Brian Watson - Vegan Fast Food: Copycat Burgers, Tacos, Fried Chicken, Pizza, Milkshakes, and More!

Hey, everybody! Im Brian Watson, aka Thee Burger Dude. Suffice to say if you had told my former self that Id be writing a vegan cookbook, I wouldve died laughing. I was always a big fan of burgers, fried chicken, mac n cheese, pizza, burritos, you name it! Im pretty sure nearly every meal I ate had some kind of meat drenched in some kind of dairy product. Perhaps Id skip meat once in a while to be healthy, but it was a huge part of my diet.

That being said, I wasnt super stoked on how we treated animals... but I just really loved meat. I assumed it was a necessary evil, and to be honest, I often avoided thinking about the whole thing altogether.

Plus when I imagined vegan food, it was boring and bland! It was basically just salads to me. Turns out, I had a very dated and stereotypical view of vegans as rich, trustfund hippies who lived off of eating grass and their own moral superiority. (Well, okay, those vegans do exist, but thankfully they are not the majority!)

Eventually more vegan and plant-based products made their way onto my radar. I had tried some in the past, but they were awful. The new ones were different. Many were close enough that I felt like I could stop eating certain animal products. I began to cook with them and experiment with new ingredients I had never even heard of. (What the heck is nooch?) I even started to eat more vegetables, and I liked most of them! Strange things were afoot, but in a good way.

On top of that, I started to educate myself on the meat and dairy industries, plus the clothing, cosmetic, and entertainment industries that exploit animals. I realized and appreciated that all animals can feel pain and terror, or joy and happiness. They are just like our companion dogs and cats. And I knew that I had to adjust my actions accordingly.

On New Years Eve 2018, I resolved to go vegan by the end of the year. Well, it only took until MarchI went vegan nine months early! I quickly dove into making vegan food, and soon enough, I was trying to figure out ways to make all my old fast-food and comfort-food favorites.

I started off making lots of burgersI know weird right! I was posting them on my personal Instagram account, and I was super excited about these new vegan burgers and wanted to get my friends to try them out. My wife suggested I start an Instagram account solely for my food posts. This was something that I didnt know existed. I looked into it and thought, Sure, whats the worst that could happen!

It took off, and soon people started asking me for recipes for the things I was posting. I went ahead and started up a recipe blog. Then, folks asked for videos for some of the techniques, so I started a YouTube channel! And now Im lucky enough to write a cookbook.

Anyways, the whole point of my blog, YouTube channel, and this cookbook is simple: For the curious non-vegans out therelike me before I went veganI want to help you see that you can still have all of your favorite foods. Burgers, fried chicken, mac n cheese, milkshakes, or whatever you likeit can all be totally plant-based! I also hope to help my fellow longtime vegans who are missing some of their old favorites (or who never got to try a certain fast-food order).

Maybe you need a full recipe from start to finish. Or maybe youve cracked the code to quite a bit on your own. Maybe you just need a few tricks or tips to take your recipe from good to great. If so, I hope this book has just what youve been looking for!

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BURGER BASICS

In most ways, a vegan burger (meaning the whole sandwich, not just the patty!) is exactly like a non-vegan burger. All we need to do is swap the ingredients that arent vegan. But there is a bit of nuance to a vegan burger, so lets go over each component.

Buns

A lot of folks ask me where I get my buns. In my experience, many ready-made buns are vegan. In fact, in some stores most of them are. I always check the ingredients for eggs, butter, milk (including whey and casein), honey, etc. But unless its brioche, Hawaiian, or honey wheat, theres a good chance its vegan. Ive even found brioche and Hawaiian without any animal products in them, so it never hurts to check.

There are ingredients, such as monodiglycerides, DATEM, and others, that may or may not be plant-based. But from my understanding, they usually are. I dont worry about these ingredients, but if you do, contact the manufacturer and enquire about them. You might also see May Contain Milk on the packaging. This simply means that the product was made in a facility that also produces non-vegan food. It doesnt mean the product actually has milk in it; its just a warning for folks with dairy allergies.

And obviously, you can always make your own buns if you prefer!

To prepare burger buns, two things are important: First, you should always toast or grill your buns, usually with a bit of vegan butter or oil, until golden brown. This improves the texture, and it helps keep your buns from getting soggy. Second, if you toast your buns, let them rest on a wire rack. If you just set them on a plate, theyll steam and get soggy. This will ruin your burger before you even get the patty on there!

Cheese

Vegan cheese has come a long way in the past few years. There are plenty of options these days, so I recommend trying a bunch and figuring out what you like best. For most burgers, I prefer American slices. When preparing your burger, I highly recommend adding a little water to the pan and covering it to melt the cheese on your patty. Theres not much sadder than unmelted cheese on a cheeseburger!

Toppings

There are nearly endless toppings you can put on a burger, and everyone has their own preferences. I like to keep things simple: Its hard to beat a cheeseburger with some burger sauce, pickles, and onions. If I could eat only one burger the rest of my life, that would be it!

Piling on too many toppings can result in a burger that is difficult to eat. (I speak from experience.) It will fall apart and get soggy, plus the flavors and textures of all the toppings will clash. You can always wrap your burger in some deli paper to keep it from going all over the place, but its worth it to be mindful of how the toppings will accent and complement each other.