorie/fat option |
| Field Roast breakfast-style links | Wheat gluten, grains | Low | No | Herbier, more "artisan" flavor profile |
| Tofurky-style plant sausages | Soy, wheat gluten | Low-moderate | No | Budget-friendly, widely available |
Beyond's advantage is being soy-free and gluten-free while still tasting closer to pork sausage than the wheat-gluten-based competitors, which tend to have a chewier, more "sausage casing" bite. If you're avoiding soy and gluten specifically, Beyond Breakfast Sausage is close to the only mainstream option that checks both boxes and still tastes like a breakfast sausage rather than a health-food compromise.
Price and Where to Buy
Beyond Breakfast Sausage runs about $7 to $7.50 for a package (the current package size is 9.7 oz, up from the earlier 7.4 oz box), which works out to a little under $1 per ounce — noticeably pricier than MorningStar Farms per ounce, and more expensive than conventional pork sausage. It's sold at Kroger, Walmart, Whole Foods, Sprouts Farmers Market, Target, and most major grocery chains, in both the refrigerated and frozen sections depending on the store.
Who Should Buy This
Beyond Breakfast Sausage makes the most sense for people who miss the actual taste and browning of pork sausage and are willing to pay a premium for it — it's the closest plant-based match to the diner version on flavor and crust. It's also a solid pick for anyone avoiding both soy and gluten, since that combination rules out most of the wheat-gluten-based competitors. If your priority is maximum protein per patty, the links now beat the patties, so pick your format accordingly rather than assuming they're nutritionally interchangeable.
It's a weaker fit if you're mainly chasing the lowest calorie or fat count (MorningStar Farms patties are leaner), or if you're on a tight grocery budget, since this is one of the pricier plant-based breakfast proteins on the shelf.
Final Verdict
The 2026 reformulation is a genuine improvement on paper — an 89% cut to saturated fat and a real sodium reduction are hard to argue with, and the avocado-oil version still browns and tastes like a breakfast sausage rather than a virtuous substitute. The catch is that Beyond quietly moved some of the protein out of the patties to get there, so this isn't a strict upgrade across every metric — it's a genuine trade-off, and which side of it you land on depends on whether you're buying links or patties and what you're optimizing for.
Rating: 7.6/10. A meaningfully healthier update to an already-solid product, with a real (if situational) protein downgrade in the patty format and a price tag that's crept up along with the package size.
