Vegan Breakfast Sausage Patties

Who doesn’t like delicious sausage patties on a beautiful Saturday morning? These vegan breakfast sausage patties are perfect to share with the family. They have an incredibly meaty texture, they are generously spiced and reasonably hold together. If you’re familiar with my vegan meatloaf, burger, meatballs and Wellington recipes, then this should be a refresher to my famous vegan ground meat. However, we do introduce a special ingredient that makes this recipe taste like actual sausage patties as opposed to just ground meat.

Jump to Recipe

The Ground ‘Meat’

To get the perfect meaty texture, we need to balance a few key ingredients.

• Mushrooms: Packed with vitamin D, mushrooms have the perfect meaty texture. Unfortunately not all mushrooms are created equals. Some mushrooms have a more meaty texture than others. For example, shiitake mushrooms and oyster mushrooms are incredibly meaty and are best in vegan meat recipes. I usually get shiitake mushrooms at my local grocery store, but I usually only find oyster mushrooms from an asian grocery store. Now if you don’t have access to those, then the more popular ones (i.e. portobello, white, and cremini mushrooms) are fine as well. You can even get away by using a mushroom medley like I did in this recipe.
• Beans/Chickpeas: These are pure protein. Beans and chickpeas are perfect in vegan meat because they have this natural binding element to them. Beans are slightly mushier than chickpeas are when crushed. Both of them work well with this recipe; however, I usually prefer to use chickpeas in my vegan meat recipes because I can better control the consistency. When I use beans, I just make sure to add a bit more quinoa or bulgur.
• Quinoa/Bulgur: These are both considered superfoods. Bulgur is packed with fiber and quinoa includes all nine of the essential amino acids; so whichever one you choose to use, you’ll be reaping a lot of health benefits. When cooked, they have the perfect chewy texture and complement the other ingredients really well. Honestly, I don’t have a preference between the two, as I’ve used both and got excellent results.
• Nuts/Breadcrumbs: These are perfect to add that little crunch to the meat. Nuts are naturally more nutritionally dense than breadcrumbs are; however, if you have a nut allergy, then I recommend you opt for breadcrumbs instead. Both work well in the recipe, the difference is really just the nutritional value.

Why These are Vegan Sausage Patties and not Vegan Burger Patties?

What distinguish these vegan breakfast sausage patties from vegan burger patties is one key ingredient: Fennel seeds. These are the game changer. Fennel seeds are a spice from the fennel plant that originates from the Mediterranean. They have a sweet licorice flavor and are often used to season pork sausage. The fennel seed flavor is quite potent, so they are the leading spice in this recipe.

In a standard vegan burger patties recipe, the fennel seeds are replaced by spices like vegan Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke and even barbecue seasoning to evoke the beef flavor. In these sausage patties, these beef flavors are omitted.

Making the Vegan Breakfast Sausage Patties

First, we need to prepare the flax eggs. These behave like regular eggs and will help bind all of the ingredients together. To make the flax egg, mix the flax seeds and the water in a small container and let rest for a few minutes until it forms a gel consistency.

Add the mushrooms in the food processor, and give it a couple of pulses to crush them. Make sure not to puree them. Feel free to instead roughly chop them with a knife instead.

Place a skillet on medium heat, then add in the crushed mushrooms and sauté them for 3 to 5 minutes until the water evaporates completely. Once the water evaporates, add the olive oil, followed by the garlic, rosemary, thyme, sage, salt and pepper. Sauté everything for another minute or so just to activate the flavors, then set it aside.

To the food processor, add the chickpeas and pulse a few times to slightly puree.

To a mixing bowl, add the chickpeas, crushed walnuts, sautéed mushrooms, cooked bulgur, nutritional yeast, tomato paste, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, fennel seeds, almond milk, and flax eggs.

Mix everything to incorporate. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil and mixture rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Form patties as desired. I went for round patties of approximately 1/2 inch or lest thick. 

Place a skillet on medium heat, add the coconut oil. Once the oil heats up, add the patties. Cook the patties for 3 minutes on each side.

Our vegan Breakfast Sausage Patties are ready to serve. Have them plain, with some delicious roasted potatoes or with my oh-so-delicious scrambled tofu. Enjoy!

***The Mushroom Den earns a small commission if you make a purchase using any of the affiliate links listed on this post. We only suggest products we believe in, so hopefully you like them too.