All The Major Fast Food Chains Serving Plant-Based Meat Substitutes

Meat 2.0 is everywhere! Whether you’ve taken the plunge and actually tried it, or you’re sitting on the sidelines waiting until plant-based meat substitutes are literally your only food option, one thing is for certain: meat 2.0 is more popular than ever before. The two major plant-based meat companies, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, have been fighting over who will reign supreme in the lucrative American fast food market and, from the looks of it, Impossible currently holds a slight edge over Beyond.

Still, considering this is new ground we wouldn’t be surprised if a third as-of-now unknown company sneaks its way to plant-based meat dominance. Regardless, we look forward to a future of articles where we tirelessly debate who makes the better faux-meat. Give me a dollar for every future article that tries to use OG meat as some sort of sneaky hot take, and I’ll have enough to start my own plant-based meat.

Giving up meat, even if that just means eating less of it from day to day, is just one of the small ways you can lessen your own personal carbon footprint. So we’ve made a list of all the current food chains that will let you go meatless. Get out there and eat some plants.

Blaze Pizza

Pizza is probably the easiest food to eat while totally avoiding meat, so while we certainly didn’t need a vegan spicy chorizo topping option at Blaze Pizza, we’ll take it! While not technically a Beyond or Impossible product, it’s still meatless so stop complaining and eat the damn pizza.

Burger King

Burger King just unveiled the Impossible Whopper last month and the hype is already growing nationwide. Currently only being sold in St Louis and surrounding locations, the Impossible Whopper sounds like a success so far, with the company considering rolling out the burger in all 50 states by the end of this year.

We NEED to try this Whopper, certainly a need we’ve never ever felt before for much of anything from Burger King.

Carl’s Jr.

The Beyond Famous Star is currently sold at participating Carl’s Jr locations across the country after the chain dipped its toes in the meat 2.0 world in January of this year. The best part? You could substitute a Beyond patty for any chicken or beef burger menu item.

Del Taco

Del Taco now serves Beyond Meat tacos at all 580 of their locations across the country. We’ve tried it, and it certainly tastes meat-ish! Order a taco, burrito, or nachos and substitute Beyond Meat for real meat. Pro-tip: Order a Beyond Meat soft taco, fill that baby up with some crinkle cut fries and you’ve got yourself a flavor bomb!

The Cheesecake Factory

Just when you thought the Cheesecake Factory menu was overdone, they decided to add yet another item to their A Song of Ice and Fire sized list of offerings. The Cheesecake Factory Impossible Burger has been sold nationwide since August of last year, why they didn’t take this opportunity to introduce the Impossible Meatcake we’ll never understand.

Hard Rock Cafe

Since December of this year, the Hard Rock Cafe has been serving the Impossible Burger at all 40 company-owned locations in the United States. What tastes better than an Impossible burger with double cheese and a giant fried union ring inside of it? Don’t answer that, because the answer is “a real burger with double cheese and a giant friend union ring,” but the planet is in trouble, so it might not be a bad idea to start thinking of ways you can help.

Little Caesars

Currently only available in the three test markets of Yakima, Washington, Fort Meyers, Florida, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, Little Caesars is trying out a Supreme Pizza made in collaboration with Impossible Meats. The Impossible Supreme Pizza consists of caramelized onions, mushrooms, green pepper, and Impossible Sausage, which the meat 2.0 company made especially for Little Caesars.

Blaze Pizza, take note, this is how you go meatless!

McDonald’s

Okay, what gives McDonald’s? Americans often gaze at the international menu offerings from McDonald’s with envy but this is just taking it too far. The Big Vegan TS is currently only available in the fast-food chain’s German market with no plans to expand to the US. While that’s pretty disappointing, we doubt it means we’ll never get a meat 2.0 Big Mac stateside, considering the Big Vegan TS is manufactured by Nestlé which leaves the door wide open for Impossible or Beyond Meats to come sweeping in to rescue us.

Qdoba

By the end of this month, Qdoba will sell Impossible Tacos and Bowls at all 730 of its locations. I’d argue that the meat 2.0 tacos are actually considerably better than the burgers, so if you’ve been burned by an Impossible or Beyond burger in the past, consider giving the tacos a try.

Red Robin

Red Robin first introduced their Impossible Burger on April Fools’ Day of this year. Why any company does anything on April Fools’ Day is beyond us, but the Red Robin Impossible Burger is no joke. The best part about the chain’s approach is that you could swap in the Impossible Burger patty to any of Red Robin’s gourmet burgers which is dope and an approach we’d like to see more chains take up in regards to the meat substitute.

TGI Fridays

Since January 2018 people have been “thanking God” that TGI Fridays has a Beyond Burger. Bad joke? Just stop your criticism and eat your Beyond burger. At over 469 participating locations nationwide, you could substitute the beef patty in any TGI Fridays burger for Beyond Meat.

Umami Burger

Umami Burger was one of the first burger spots to offer up an Impossible Burger and the small chain currently has three different iterations of the burger on their menu. With the Impossible Trufflemaker, you get an all vegan bun, miso mustard sauce, charred green chili salsa, truffle fondue, truffle aioli, port wine, a truffle glaze, and curly lettuce and tomato. If that doesn’t make your mouth water and fill you with ideas of eating way less meat, we don’t know what will.

Perhaps the Impossible Vegan BBQ is more your speed, with an espresso rub, smokey bbq sauce, and thinly sliced jalapeño, with the aforementioned miso mustard and charred green chili salsa. I mean come on, with ingredients like that the meat doesn’t even matter!

White Castle

White Castle has been selling an Impossible version of their 2×2 inch slider at participating locations nationwide for about a year now. Since every stoner’s favorite east coast burger chain was such an early adopter of impossible meat, it has given the company some time to start experimenting with the slider. This last April White Castle introduced the BBQ impossible slider and though we haven’t had one we imagine it’s now even harder for meat 2.0 skeptics to tell the difference.