The Tofurky Feast is a bird-free alternative to turkey, which has been the center of many vegan holiday meals for nearly two decades!  I remember enjoying a Tofurky Feast over 10 years ago, but hadn’t had any for a while – until this past winter holiday!

UPDATE: New Photos added from a more recent meal using the Tofurky Roast.

UPDATE #2 (Jan 2022): It looks like the wishstixs are gone now. I also noticed that the ingredients lists is slightly different from a few years back.

What the hell is a “Tofurky”?

Tofurky is a cute name given to a wide array of faux-meat products from Turtle Island Foods.

The company makes meatless sausages, meatless deli slices, veggie dogs, ground “beef” and more, all under the Tofurky name, so there’s something for everyone in their lineup.

The main ingredients to most Tofurky products are wheat gluten and tofu, and they are great substitutes for meat; not only in texture, but in protein too.  Turtle Island Foods does not use GMO soy, nor do they process their soy with hexane (which has been a concern for processed soy product lovers).

The Feast is what I’ll be covering in this review, and it contains the following ingredients for their roast, brownie (although the box does say cake, and it certainly looked like a cake) and “wishstixs”:

INGREDIENTS: ROAST: Vital wheat gluten, water, tofu (water, soybeans, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride), expeller pressed canola oil, natural flavors, sea salt, contains less than 2% of onion, carrot, celery, garlic, leek, rosemary extract, lemon juice concentrate, oat fiber, cornstarch, calcium lactate, potassium chloride. CONTAINS: SOY, WHEAT

STUFFING: Water, brown rice, bread cubes (enriched wheat flour [wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, and folic acid], palm fruit oil, yeast, cane sugar, sea salt), onions, celery, wild rice, expeller pressed canola oil, contains less than 2% of sea salt, spices, dehydrated onion, granulated garlic, natural flavors, cane sugar, sunflower oil, maltodextrin. CONTAINS: WHEAT.

GRAVY:Water, whole wheat flour, soy sauce (water, soybeans, wheat, salt), expeller pressed canola oil, natural flavors, chicory root fiber, rice flour, onion, carrot, celery, cane sugar, corn starch,sea salt, onion powder, spices, sunflower oil, rosemary extracts, tocopherol extract and ascorbic acid (to maintain freshness), maltodextrin, dextrose, xanthan gum, locust bean gum. CONTAINS: SOY, WHEAT.

BROWNIE: Cane sugar, enriched unbleached wheat flour (wheat flour, niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, canola oil, cocoa powder (processed with alkali), chocolate chips (cane sugar, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, dextrose), contains 2% or less of each of the following: vanilla extract, salt, corn starch, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, monocalcium phosphate. CONTAINS: WHEAT.

https://tofurky.com/what-we-make/roasts/feast/

Please note that the Roast is stuffed with that rice, so it’s not just a ball of gluten!  The Roast is approx 2lbs, which means each serving is 147g (for 6 people), and contains a whopping 42g of protein per serving!

Although I purchased the Tofurky Feast, which includes a vegan fudge brownie, my family ate it before I could even snap a photo, so I’m going to assume it was delicious!

The Feast is intended to serve six, assuming you’ve added some extra veg (like potatoes, sweet potatoes, a salad, etc).

How to cook it:

Ideally, you’ll want to thaw out the Roast for 24-48 hours; I say “ideally” because we bought it less than 24h before we intended to eat it, and I foolishly left it into the freezer until about 4 hours before we were supposed to start dinner.

Not to worry, since placing the Roast in a Ziploc bag and letting it steep in hot water for a few hours was all I needed to get it going!

Now, the Roast comes in a plastic casing, which you remove before putting it in a casserole dish; it was a little tricky, but a good pair of scissors got the job done.  

Once that casing is off, you set it up in a casserole dish (or aluminum foil) with a bunch of veggies you want to cook with it.  

We opted for white potatoes and onions, although I would have added carrots and maybe even sweet potato if I had a bigger casserole dish.

If you’re feeding more than 4 people, I’d suggest going heavy on the extra veg, since the Roast isn’t going to get very far on its own.

The instructions offered recipes for three separate bastes:

Tofurky Baste – option 1:
3 tablespoons olive oil (or other vegetable oil)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground sage

Tofurky Baste – option 2:
1/8 cup orange juice
1/8 cup soy sauce
1 Tablespoon sweetener of your choice.

Tofurky Baste – option 3:
1 tablespoon apricot jam or spread
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons water

I opted for option #1 since it was easy and I had all the ingredients at hand.   The idea is to use half the baste before you pop everything into the oven, and the rest about 15 minutes before everything is done.

Once the baste has been poured onto the roast, I covered the casserole dish with aluminum foil and stuck it in a preheated (350f) oven for 2 hours and 20 minutes; had I thawed the Roast for 24h, the cooking time would have been reduced to 1 hour and 15 minutes.

After time was up, I removed the foil, added the rest of the baste and put it all back in the oven for another 15 minutes.   While that was going, I heated the gravy that came in the box.

But does it taste any good?

I really don’t recall what a Tofurky Roast tasted like the last time I had it, but I will say that I was very impressed with the one I just had – not sure if actually tasted like turkey, but it was really good!

The gravy, while it looked pretty terrible, tasted amazing too, and was a great addition to the package. My kids loved it (it was their first time having it), and I’m willing to bet that most non-vegans would love it too.

The “Wishstix” that is supposed to be the wishbone you’d find in a turkey, is a bit gimmicky, but my son loved it (my daughter did not).

I’m sure that by using a different baste, you could enjoy this roast for different occasions without it getting boring.

Ostomy Friendly?

While my portion size was larger than a single-serving, I had no trouble at all with digesting and passing the meal through my ileostomy – that’s including the rest of the meal that went with it.

The stuffing cooks soft, and there are no hard pieces to speak of; even the browned outer “skin” was fairly easy to chew well.  I don’t see this being a problem for most ostomates, but if you’re going to add veggies (which you should), then peel them if you’ve had trouble with blockages.

While I don’t support the idea of gluten-free diets for non-celiacs, the Roast is basically one ball of stuffed gluten, so if that’s something you avoid because of your IBD, then you’ll have to pass on this meal.

Conclusion

This Tofurky Feast cost me around CDN$25 here at our local grocery store (Real Canadian Superstore), and I’ve the Roast on its own has cost approx. $12.

To be honest, for a ready-made, organic, meat-free meal, the cost is reasonable; although this is something you can kind of make at home with some effort.  Tofurky is a well-established brand, so I don’t think you’ll have much trouble finding this in any grocery store that sells other vegan products (non-dairy milks, tofu, etc.).

Whether you’re looking to replace the meat in your diet with something healthier, or you’re looking for something to feed vegan guests at your next get-together, the Tofurky Feast is a great option.  

I think that it’s important to eat ethically and to purchase products from ethical companies such as Turtle Island Foods, so this Roast is a logical choice for anyone who likes this kind of food.

For more information, please visit https://tofurky.com/