Makes 8 patties
Vegan breakfast sausage patties, from scratch, sputtering away in your pan. The aroma drifts through the whole household, awakening all the sleepyheads in their beds. This is THAT breakfast sausage, the kind that you get excited to get out of bed for. Jimmy Dean hates to see these coming!
But how, you ask? These vegan breakfast sausage patties pull it off with steamed, mashed tempeh for meaty substance, lentils for flavor and texture, mayo for fatty richness, a hint of liquid smoke for authenticity, and vital wheat gluten to hold it all together. So they are essentially a seitan sausage with lots of texture. Then come the spices: sage, thyme, anise, and nutmeg. Finish with a hit of maple syrup and you’re ready to tackle Sunday. I like to drizzle extra maple on after cooking, too.
Coconut oil gives the best, fattiest, sizzliest results, so try not to sub it if you don’t have to.
Why This Homemade Vegan Breakfast Sausage Recipe Rocks
They sizzle and brown just like the sausage from the frozen section, vegan or not. Refined coconut oil in a properly hot skillet delivers the audio and visual cues you don’t get from a sad gray patty.
The flavor is calibrated to actual breakfast sausage. No one will wonder what kind of vegan meat this is, the seasoning screams sausage. Sage up front with the maple rounding the edges.
The texture is meaty without being weird. Where some recipes go crumbly-dry, mushy or rubbery-dense, these pull apart properly. Crumbling in all the right ways.
Steam-then-fry is the technique. Steaming sets the structure so the patty holds together in the pan, which means you get crisp outside without trading off juicy inside.
Great for batch cooking. Eight patties that freeze beautifully and the recipe doubles just perfectly.
Tips For The Best Most Sausage-y Results
Overcook the lentils. You want them soft enough to mash to paste. Canned lentils work great and skip the cooking step entirely.
Shape like tires, not flying saucers. Thick rounded edges keep the patties juicy and read more like real sausage than a flat disc would.
Cool completely before pan-frying. Hot-from-the-steamer patties are too soft and will fall apart in the skillet. Room temp or refrigerated, ideally.
Refined coconut oil, specifically. The high smoke point and clean fat give you the deepest sear. Olive oil works if you have to, but you lose some of the buttery sizzle.
How To Serve Vegan Breakfast Sausage Patties
The natural home of a breakfast sausage patty is a plate piled with the rest of the spread. A few pairings to consider:
The Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich. Patty on a toasted English muffin, melty vegan cheddar or a homemade cheese sauce, some tofu scramble, a dollop of vegan mayo and a tomato with smoked salt. This is the use that earns these patties a permanent spot in your weekend rotation.
With a tofu scramble and home fries. The whole diner breakfast plate, made at home. Use this Tofu Scramble and these Home Fries and you will have a very good day.
Denver Omelets. Chopped sausage, onions and bell pepper. I think. I don’t feel like googling it, but you get the picture.
Pancake or waffle stack with extra maple. The sweet-savory thing. Cut into a patty, pour syrup over everything, eat with no shame.
Actual sausage pancakes. This Oatmeal Sausage Pancake recipe is a winner and designed for these exact sausages.
Biscuits and gravy. Crumble a patty into your gravy for sausage gravy proper, or serve the whole patty alongside.
In a breakfast burrito. Crumbled into scrambled tofu with peppers, cheese, and salsa, wrapped in a flour tortilla.
In pasta and red sauce. Sauté some up and crumble, then throw into Mom’s Marinara and it is the best meat sauce ever.
Sausage chili. That’s a thing, right?
Make Your Own Frozen Sausages Like From A Box
These vegan breakfast sausage patties are basically engineered for batch cooking. After steaming, let them cool completely. Wrapped in their parchment-foil packets or stored in an airtight container, they keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.
For longer storage, the wrapped patties go straight into a freezer bag and keep for up to 3 months. Pull out as many as you need, thaw overnight in the fridge, and pan-fry as directed. It’s like you are running a little vegan Jimmy Dean factory.
You can also pan-fry first and then freeze the cooked patties for grab-and-go mornings. Reheat in a skillet over medium-low heat or in the microwave for about 90 seconds.
Other Vegan Sausage Recipes To Try
VEGAN BREAKFAST SAUSAGE PATTIES FAQ
Can I make these gluten-free? No, sorry. But check out the tempeh sausage crumbles for a gluten-free option.
Do they taste like Jimmy Dean? That is the inspiration. The sage-heavy spice deck plus maple is straight Jimmy Dean territory. If that’s the flavor you grew up with, these will land.
Can I skip the liquid smoke? Technically yes, but the smoke is doing real work. Even a quarter teaspoon adds the cured-meat depth that pushes these past “tempeh patty” and into actual breakfast sausage. Get the smoke if you can.
Can I bake them instead of pan-frying? You can, but you’ll lose the crisp exterior. Bake at 375°F for about 20 minutes, flipping halfway. They’ll be more matte than glossy and less sizzly, but still good.
Are these freezer-friendly? Absofrigginlutely. They’re built for it. See the freezer section above for the full breakdown.
How did I end up here? You searched “vegan breakfast sausage patty recipe” and the algorithm did its job. Congrats on your excellent googling.
Homemade Breakfast Sausage Patties
Ingredients
- 1 8-ounce package tempeh
- ¼ cup tamari
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup overcooked lentils lentils from a can work great
- 3 tablespoons vegan mayo prepared or homemade
- 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon liquid smoke
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
- 2 teaspoons dried sage
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon anise seed
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup vital wheat gluten
- Refined coconut oil for cooking
Instructions
- Have ready eight 10-inch pieces of aluminum foil lined with parchment paper. Set up and preheat your steamer.
- Crumble the tempeh into bite-size pieces in a 4-quart pot. Submerge the tempeh in water by about 3 inches. Add 2 tablespoons of the tamari and the apple cider vinegar.
- Place the pot on the stove and bring to a full boil, uncovered. Boil for about 15 minutes. Drain the tempeh and let cool completely. Once cool, use your hands to mash it up pretty well.
- In a large bowl, mash the lentils until no whole ones are left. Add the mashed tempeh, mayo, maple syrup, remaining 2 tablespoons tamari, liquid smoke, nutritional yeast, dried sage (rubbed between your fingers), garlic powder, thyme, black pepper, anise seed, and nutmeg. Mix really well.
- Add the wheat gluten and mush everything together with your hands, getting it really well incorporated, about 2 minutes.
- Break the mixture up into 8 equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball and then flatten into a disc about ½ inch thick. Use the palms of your hands to turn the disc, creating somewhat even sides that aren’t flat. In other words, shape it more like a tire than a flying saucer.
- Wrap each disc in parchment-lined foil. Take care to make them circular again once wrapped. Steam with a tight lid for about 40 minutes. Let cool completely before unwrapping and cooking.
- To cook, preheat a large skillet over medium heat and cook the patties on each side in a thin layer of coconut oil, until lightly browned, about 4 minutes
