Review: Whole Foods Meatless Meatballs

I mentioned in my Friday post that I would be reviewing these Whole Foods meatless meatballs. My usual meatless meatballs are the Trader Joes meatless meatballs (review link) and I do like those, however they have been missing from Trader Joes for months now. Typically as soon as you get used to something at Trader joes it disappears! The staff said they are undergoing a revamp so who knows if/when they will be back. So when I saw these meatless meatballs at Whole Foods I figured I’d give them a try.

 

I like the fact that right on the FRONT they say vegan and no cholesterol. That’s a huge plus for me. One things I don’t like about vegan foods is scouring the labels for hidden milk products… these whole foods products state right on the front VEGAN. Thanks Whole foods! Now one thing here is that these are wheat protein, so for you wheat free, gluten free people these are WHEAT, and an alternative to the soy meatfree meatballs.

 

Now a serving size of the TJ meatballs is 6 balls I mistakenly thought these were the same and nope, 4 meatballs here make a serving so be aware to check the serving size! Each serving is 110 calories, 4g of unsaturated fat, and 12g protein. Now as I’m the anti-sodium brigade I’m a little put off by the 370mg of sodium but it’s a processed food. Preservative thy name is salt!

 

Here’s the ingredients list showing the wheat gluten and other ingredients. Again these aren’t a “clean” product. They are processed. But this is something I have when time is short, or I run out of other foods. In a pinch these frozen vegan foods are great! Especially for those that are new to the meatfree lifestyle or perhaps taking part in Meatfree Mondays.

 

As you can see below I had my meatfree meatballs with marinara (reviewing that soon) and zuchhini linguini, with veggies. I don’t get too crazy with this stuff, simple is most often best with these processed foods. I will say that the cooking instructions were stove top or oven, and they weren’t “microwave approved” but I heated mine in a little water in the microwave for about 2 minutes and they were perfect. But I guess I’m a dab hand at microwaved meatless meatballs as I microwaved the Trader Joes ones 😉

I added a light sprinkle of the Trader Joes Vegan Mozzarella on top just to finish it off nicely! As you can see below the balls look “meaty” and taste delicious. When I was vegetarian I prefered the quorn version but these were a nice change, especially as I couldn’t find the Trader Joes ones.

I would like them to have less sodium, but for 12g of protein (for 4 balls) plus the protein in the veggies this meal got bumped from 5g of protein to around 18g! Again not something I have a lot of but for a once a day treat these are great.

In future Mondays will be full on Meatless Monday post with either recipe or meatless food review and INCLUDING the menu post, the grocery list etc. I’m making some changes and want to include more info in each post! Food all lumped together in one vegan meatless monday! I purchased Gardein brand meatless meatballs today so I’ll be trying those soon, and review to follow!

Have you tried meatless meatballs? What’s your favorite brand?