Gregg's Vegan Sausage Roll Review and Comparison

It feels odd to be writing about sausage rolls for this blog and they're not something I would advise for weight loss. But this morning I found myself on the end of an exceptionally long queue outside my local Gregg's bakery. And the longer the queue got, the more people joined! I felt I was part of some 'in the know' movement.

My reason for joining the Gregg's queue was because of all this talk about the Gregg's Vegan sausage rolls. So I decided to do a little comparison between their ‘normal’ sausage rolls and the new vegan variety.

I tried to buy one yesterday, but at 12.30pm, they were sold out. So my next outing to Gregg's was 10.30am this morning, but only after I’d phoned them to check they actually had any vegan sausage rolls to sell.
I never realised how popular Greggs is. People were coming out with carrier bags (plastic grrr) packed full of bakery products. The smell is enticing, but I still wouldn’t eat the majority of food sold here. I would have once upon a time, but that’s another story.

Spot the difference.  Vegan is on the right

Today I’m buying two of each types of sausage roll for comparison purposes. My daughters will happily test them out for me and will be amazed to find I’ve brought Gregg's food home for them. The four sausage rolls came to a grand total of £3.90. I can see why this place is so popular. It also turns out the the vegan sausage roll costs 5p more than the regular.

Here’s how Gregg’s describe their two sausage rolls:

Meat sausage roll:

All hail a British classic! Our tasty Sausage Rolls have developed a bit of a following over the years. And it’s easy to see why. 

Freshly baked in our shops throughout the day, these family favourites are made from seasoned sausage meat wrapped in layers of crisp, golden puff pastry. 

And that’s it. No clever twist. No secret ingredient. It’s how you like them so that’s how we make them.

Vegan sausage roll:

The most hotly debated sausage roll since, well... the sausage roll. Our new vegan friendly sausage roll has been designed to mirror some of the sausage roll’s classic features including 96 layers of light and crisp puff pastry but instead we wrap it around our own bespoke Quorn filling.

The launch follows strong consumer demand, including a petition by PETA last year, which was signed by more than 20,000 people.
It's only available in 900 shops across the UK. 

You can check to see which stores sell the vegan sausage rolls here: Gregg's Vegan sausage rolls stores.

Gregg's sausage rolls - vegan on the right

Review

To look at, the vegan sausage roll is more appealing with a lighter coloured pastry and it didn’t look as greasy. It may be that the regular sausage roll was slightly overcooked because they are made with the same pastry either way. They also have a different pattern cut into the pastry on top.

Putting them on a plate, I cut them open to see how they compared inside, in looks and smell.

Gregg's sausage rolls close up - vegan on the right

To be honest, I couldn’t tell any difference between their smell. The sausage meat version had a slightly pinker colour and more of a defined shape.

Tasting a piece of the vegan Quorn version, it definitely has a meaty texture and is well spiced to give it a distinctly sausage roll flavour. If I hadn’t eaten a piece of the regular sausage roll, I wouldn’t have known it wasn’t a meat version. But after nibbling at a piece of the meat sausage roll, there was a difference, but it was very small.

One daughter only tried the vegan one as she’s recently become a veggie. She loved it. Quizzing her further she said she couldn’t really tell the difference but thought it looked different. Either way, she said it was really tasty.

The other daughter tried both alternately. When I first told her that one was a vegan sausage roll, she wasn’t at all interested until I told her it was quorn. As we’ve had plenty of quorn products over the years and she loves them, she was happy to give it a taste.

After trying them both, she was more than happy to have the vegan alternative if the meat ones weren’t available. She said she only knew which was the meat one because she knows what they look like. She thought the quorn version was perhaps a bit spicier but still really enjoyable.

My husband also tried them both. He's more of a steak bake man than a sausage roll fan but was happy enough to try them out. He found the meat version too greasy overall and if he had a choice, would prefer the vegan version.

Below is a nutrition comparison between the two sausage rolls.

Per Sausage Roll (101g)	Vegan - Quorn	Sausage Meat
Calories	311	327
Fat	19g	22g
Saturated Fat	9.3g	13g
Carbohydrate	21g	24g
Sugar	0.8g	0g
Protein	12g	9.4g
Salt	1.9g	1.6g

As you can see, when it comes to calories, they are very close with the vegan version having 16 fewer calories than the meat version.

They are both high in saturated fat which is to be expected from the pastry. There is more saturated fat in the sausage meat version as quorn is very low fat. Both are high in salt and low in sugar. The vegan version is a better source of protein with 12g per sausage roll compared with only 9.4g in the meat version.

Allergens Vegan sausage roll: Wheat, Barley
Allergens meat sausage roll: Wheat, milk, barley, soya, sulphites.

Vegan sausage roll:

Meat sausage roll:

© Diets and Calories