Saturday Morning with Elaine in the Kitchen and the Herbivorous Butcher

I know the concept of a "vegan butcher" is not intuitive but as someone who is mostly vegan the concept of "fake meat" also makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up – until I took a trip to the Herbivorous Butcher, a sweet brother and sister "vegan butcher shop" in Minneapolis, MN.

On Saturday morning I headed off to meet my friend Elaine, from Elaine in the Kitchen and her daughter Lisa to check out this new venue and to see if the marketing hype matched the product and from my perspective – this venue is a must shop.

A bit off the beaten path, the cleaver door handle is your first indication that this is not your ordinary butcher shop. They have a great selection of ribs, sausages, deli meats, and bacon and vegan cheeses to delight your palette.

I arrived just after they opened and had the opportunity to browse the shop and chat with one of the staff about their products, ingredient and processes. Within 30 minutes the place was busy, numbers were taken, orders were placed and happy customers headed home to sample their wares.

I had carte blanch from my sweetie on purchases so I did a bit of splurging. I tried Korean BBQ ribs, spicy Italian sausage, maple flavored bacon, deli turkey meat, spicy pepperoni and some dill Havarti cheese.

We've sampled the ribs (which were sweet, sticky, the perfect texture and taste), maple flavored bacon (perfectly flavored), turkey deli meat (the texture and flavor almost like the real thing) and spicy Italian sausage (my personal favorite) all had excellent texture and flavor – would definitely purchase them again.

I have to say my personal favorite was the spicy Italian sausage – we invited my friend Carolyn over to help us taste test it tonight and it got a 3 thumbs up. The sausage was spicy with hits of fennel and spicy red pepper. We paired it up with onions, red and yellow peppers, carrots, broccoli, asparagus and mushrooms in a simple garlic and ginger stir-fry served over brown rice and a fresh fruit salad. 

If you're in the neighbor, or looking to try something new go to the Herbivorous Butcher you won't be disappointed.

Ciao