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Love pigs, love food, and love getting creative in the kitchen? You’ve come to the right place!
With more animal-lovers than ever now choosing to eat meat-free, the number of plant-based pig meat products has skyrocketed — and there’s a massive range of vegan pork, bacon, ham, roasts, and sausages available in stores.
Plant-based meats are ideal for 1:1 swaps while cooking, making it easy to enjoy all the same flavours you love, minus the animals. But if you’re in more of a cooking from scratch kind of mood, rest assured that there are just as many innovative pig-friendly recipes out there as there are products — if not more!
From tempeh ‘bacon’ to BBQ jackfruit pulled ‘pork’, there are tonnes of plant-based meals you can make at home without using any plant-based meat products.
The recipes below use versatile ingredients like tofu, tempeh, seitan, jackfruit, textured vegetable protein (TVP), rice paper, and soy chunks, all of which can be found at your local supermarket, health store, or bulk store.
One important quality these ingredients all have in common is that they start out as a blank slate, but magically soak up the flavours of whatever you marinate or cook them with. It’s true culinary wizardry, and it means the possibilities for creating pig meat alternatives are endless!
1. Ultimate TLT with Avocado
Our take on the classic BLT is the ultimate proof that you can make tofu taste like literally anything. It’s all in the sweet and smoky marinade, baby.
2. Tempeh Bacon Strips
Much like tofu, tempeh is a total shapeshifter. It can be whatever you want it to be — and trust us, you want it to be these exact bacon strips.
3. Pulled BBQ Jackfruit Vegan Pork Bowls
Jackfruit’s texture is uncannily similar to pulled pork! Dress it up with delicious homemade BBQ sauce and veggies, and dig into a wholesome bowl you won’t want to see the bottom of.
4. Vegan Smoked Ham
Guaranteed to impress. The extra time it takes to make, glaze, and roast this seitan-based smoked ham to perfection is so worth it for a fancy roast meal or festive occasion!
5. Vegan Rice Paper Bacon
That nearly perfect 5-star rating doesn’t lie: this crispy, meaty vegan bacon is irresistible. The key here is marinating the rice paper sheets in rich ingredients like tamari and liquid smoke.
6. Pulled BBQ Jackfruit Pork Sandwiches
Another drool-worthy jackfruit pulled ‘pork’ recipe — but this one’s sandwich-style, paired with the freshness of avocado slaw and the crunch of roasted cashews.
7. Vegan Pork and Cabbage Dumplings
This delightful dumpling recipe uses the magic of textured vegetable protein and shiitake mushrooms to recreate the bite and umami flavour of pork mince.
8. Vegan Pork Tenderloin
This vegan pork tenderloin is super realistic but surprisingly simple. The ‘meat’ is made with commonly found ingredients like mushrooms, tempeh, and beets — and the crispy skin is garlic-infused rice paper!
9. Chinese Sweet and Sour Vegan Pork
Soy chunks are the perfect vector for sweet and sour. Prepared correctly, they become the ultimate vegan pork nuggets — sticky, tangy, sweet, and coated in that iconic golden-brown crisp.
Keen for more pig-free recipe inspiration?
The only dilemma now is choosing which recipe to start with! Browse our recipe hub here, and happy cooking! 
Meet Liv!
Having grown up in a “meat and 3 veg” kind of household, Liv’s embarrassed to admit that she was a bit of a one-note chef until she began exploring the world of plant-based food. Vegan cooking has given her a whole new appreciation for the symphonies of flavours that simple, nourishing wholefood ingredients can create. (Even eggplant, once her greatest nemesis, is now — in a delicious, miso-glazed redemption arc — her all-time favourite veg.)