Plant-Based Marbling Fat

The Struggle:

Plant based meats are tricky to figure out. We have spent the better part of the year working on different recipes to make the best plant based meats at home. One thing that we feel sets our recipe apart from all the others is our plant-based marbling fat. We wanted a fat that didn’t completely drain itself from the meat as it was cooked. Most homemade plant based meats just add plain coconut oil which can most times spell disaster.  But just how is our marbling fat made and why does it work so well? Can it be used for anything else other than just plant based meats? 

“How do you create the perfect plant-based marbling fat?”

Don’t Trim The Fat

So when we were working with our plant based meat we noticed about 50% of the coconut fat in our recipe was leaking out. We wanted to find a way to keep some of that fat suspended in the plant based meat. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out a way to do so. We were already using methylcellulose to help bind the burgers. So we decided to make an emulsion with coconut fat, water, and methylcellulose. We weren’t sure if this would solidify, but it did! We scraped the fat into little bits and added them to the plant based meat. We lost less fat during the cooking process and found the fat pockets we were looking for inside the burgers, success! 

The reason methylcellulose traps some of the fat is the type of emulsion. The type of emulsion is an “oil in water” emulsion. This means that the oil globules are coated with a thin layer of water and methylcellulose. As the burger is cooked the methylcellulose in the mixture will begin to gel. This gel holds onto the fat as much as it can. One thing to be cautious of is using just any old coconut oil. Coconut oils have different melting points and this can really affect how the emulsion acts. Some coconut oils will begin solidifying the moment it is added to the blender. This setting will cause the emulsion to become too thick too quick. As the emulsion thickens it becomes harder for the emulsion to hold onto the oil. This can cause the mixture to separate. 

One more note is to keep the contents of the recipe at or above room temperature. I even like to heat the oil slightly to prevent any premature solidification. The last thing you need to watch out for with some store bought coconut oils is the aroma. Most coconut oils have a strong coconut aroma, this will make your plant based meat have the flavor of coconuts. While this works great for cookies, it makes for a rather yucky plant based meat. So we suggest sticking with Druids Grove organic coconut oil, which we’ve selected for both its neutral flavor and perfect melting temp. 

We started making this marbling fat in larger batches to make testing easier and more consistent. As time went on we started using this fat for so many more things. Adding this to various plant based meats is the main focus. But we started adding this pretty much anywhere lard, crisco, and even butter gets added and it works. Pie crust was one that we really enjoyed. We loved it so much we made a full cornish pasty recipe from it using plant based meat and a plant based Pate brisee (pie crust)! Check out the recipes below. Also tell us what you want to see the plant based marbling fat used in!

Ready to get Cooking?

Give our Plant-Based Cornish Pasties recipes a try!100% plant-based, this chikn stuffed hand pie is a master of flaky ‘buttery’ crust and generously stuffed chikn. Savor a healthier, heartier way to enjoy this savory classic.