Favorite Asian Market Mock Meats

Asian markets are amazing! The variety of mock meats, alone, is astounding. And prices for mock meats are generally less than half of what you’d pay at a regular or natural food store. Here are my favorite picks:


At the market, you’ll find all forms of tofu: fresh, baked, fried, puffed, string, dried, and seasoned. My favorite form to pick up at the Asian market is fried tofu. Save yourself from cutting, pressing, and frying fresh tofu, and just pick up a package of fried tofu. Go ahead and join the legions of lazies.

Seitan is generally found in cans at Asian market. Oh, and there are lots of them - vegetarian abalone, vegetarian pork, vegetarian chicken, and vegetarian duck are just a few of the styles. They’re all a little different in taste and texture. I’ve found that I like the vegetarian chicken and the vegetarian duck. What I like the most is that a 10-ounce can currently costs $1.49 at my market - super cheap compared to buying White Wave at the natural food store.

The most entertaining section is the frozen food aisle. Amongst the more mundane veggie hot dogs and chicken nuggets, you’ll find packages of mock meats in the style and shape of fish, eel, shrimp, whole chickens, logs of ham, lobster, and just about anything you can imagine. (Vegetarian ear, anyone?) This is where I suggest open-minded experimentation, but be forewarned that some are weird.

There are some gems, though. My absolute, all-time favorite mock meat buy at the Asian market are the frozen packets of Citrus Spareribs from May Wah in NY. These soy-based nuggets don't look exactly like spare ribs (check the intro picture), but have an exceptionally chewy texture, making them more meat-like than most mock meats. The sauce is the best part, though. It’s spicy and sweet - similar to the sauce on general Tso’s chicken or sparerib bbq sauce. (Imagine that!) Slosh some water around the empty package to make use of all the sauce, add to your stir fry, and you’re golden.

Secret Word = Curdlan

So, I bought a package of mock shrimp from the Asian market in hopes of doing something with it after my pleasant experience with mock shrimp. I would have liked to have had fried shrimp, but I’m not a home-fryer. I thought about having shrimp and grits (yumminess), but never got around to it. I ended up doing the simplest thing with them – throwing the shrimp unseasoned, and uncooked in spring rolls.

The shrimp weren’t bad, but a greasy layer of fat would have definitely helped the flavor. (All right, they were downright weird. I’ll leave mock shrimp to the restaurants.) The mock shrimp had the texture of shrimp, but smelled oddly sweet, and even tasted a little sweet – and odd. Here’s the strange part, though. I flip the package over to read the ingredients, and all is looking familiar except for one item – curdlan.

What the heck is curdlan? I look it up (love the computer) and this is what it says: “Curdlan gum is a microbial fermentation extracellular polymer prepared commercially from a mutant strain of Alcaligenes faecalis var. myxogenes.” I’m not a scientist, but I think that means that it’s a weird substance from weird bacteria. So, it’s at least natural.

What does it do? “Curdlan gum is tasteless and produces retortable freezable food elastic gels.” Ok, so it makes things gell-like and thickens things (curdling). Curdlan was approved by the FDA in 1996 as a formulation aid, processing aid, stabilizer and thickener or texturizer for use in food.

Scroll down a bit on the search page and I see curdlan and WHO (World Health Organization). Why do they care about curdlan as a food additive? Oh, this was a fun read! They studied the effects of curdlan on rats, lots of other animals, and humans. In short, it says it's safe; hence it’s in my mock shrimp. Although, you may experience constipation, increased flatulence, occasional diarrhea, weight loss…..

Don’t be scared of curdlan. I had never heard of it, looked it up, and thought it interesting. Here’s a list of things you may find curdlan in. Keep your eyes peeled and scream when you find it. It’ll be kinda like Pee Wee Herman’s “secret word” game. Curdlan. Aaaaagghhhh!