Why are mushrooms so meaty? Here's what the science says.
Some plants and fungi naturally resemble meat. But scientists and entrepreneurs are going a step further to design an even meatier plant-based alternative.
Long before scientists figured out how to grow vegan burgers that bleed, cooks turned to plants and fungi to echo the bite of meat. Think jackfruit that shreds apart like pulled pork, braised lion’s mane mushroom with the chew of chicken, and eggplant charred whole with a molten, silky interior.
“It's funny how much research has been devoted to mimicking the flavors and textures of meat now,” says Desiree Nielsen, a plant-based dietitian and cookbook author. “What’s really interesting is that in plants, it’s not protein, but the fiber that does that.”
But why did nature give us meat-like plants in the first place—and what happens when we start designing even better ones?
The scientific structure of plants
Why some plants and fungi are meatier than others boils down to chemistry, structure, and how they’re processed. Much of what we think of as meatiness is thanks to texture—the bundles of fibers and connective tissue that give animal meat its chew.
“With jackfruit, the long fibrous structure lets you shred it like pulled pork or even chicken salad,” says Nielsen. “It’s a really convincing substitute.”
Similarly, mushrooms have cell walls made of chitin, the same tough fiber found in crab shells, that give them a resistance to the bite. Glutamates—umami-rich compounds abundant in mushrooms, seaweed, and tomatoes—create sensations of satisfaction and fullness. Add the Maillard reaction, the browning process that’s most associated with searing steak and produces savory, complex flavors, and plants and fungi can easily cross the sensory boundary into meat-like territory.
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There are supporting ingredients as well—ones that aren’t meaty on their own but help build the illusion. Allium vegetables like onions and garlic release sulfur compounds when cooked, which create a savory backbone. And dried spices such as cumin are rich in aldehydes, compounds that have fatty, tallowy notes, similar to roasted meat.
But home cooks, Nielsen says, can only take it so far. “We can serve a cauliflower steak, but that cauliflower doesn’t feel like meat.” And that’s why scientists and entrepreneurs are stepping in—using fungi, engineering, and fermentation to reimagine the rules.
Building texture with fungi
In a 2024 study, Skyler St. Pierre, a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering at Stanford, and their colleagues put plant-based sausages and hot dogs through compression, shear, and tension tests—the same ones engineers use on building materials. The results showed that ground and processed meats are relatively simple to mimic with plant-based alternatives.
“The real frontier now is figuring out whole cuts—steak, chicken breast—that really look and feel like muscles,” says St. Pierre. The study explains that “muscle is this vastly complex structure, and plants don’t come with that. Recreating it—the fibrosity, the fat pockets—is a huge challenge.”
Startups are turning to fungi for solutions. Kimberlie Le, founder of the plant-based deli meat company Prime Roots, looks to mycelium, the branching networks that grow underneath fungi, as a ready-made scaffold.
“When you tear it apart, it has that fibrosity,” she says. “We’re basically growing each one of those fibers, but obviously it’s not an animal.”
Ziliang Yang, founder of a mushroom jerky startup called Mourish, points out that mycelium doesn’t need heavy processing to resemble meat. “Mushroom itself, and also mycelium, have a very natural texture,” he says. “If you look at shiitake or lion’s mane, they already have a fibrous structure very similar to beef.”
Adding flavor, aroma, and protein to plant-based meats
Texture may make an ingredient feel meaty, but flavor and aroma are what keep people hooked.
Across cultures, fermentation has long been the trick that transforms plain ingredients into something deeper and more complex—take China’s pungent fermented tofu, Korea’s earthy doenjang, or India’s tangy dosa batters. Scientists are now running with that idea—sometimes in unexpected ways.
“We added onions to water and then fungi, and then after fermentation, you get this meaty-like smell,” says Felix Stöppelmann, a researcher at the University of Hohenheim. The process, he explains, tames the sharp bite of raw onion and transforms it into something more savory. Through fermentation, the fungi generate aroma compounds that make sulfur-rich vegetables like onions and garlic echo the flavor of cooked meat, specifically liver and sausage. Meat analog companies could then use this aromatic fermented broth as a flavor booster in plant-based patties, bringing them closer to the taste of real meat.
But flavor and aroma are only half the equation. Meat’s dominance has always rested on nutrition—especially protein. That’s where plants and fungi often fall short.
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“It’s not that mushrooms don’t have protein,” says Luiza Villela, founder of unClassic Foods and a former Beyond Meat developer. “It’s that we don’t grow them with that intent.” Her company cultivates mushrooms on protein-rich nutrient sources, yielding varieties with four times more protein than usual. It’s an attempt to make fungi not just pass as meat, but rival it.
For Kesha Strickland, founder of The Mushroom Meat Co., mushrooms don’t need to imitate meat—they can surpass it.
“If you could eat mushrooms and get the experience of beef, without the drawbacks of beef and with all the benefits of mushrooms, why would you not?” she asks. She points to fiber, immunity-boosting compounds, and the absence of cholesterol as proof that fungi can deliver more than mimicry.
Back to the kitchen
But for all the advances in labs and startups, Nielsen, the plant-based dietician, believes the bigger lesson is cultural: Meatiness is not just about chemistry—it holds a lot of meaning.
“Meat represents something indulgent, even masculine," she says. We associate meat with wealth and success.”
Those associations run deep, shaping what flavors we crave. And in a modern food culture built on supersized snacks and bold seasonings, subtlety rarely stands a chance.
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“Few people appreciate just a lovely steamed piece of broccoli,” she says. “We crave flavor and if we grew up on that, we're always going to want to mimic that.”
Plants and fungi may never perfectly substitute for meat, but they can be indulgent in their own right. That’s why we simmer lentils until they take on a hearty chew or caramelize onions until they’re sweet and savory. As it turns out, the pleasures we associate with meat—richness, umami, satisfaction—were never exclusive to animals to begin with.
