Plant-based vs. pepperoni: can you make it, fake it and love it like the real deal?

Are you excited by fake hot dogs made of tofu and fake pepperoni made of wheat gluten? Unlikely. My normal take on such products is simple: Just stop it. If you stopped eating meat, stop pretending to eat meat. You know the only real taste is disappointment. 

So, when the email hit my in-box, my first reaction was doubt. The very cheery message read, “I saw your name on the press list for the Pizza Expo next week and was wondering if you'd be interested in stopping by the Prime Roots booth to try the world's first Koji-pepperoni.” Great. Fake meat. But there was one big difference here...

I admit, koji is captivating. Mushrooms and fermentation are both fascinating topics—and koji is a fungi used in fermentation for various Japanese foods. But who makes fake meat out of koji? So after a sincere internal struggle, I replied to the email...

“As a big fan of cured meats generally, as well as of the magic of fermentation, I say yes. I want to taste this Koji pepperoni.” And I did. I also have a prediction, especially if you love pepperoni pizza despite knowing that The Free The Pizza Pepperoni Pizza Diet is not endorsed by the surgeon general...


You will want to try Prime Roots koji pepperoni, too. It tastes like (get this!) pepperoni. But…how do they do this magical thing? And is it actually healthy? And should you even want to eat it? And how does one of the country’s most important delicatessens feel about it?
 
So many questions. Let’s flashback to Pizza Expo.

I’m hoofing it through the cavernous Las Vegas Convention Center to the Prime Roots booth, where I’m scheduled to meet with Prime Roots Co-Founder Kimberlie Le.
 
When I arrive there, I’m impressed and pleased to find not a pitch-person (which is often the persona assumed on a trade-show floor), but a lovely, food-forward science person from Canada. Kimberlie studied microbiology at UC Berkeley and is the daughter of a well-known chef.

ABOVE: Kimberlie Le (left), Co-Founder of Prime Roots, 


Kimberlie was also gracious and understanding when I admitted my skepticism about plant-based pepperoni substitutes, and how my inner cynic was tempered by the fact Prime Roots was working with koji.
 
Kimberlie said, “A lot of solutions live in nature, and obviously there've been a lot of plant-based efforts. We've taken a very different approach. We want to make something that will actually appeal to meat eaters like ourselves. We don't have a single vegan or vegetarian on our team.”
 
No vegans or vegetarians on the team? In a different place and time, my head might have spun off its carriage bolt. But this is a new age. I’ve met the head butcher at the local Whole Foods, and she’s a vegan. (I swear I’m not making this up.) It’s clear that boundaries are now fuzzy if not fungible, and the Venn diagrams have wonky overlaps.
 

Today, a lot of meat lovers are hearing a wakeup call in the form of warnings about eating too much meat. And there’s enough discussion about the supposedly proven carcinogenic nature of processed meats that I now approach each pepperoni pizza slice like a smoker who knows he should quit but wants just one more puff.
 
Kimberlie says, “We call ourselves a new-school deli brand. We're a new generation making products for people like ourselves. I'm actually not vegan or vegetarian myself. I'm a proud flexitarian like a lot of people.”
 
So Prime Roots plant-based model was established by people who eat meat without shame, just moderation.
 

If you’re unfamiliar with the neologist landscape of dietary -isms, flexitarianism is just one of many recently minted terms for describing the mindful omnivore. Other labeling options include semi-vegetarianism, demi-vegetarianism, reducetarianism, and semi-veganism. My nutty doctor, who bangs the drum for a more plant-based diet, could easily call it eat-less-meatism.
 
The overarching idea is that you shouldn’t eat meat at every meal. I fear that I’m a practicing semi-pizzatarian in that I don’t eat pizza at every meal. (Is that so wrong?)
 
But I digress.
 
I asked Kimberlie about her background, and she replied, that since her mother is a chef, “I grew up around the food industry, so…very passionate about bringing good foods to people's tables. I went to UC Berkeley, where I studied microbiology and was really fascinated by our ability to leverage the power of nature to make better things.”
 

Clearly, Kimberlie is on a mission—and she’s patient and perseverant. It took five years of R&D before Prime Roots brought a product to market.
 
She says, “I was really, really steadfast on making a good product that checked all the boxes for a picky meat eater and a vegan or vegetarian that's very discerning about what goes into their food.
 
“So I really wanted to make something that was no compromises, and learned from some of the best butchers and deli meat makers out there. How did they do their craft?
 
“And a lot of how we make our products is actually inspired by and are the same as how you make meat, except for the first part, which is raising an animal for many, many years.
 
“But everything else is almost identical. So our facility looks like half brewery, half deli-meat factory. Basically we have the meat grinders, the sausage stuffers, we have all of the same equipment."

ABOVE: The Prime Roots deli sandwich tasted like (for real) an actual deli sandwich. I remained on good behavior but could've easily made a pig of myself. (See what I did there?) 


This is a good place to talk a little bit about the twin miracles of koji and fermentation. Fermentation is a fundamental piece of the homemade pizza puzzle. The best tasting pizza crust is made with a dough that’s been fermented.
 
