5 January 2020

I finally got a KFC Vegan Burger! (@NLi10)

It's a cold January night.  No one is daft enough to walk past all of the lovely warm restaurants to go to the seated area of the drive-thru KFC except for me and the Deliveroo drivers.

So what could be in the bag that makes it worth the trip?


It's Veganuary - that's what!

KFC Vegan Burger

KFC vegan burgers have finally been sent out to my tiny corner of the UK and even advertised on the flashy electronic menus and outside on the phoneboxes too! They even listed all the things that are vegan and all the things that are not vegan.

The only vegan sides are beans and corn - the fries are NOT vegan (or veggie - they are cooked in the same oil as the popcorn chicken)

KFC Vegan Burger

And here it is - the zero chicken burger!

KFC Vegan Burger

And it's fine! The mayo is surprisingly good as that's vegan too.  The lettuce is nice, but that's the only salad you are getting - what did you want? A nutritious meal? Ha!

And the Quorn (because it's ALWAYS Quorn) is fine too - it's a bit too soft, but it's not terrible.  
The herbs and spices don't taste right because they've not accounted for the fact that the fat around the chicken is what makes those work so well, but I'm sure that they will figure that one out eventually.  I think this is why Halal KFC never quite tastes right either!

KFC Vegan Burger

 I was worried it'd be over-cooked and too dry but it's not.  It's just a perfectly valid vegan option if you fancy being a little healthier when you next visit KFC.  The Twisters & Burrito meals are much nicer though - I don't think I've had a non-special variety Burger in KFC for a very long time!

The diet drinks are all rubbish too - I forgot this - always choose the iced tea or hot tea!!

So - is it going to cause the Greggs effect and have people rushing to try them? Probably not.  I mean it's decent food - and it's at least as good as a cheap chicken burger (so better than McD and BK basics) but in the home of the greatest chicken this side of Nando's I can't see many people choosing this.

If they'd chosen to go with something that wasn't 20 years late (Quorn!) and got something with a little more texture, and tripled the amount of salads inside then I'd have got behind it more.  See you all next year for the Vegan Twister.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"the fat around the chicken is what makes those work so well, but I'm sure that they will figure that one out eventually. I think this is why Halal KFC never quite tastes right either!"


What does HALAL have to do with fat around the chicken and the taste not being right?

NLi10 said...

Sorry - probably wasn’t clear. Halal KFC and Haram KFC taste different, and no one has ever really been able to explain to me why that is. I always assumed that there was a difference in the 11 herbs and spices (or that like I suspect they stick them to the chicken using bacon fat or something). However they are getting the herbs and spices to stick to the dry quorn is really similar to the way they get them to stick to my local Halal KFCs chicken and produces the difference in texture and flavour - but to a lesser degree. This suggests to me that they are using the halal recipe version of the batter,

Like I said - this is all speculation and as they are unlikely to publish a reason why the two taste noticeably different - but there is a change in the way the recipe is set up.

It does raise the question - what does a vegan KFC burger taste like in a non-halal restaurant?!