I only have one reason for buying chicken burgers, and that is to attempt to recreate the KFC Zinger Tower Burger. I have made both vegan and vegetarian versions. The star ratings below heavily relate to how I judge them to work with in my quest to make the perfect vegetarian or vegan Zinger Tower Burger!
The VEGilanties: Z*nger - ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Now, these are moving closer to a KFC Zinger. The coating has a good spicy flavour and similar texture to the original. However, I haven't quite decided if I like the chicken part - I can see where they are going with the texture, but it seems to be closer to the brown meat part of a chicken rather than the breast meat. And the zinger should contain the white meat. Very similar to the Plant Menu option (below).
Plant Menu: Spicy No Chicken Burgers - ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
I found these to be very similar to the VEGilantes option above. The coating is probably slightly less spicy, but the inside seemed pretty similar. So instead of feeling like the white breast meat, it is more akin to the brown meat from other parts of the chicken. Which just like the one above, I'm not sure if that's what I want in a chicken burger. However, the shape and the coating feels quite Zinger-like and it works pretty well.
Quorn: Takeaway - Crunchy Fillet Burgers - ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
This is a fillet-shaped chicken-style piece with a breadcrumb coating. I'd say that this is easily Quorn's best offering for a chicken-style burger in a bun. They also seem to have improved their vegan recipe as the texture is soft and not at all dry like some of their other vegan options have been. The coating isn't spicy although it does have some flavouring to it. It worked really well in the burger.
VFC: Chick*n Fillets - ⭐⭐☆☆☆
These are clearly aimed at being a vegan KFC-style option. The name, the packaging etc...
The fillets themselves are hash brown-shaped, which I wasn't expecting. I thought they'd have more of a natural shape to them (like the chicken piece you get in the zinger burger). Anyway they have a southern fried cornflake coating which is fairly decent. The chicken part is white, quite chunky and has a softish chicken-like texture. I found it worked pretty well in the burger, but there is a strange flavour and aftertaste to these.
Update: I tried them a second time and decided that I really don't like the flavour of the chiken part. I've decided not to buy these again.
Quorn: Southern Fried Burgers - ⭐⭐⭐☆☆ (not vegan)
The Quorn chicken southern-fried burgers are sadly not vegan. They're also not perfect for the Zinger burger as the coating isn't spicy enough. The Quorn vegetarian chicken is pretty decent, however it's not vegan.
Quorn: Vegan Hot and Spicy Burger - ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
This offering also from Quorn has the advantage of being vegan, however Quorn tend to have problems with their vegan range in that it can be drier in texture than their vegetarian options. So even though the chicken part isn't quite as good as its vegetarian counterpart, the spicy coating and the fact that they are vegan brings them level on scoring.
Mae's Kitchen: No Chicken Burgers - ⭐⭐⭐☆☆
I found these in Aldi and they did the job, but were underwhelming. There wasn't really much in the way of flavour and the texture wasn't quite as good as the other options.