My own homemade dough is the product of a 72-hour cold fermentation, which is also not uncommon in artisan pizza making. Fermentation yields a more complex flavor.

In addition, it yields a dough that some people with gluten issues tell me is gut-friendly for them. It’s said that fermentation can break down some of the more challenging components in the crust and make it less glycemic.
 
Many deli meats are also the product of fermentation. That fermentation process is what helps develop the distinctive, complex flavors we all know and love.
 
But in the context of Prime Roots, and making a convincing meat replacement, fermentation is a fascinating prospect. They’re growing koji, which is a fungus used in traditional Japanese fermentation. You experience koji in soy sauce and sake, among other foods.
 

And here’s something you may not know: mushrooms and meat are biologically related. How’s that for a head spinner? Animals and fungi share a common ancestor from over a billion years ago called Opisthokonta. At a fork in the evolutionary road, animals went one way and got all the genes, and mushrooms went the other way got all the "ancestral metabolic pathways." (Thank you for that fun phraseology, Google AI overview.)
 
And as it happens, mushrooms also taste very meaty. I remember the first vegetarian bolognese I ever had. Made of mushrooms, it tasted convincingly like meat. And a sausage and mushroom pizza is one of my favorites because of the meaty umami flavors involved. 
 
Kimberlie says most of the work for Prime Roots products happens via the koji, which is the “Base protein. We grow basically what's the roots of mushrooms. And so you have the fibrous texture of meat and you also get that umami taste.
 
“So, end to end, it's really inspired. It's from nature and it's really, really sustainable, has all the protein that you expect and the meaty taste.”


But would they sell it at Zabar's?

If you're hip to the New York culinary scene, you may have heard of Zabar's. They're an iconic specialty food store that's been around for over 90 years. They're very fancy and very expensive. 

Kimberlie laughs, "I went to Zabars and I'm a shameless founder, so I'm just like, it's fine if they kick me out, it's fine.

"I went in with prototypes and I was like, 'Hey, you guys are masters of this. Can you try this? And I just want your feedback. I'm not trying to sell you anything.'


"And they tried it and they were shocked. They gave it out to their team, and then they couldn't believe it, so they did it again.
 
“And then they're like, oh, maybe the flavor should be tweaked in this or way. And I took the feedback and we iterated on the product.”
 
“And then when we launched, we were at a show similar to this in New York, and they were there, they saw it and they're like, 'Oh, yeah, we'd love to try this.'
 
“And I never in my dreams thought we would ever be working with these old-school establishments. But everyone knows that they need to do it.

"It's not like overnight you switch everything out and go all plant-based. But you have to have the options for where things are going.

"So yeah, I think you are not the only skeptic. Everyone starts skeptical."
 
Meaty taste! Health-conscious meat lovers rejoice! Mikey likes it, and he doesn't like anything! (I'm sorry if that latter reference is lost on you. It was forever on the lips of a generation that also helped to popularize pepperoni.)

 
What Kimerblie and I didn’t talk about is some of the truly healthful details of koji.

Like, koji has probiotic properties and produces healthful enzymes. 
 
Koji has been linked to improved gut health, enhanced digestion, and immune system support.

Koji is also rich in B vitamins, it's good for your skin and it gives you energy
 
Koji may even contribute to improved cholesterol levels and blood sugar stability, and it may have antioxidant properties.
 
Of course, that’s an awful lot of healthful impact to expect from a slice of pepperoni. This is just me finally looking at the potential benefits of fungi and fermentation vis-à-vis putting a little more fake meat into my diet. Who saw that coming from for Mr. Stop Fooling Yourself With Tofu Prosciutto?


And it's not like Kimberlie is pitching Prime Roots koji pepperoni as some kind of panacea. She has merely created one food-lover’s faithful-tasting alternative to processed deli meat products.
 
You might call Prime Roots pepperoni the gateway deli meat in the world of koji cold cuts. That's because they have all kinds of other products developed with koji, from ham and turkey to salami and bacon. In the Prime Roots booth, I ate a sample of an Italian sub, and it tasted great.

ABOVE: Prime Roots salumi products look convincingly like deli meat. 


But this all began with the ever so simple pepperoni, much beloved and enjoyed around the USA as the single most popular pizza topping.
 
I tasted the pepperoni by itself, as well as on a slice of pizza in the properly cupped and charred form that’s all the rage these days.

In both cases, it looked just like pepperoni.  But…
 
How did it taste?

I'm not kidding in any way when I say this: it tasted great.
 
It tasted just like pepperoni.
 

What more could a pizza lover ask?
 
Prime Roots is a fun, unusual and exciting fork in the road to meat alternatives. I'm glad I got to taste the world's first koji pepperoni.

And I'm glad to have met the inimitable Kimberlie Le. It's all such a bright and shining little truth along the road to fake meat products.
 
And really, you can even argue that there's nothing fake about koji pepperoni. They've grown the meat of mushrooms, ground it up with spices, and put that spiced-up meat into a sausage casing just like any pork pepperoni.

And at the end of the day, it tastes great. And that’s what matters.

To find out more about Prime Roots, click here. 

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