Review: MorningStar Farms Tomato & Basil Pizza Veggie Burgers

When I was in elementary school, our school cafeteria would serve something that they called pizza burgers once a week or as least every other week.  These pizza burgers consisted of a base of a hamburger bun, a "pizza" mix on top (it was more like Sloppy Joe mix) and then melted mozzarella cheese on top of that.  For some reason, we all thought those were spectacularly delicious.  Why do I bring that up?  Well, this review of the MorningStar Farms Tomato & Basil Pizza Veggie Burgers reminded me of those.  Of course, MorningStar Farms' version is nothing like those that we had in the cafeteria, but at least the name is similar enough that it reminded me of an oddly fond memory from my youth.  Anyway, for this addition to the MorningStar Farms review series, I picked up a box of these pizza burgers on sale at Kroger for $3.00 and each box contains four burgers at a weight of 2.36 ounces and 120 calories per burger.

So after heating these up in the microwave for a few minutes (I could have also cooked them on the grill or in a skillet; I chose the lazy way of course), I was presented with what you see above.  It was a burger patty with a nice smell of basil and also with cheese (mozzarella and provolone) seeping through the top.  You could also see several tomato chunks and basil bits, so at least the major components of the burgers were covered.  The patties also included onions, mushrooms and garlic, among other things, but those were not as visible to the naked eye.

Biting into one of these veggie burgers is always interesting.  You can never say they are really tender because they are made of of chewy soy beans, but this one was moist and not nearly as tough as a lot of soy burgers can tend to be, which was nice.  A lot of that has to do with preparation time/method, but in this instance, it was nailed right on.  As for the flavor itself, there was a strong taste of tomato and basil, so in terms of duplicating that part of pizza taste, this did a good job.  The cheese, while definitely noticeable in little bubbles on the visible appearance, did not provide a gooey or creamy texture to the burger.  The cheese was obviously there, but it didn't bring a whole lot of flavor and that was slightly disappointing.  The onions, garlic and mushrooms that were in the whole mix of the burger definitely brought an Italian flavor to this, so that was another success on the part of MorningStar Farms.

Buy It or Fly By It?  One thing to note is that this is definitely not a pizza burger.  That said, it is a fine tasting Italian inspired "burger" product and for that reason, I give this a BUY IT rating.  It's tasty, well done and makes for a nice meal.  You can have it as an actual burger on a bun or mix it in with pasta sauce and noodles like I have done and use it as your "meat" in the pasta mix.  Whatever way you choose to eat it would be fine because this is ultimately a very solid product.

BUY IT!!