September 10, 2010

Tofurky Deli Slices, Hickory Smoked

This week, we're checking out another lunchmeat product: Tofurky Hickory Smoked Deli Slices. I had tested out the oven roasted variety before, and was a little disappointed at the lack of flavor, but was hopeful that the actual flavored varieties might work better. Let's take a look.

As before, they bragged about their thin slices, but I keep forgetting that whenever I go to the package. I see what looks like nice, thick slices, and I pull one out, only to discover that it's two slices stuck together. And then, since I'm generally not excited by paper-thin slices of meat (or meat analogues), I went ahead and used the two slices still stuck together. Take that, thin-slice mafia! Once again, I went the crackers and cheese route, since that's the way I do things at my house. But first, I sampled a bite of deli slice on its own. Gotta say, not great. Same off-flavor as the last deli slice product. But, it seemed a little bit less prominent, as the slice had a more smoked-turkey-ish flavor.

So I loaded up some crackers with Swiss cheese and some fake meat turkey slices. Once I had everything all together, and I don't say this often, it actually tasted just like real lunchmeat turkey. The powerful Swiss flavor overwhelmed the off-flavor, but the hickory-smoked flavor stuck around. I assume this was also due to the fact that I had a double layer of the deli slice - not sure if a single super-thin slice would have stood up to the cheese. Honestly, this was very tasty, and I've eaten it again since testing out this product. Once I'm done trying out all the other flavors of deli slices that Tofurky has to offer, I just might end up buying this on a more regular basis.

The experience:
Texture - Standard lunchmeat texture - nothing much else to say about that.
Flavor - Not great alone, but when combined with other ingredients, it actually tasted just like turkey lunchmeat.

Final grade for this attempt: A


  1. In trying to expand my vegan food choices I purchased some Tofurky Hickory Smoked Deli slices tonight at Trader Joes. I was at WholeFoods the other day and was given a free jar of Earth Balance Organic Vegan Mayo (WONDERFUL!!!) and have been dying to try it in a sandwich and so I hooked it all up and YUMMY JOY JOY!!! I'm ultra happy that I can have a lunchmeat sandwich again. Ya just don't know how much I missed them.

  2. I've actually eaten these straight from the package. I love even the "oven roasted" version. Of course, I haven't had actual lunch meat in over 26 years, so my memory of what they actually taste like in comparison to these may be off. But they're close enough to "real" for me to love them. I think they're far superior to the Lightlife ones, even though I'll get them when they're available. I oddly don't like actual Tofurkey that much. I find it way too weird. They totally kick ass in their lunch meat efforts, so that more than makes up for it.-Stacey E.