A meat analogue, also called a meat substitute, mock meat, faux meat, or imitation meat, approximates the aesthetic qualities (primarily texture, flavor, and appearance) and/or chemical characteristics of specific types of meat. Many analogues are soy-based (e.g. tofu, tempeh). Generally, meat analogue is understood to mean a food made from non-meats, sometimes without other animal products such as dairy. The market for meat imitations includes vegetarians, vegans, and people following religious dietary laws, such as Kashrut or Halal. Hindu cuisine features the oldest known use of meat analogues. Meat analogue may also refer to a meat-based and/or less-expensive alternative to a particular meat product, such as surimi (a fish slurry used to make products such as imitation crab meat).
Some vegetarian meat analogues are based on centuries-old recipes for seitan (wheat gluten), rice, mushrooms, legumes, tempeh, or pressed-tofu, with flavoring added to make the finished product taste like chicken, beef, lamb, ham, sausage, seafood, etc. Yuba is another soy-based meat analogue, made by layering the thin skin which forms on top of boiled soy milk. Some more recent meat analogues include textured vegetable protein (TVP), which is a dry bulk commodity derived from soy, soy concentrate, mycoprotein-based Quorn which uses egg white as a binder making them unsuitable for vegans, and modified defatted peanut flour.
The Daily Omnivore 